Rideau Lakes Investment Attraction Video, “The Rideau Lakes Advantage”
Purpose
Creating the Investment Attraction Video, “The Rideau Lakes Advantage” leverages the Township’s stunning outdoor spaces and dynamic businesspeople to reveal a powerful message; that work-life balance is a reality in Rideau Lakes. This placemaking video is to generate awareness of the potential in Rideau Lakes, and its specific advantages realized by the business community.
The Township’s Digital Marketing Strategy identified the need for a video
to inspire entrepreneurs that value quality of life and can choose to live anywhere. To resonate with the ideal audience, authentic sentiments of business leaders were filmed in recognizable locations.
Placemaking as a leading tool for Investment Attraction is a creative and unique approach that provides a competitive edge – the people, culture, and spaces that are specific to Rideau Lakes are paired with advantages to business. A sense of place was achieved by conveying the strong emotional connection between the people and the landscape in Rideau Lakes.
Anticipated outcomes included (1) development of an inspiring, place-specific promotional video to convey key advantages of operating a business in Rideau Lakes, (2) to increase awareness (in order to attract, retain and expand the business economy), and (3) to reach 100,000 people in the target audience.
The 2-minute video concluded with a unique URL, www.InvestRideauLakes.ca for easy access to additional research, featuring consistent branding and tailored messaging.
Effectiveness
A comprehensive plan outlining measures of effectiveness was implemented, and the goal to reach 100,000 people was surpassed with a total reach of 381, 272.
Challenges & Changes
The challenge in selecting eight business leaders from over 440 local operations was resolved by prioritizing criteria and consulting with businesses regarding availability. The original 30-second video changed to 2-minutes, within budget. Secondly, to lead with the video, advertising changed from Facebook to Google Ads.
Target
The audience defined as Businesses, Investors, Influencers, and Visitors was further characterized to match current growth opportunities. Investments in broadband informed the decision to target Entrepreneurs, Start-ups, Consultants, self-employed and remote workers that provide online services like “Marketing” or “Information Technology (IT)”.
Geographically, the video was tagged for searches on “Eastern Ontario” and “Southeastern Ontario.”
Demographics were defined as working age; 18 to 64 years and reached primarily females aged 55 to 64 using their mobile phones (69%).
Engaging people through their preferred media created a user-friendly experience.
Specific to the Award Category
The Video meets its mark and reinforces the Rideau Lakes brand, amplifies tourism themes and promotes visitation by highlighting recreation in conservation areas, land trusts, and Parks Canada properties. With 37 lakes and over 800kms of shoreline within the Frontenac Arch Biosphere, there is a strong culture of sustainability. Protection of land and the health of our waterways is a priority of residents.
Sustainability
In this video, the powerful correlation between people and their environment is curated to inspire people toward work-life balance and nature-full lifestyles.
Amplification through multiple channels set the capacity to influence change both locally and globally, and to invest in sustainable communities.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKnKU3yuwP8&t=3s
