It could be after the general municipal election on Oct. 24 that any movement is made on Flin Flon’s new place brand.
Mayor Cal Huntley spoke about the brand during the Sept. 11 meeting of council.
“I didn’t know what they were going to do that was anything different, and yet they did,” said Huntley.
It’s so simple, yet to a person, I can’t think of anybody that it didn’t just hit as, ‘You nailed it.’”
Huntley said the city is excited about the tools Travel Manitoba has given the community to market with the brand.
“We’ll be putting a group together to see what kind of strategy we need to put together to take advantage of it,” said Huntley.
“We’re going to talk about it before the election, and we may even manage to get one meeting in before the election, but most of the activity will take place after the election.”
Becky Cianflone, one of the brand ambassadors for Flin Flon attended a meeting between all 11 communities who participated in Travel Manitoba’s place branding program on Sept. 15.
“Travel Manitoba invited [the communities] to get together for a meeting to discuss what other communities are doing with their place brand, how it’s being used, and also talking about some of the legalities around trademarking and copyrighting,” said Cianflone.
One of the biggest takeaways for Cianflone was how place branding has created a conduit for conversations, collaboration and partnership between other communities.
“A lot of communities are working together. Morden and Winkler are known for not working together a whole lot, and now they’re sharing a place brand and are seeing a lot of interesting collaboration around that.”
Cianflone said once the general municipal election is over, there needs to be a conversation amongst Flin Flon and neighbouring communities about how to move forward with a tourism strategy.
“I think that the time is right for us to be having this conversation. Travel Manitoba is extremely supportive and the community should be really grateful for their efforts and belief in our community.”
