An Alberta town’s quest | Rebranding efforts boosts tourism, promotes fitness, say locals
A plan to brand Devon as Bike Town Alberta took off faster than an out-of-control mountain bike racer.
It can take years of round table discussions, public consultations, surveys and plenty of money to create a brand, but it took this small town on the outskirts of Edmonton only 18 months to claim the name, build a mountain bike skills course and create a pedestrian and pedal friendly community.
Branding a town isn’t for the faint of heart, Devon’s Janet Guthrie and Michelle Levasseur told a Growing Rural Tourism conference in Camrose.
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When the pair was hired as economic and tourism development co-ordinators, they were told to make Devon grow and attract people.
The town had already made three previous attempts to brand the community and make it stand out from other prairie towns: The River of Gold brand was a nod to the nearby North Saskatchewan River Valley, the Botanic Gardens was a connection to the nearby Devonian Botanical Gardens and a third brand was an oil and river combination no one really understood.
All three brands failed to take hold.But then six members of the community attended a workshop on branding and had epiphany to create Bike Town.
It seemed like a natural fit. The town already had 24 kilometres of paved and groomed bike trails, cyclists and national biking competitions.
Bike Town quickly had the support of town council and the mayor. A leadership team was created to help move the branding program forward.
“Branding by consensus really doesn’t work,” said Levasseur.
Not having consultation raised the ire of a group of protesters who Levasseur and Guthrie called cavers: citizens against virtually everything.
The protesters wrote letters to the editor, started a petition against the Bike Town brand, developed an anti Bike Town Facebook page and drained the enthusiasm of organizers.
What the town didn’t count on was the enthusiasm of a group of junior high school boys. If Devon was going to be Bike Town, the students wanted a one-acre mountain bike skills park. In turn, the town challenged the students to help raise money to build the park. The students went one step further and nominated the project for the Kraft Celebration Tour to win $25,000 and host a live broadcast of TSN SportCentre.
“The kids worked their butts off to win the campaign,” said Guthrie.
The teenagers did much of the volunteer work to build the skills park, she added. “Momentum had a whole new meaning.”
A Bike Town twitter account caught fire in the cycling community. A cycling association was formed, cycling events planned, new businesses catering to cyclists opened and signs and trail marking projects started.
Guthrie said the key to keeping the momentum going was a group of enthusiastic residents who believed in the project, especially when the town started to splinter with the anti-Bike Town protests.
“The last six months have been mentally and emotionally exhausting,” said Guthrie.
