LARRY'S CORNER- Hamilton's Former Mayor Speaks

Branding the City of Hamilton

By Larry Di Ianni
(posted August 21, 2008)

In 2000, when we amalgamated as a city, 15 Councillors and the inaugural Mayor of the ‘new’ City sat for the first time at a meeting in Ancaster to get to know each other, and to learn about our challenges as a newly formed community.

We were all eager to do the very best we could with the new structure. Under the leadership of Mayor Bob Wade, who surprised the pollsters by beating Hamilton’s longest serving, hard-working mayor, Bob Morrow, we tentatively met and pledged our talents, work and best interests in the pursuit of creating a healthy, harmonious community.

Below the surface, the skepticism that the new city could work well was certainly present, but it was being masked by the politeness of a new group coming together in the forming stage of its existence. Having studied organizational development, I was ready for this stage. I was more anxious, however, to get to the next stages of development; namely, storming, norming and especially performing. As a politician, the performing part of your job is what you will be judged on, and I along with my colleagues was ready to do just that.

The hard-driving city manager of the day, Mr. Doug Lychak, wasted no time in acquainting Council with an exhaustive list of challenges we needed to face. Some were challenges of governance, others of infrastructure backlogs, still others of financial resources. Over-riding each of the considerable tasks represented by the challenges was one of trying to create the new city. Hamilton had a rich and proud history. So did Dundas, Stoney Creek, and Ancaster. Less so were the ‘newer’ communities of Glanbrook and Flamborough, but each of these also had their pride and history. The question we wrestled with was trying to define the ‘new’ city. What did we want people to think of when they thought of Hamilton? A new city demanded a new brand!

We tried slogans: “ Hamilton: a city of many communities”. We tried jingles: “Rise, Shine and Dream”. We even created a communications department with a ‘branding’ guru on staff. He was to help us re-define our community.

And that is when the trouble started. Petty jealousies, some said; bureaucratic overload, others insisted; Transition Board insensitivity lamented a few, whatever the causes, we saw all the pledges of harmoniously working together systematically fall by the wayside.

The communications department was dismantled; the jingles collected dust; the branding guru was dispatched to other pastures. About the only thing that survives is the slogan about ‘many communities’ on some road signs.

And the re-branding? It too was placed on the back-burner. Eventually, the ‘new’ logo on all stationery and vehicles disappeared and the novel amalgamated city, because of its problems, began to feel just like the old one that couldn’t get its act together.

So, when you think of Hamilton now, what do you think of? Well, it probably depends on where you live. If you live in Flamborough, Hamilton might signify a tax-grabbing entity; if you live in the inner city; you might see Hamilton as always catering to the suburbs. And so on! There isn’t one image that captures all of our imaginations and makes us proud to be residents of this city. And yet there is so much to be proud of.

This is where the intrepid, philanthropic Chris Ecklund, the host of my weekly blog, comes in. You see, Chris is, if nothing else, very, very proud of his city. He wants it to be the best it can be. He has pledged money and resources, unselfishly, towards that end. His latest project is to ‘brand’ Hamilton such as it has never been branded before. And how did he get this idea?

He discovered our waterfalls, the many, beautiful and varied waterfalls all over our community. When I first became a Councillor, I happened to see a great poster extolling the beauty of our waterfalls. I even bought a book on the subject.  I determined, as time permitted, that I would visit as many waterfalls as were listed in the book. I did pretty well at this labour of love, visiting quite a few, year round.

Chris Ecklund admits that he came late to his love for our waterfalls; like most people he had no idea they even existed.  He started to ask questions and quickly learned that not only do we have many waterfalls, we in fact have more waterfalls than any other City in the World!

Chris who owns a marketing and advertising company quickly saw the enormous potential for us to be branded as the “Waterfall Capitol of The World”.

Now, there is an image that will turn the Hamilton paradigm on its head. We can be proud of our steel history and our museums. We can love our Royal Botanical Gardens or the Battle of Stoney Creek. We can enjoy Ancaster’s Heritage Days and Glanbrook’s Fall Fair and Dundas’ Cactus Festival and Rockton’s World’s Fair, but if we can succeed in branding ourselves as “The Waterfall Capitol of The World”, we would accomplish a true image turnaround.

Why do this? Chris says it best in his blog: “We need to Brand our City.Not a new tagline, not a statement that no one believes, not a flashy advertising campaign, not a slick new brochure.We need to Brand our City. Branding is different.It defines  who and what we are. It instills emotion; it makes us proud to call Hamilton Home.”


And Chris, as is his nature, has put some resources behind his idea. He has created a huge website which embodies several elements including the wildly successful social network on Face book.

His Face book membership alone has already gained over 3,000 members world-wide in just 3 months!

He is sponsoring a photo contest with a top prize of $1,000.00 for the best waterfall picture, for the first official t-shirt, and he has just bought a waterproof camcorder to record the falls up close and personal.

Did I say he loves his community? Maybe that’s an understatement.

Some might say that Chris has ulterior political motives. Others say that he likes to be in the limelight. I say bunk to that. Chris clearly puts his money where his mouth is. I know that some Councillors are looking at his venture with interest. All of Council should rethink the branding exercise. Maybe if they get behind Chris’ efforts, it will make up for missing the boat on the exercise about eight years ago. “Better late than never” isn’t a great branding motto, but it sure applies to this effort.

Good luck, Chris!

BACK TO LARRY'S CORNER

HOME