Gair Maxwell, a branding expert, talks with Marc Haine about how small towns can stand out. Instead of copying generic "live, work, play" messaging, towns need to audit their language and decide who they are not. Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan turned itself into "Canada's Most Notorious City" by doing exactly that.
Hi, it's Marc Haine here from Edmonton, Alberta. I ran into somebody this week that I had to introduce to you for a very specific reason. As an economic development person, I understand the struggles that we have in communities trying to get people to turn off our streetlights. We have a heck of a time trying to differentiate ourselves, trying to make our community stand out among all the other communities within our province. So I'm lucky enough to have with me the incomparable Gare Maxwell. Gare is a phenomenal steward of how to build brands and marketing messages that resonate. Gare, give us a little bit of a background of what you've been up to these last few days.
Well, and I think— thank you for the kind words, Marc, and I'm so delighted we bumped into each other here on this trip to Edmonton. But fundamentally, the forthcoming book that I'm working on, it's called Big Little Legends, and it explores the issue of how everyday leaders, people just like you watching, how do everyday leaders build irresistible brands? And the whole thing we're focusing on is basically how do you make business just come to you magnetically, organically, no different than some of the best brands in the world. But where Marc and I have this shared fascination is how this can actually work for municipalities. Because last time I checked, what are municipalities interested in when it comes to brand? They want the brand to be able to attract what? Outside investment.
Right.
And more tourism.
And new residents and businesses.
Exactly.
Lots of businesses.
Exactly. Yeah.
So tell me, if you look on a typical webpage, the big cliché we're seeing is the best place to work, live, and play.
In fact, that is the typical category language. When we're working with companies, corporations, small to medium-sized businesses, everyone speaks their own version of category languages— category language. So municipalities are no different. Municipalities speak the language of great place to live, work, and play. It's all sunshine. unicorn, rainbows, and lollipops. Here in Western Canada, for example, if you wanted to study those homepages of websites, which are nothing more and nothing less than a reflection of your overall brand strategy, what you will see is basically the same messages. It doesn't matter whether you're in Medicine Hat, Lethbridge. Doesn't matter whether it's Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. Doesn't matter whether it's Brandon, Manitoba, North Battleford, Saskatchewan. Guess what everyone is? A great place to live, work, and play. However, the greatest brands in the world have always figured out, always figured out, if everybody zigs, you could—
Zag. We need to zag.
In fact, I would argue unless there is a zag and a significant zag, there is no brand strategy. There's no— because there's nothing that would compel people, as you said, Marc, to pull over. Why am I going to head into that town?
Right.
I've got lots of other towns to go to to spend my money. Restaurants, hotels, entertainment. I got lots of other towns where I can go, towns and cities to set up my business or, you know, move my company to.
And I think it's fair to say that if you can get somebody to pull off the highway into your town, all sorts of opportunities arise.
Oh, and then it multiplies. And you know from your economic development background, sometimes these things can be multipliers, and then it multiplies many times over. And that really, to me, is all part and parcel of a significant zag.
Right.
Which is what, for example, if you look at big cities, okay, that have actually done this— and that's one thing I do in my work— well, who's already done this? Well, how about the city of Las Vegas? Did they do it?
They absolutely did it.
They did it. And they were no place in the desert.
Right.
Right. And from nothing in the desert, this oasis emerges. And to make the brand even more effective, they land, they capture it. The whole spirit of Vegas is captured in an unforgettable phrase because What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
And everybody knows this. Now, one of the things— so you mentioned something about checking other websites, right? And so part of the challenge that I have for the people watching is if you're part of a municipality, check other websites and see if you're sharing the same language.
Yeah.
If you were to give the people watching one major hint, what is the big step they could take today to start instigating change?
Well, other than studying websites and and actually taking inventory of category language, what are the similar words and phrases that everybody's using, the next step is to make a big decision. Decide who you're not going to be.
Hmm.
Now that sounds astonishingly simple and maybe even a little ambiguous, but it's not. You've got to actually decide we're not going to be like everybody else. That's a big decision. That's an executive decision.
And everybody else is digging.
That's a leadership decision. This is not marketing or branding anymore. This is now leadership where you decide what you're not going to be. When you decide what you're not going to be, only now are you opening the door to the possibilities of what you could become, what you could discover, what you could— it will take a little bit of exploration. And as you know, Marc, you know the story. One of the greatest stories that's happening in Canada right now in terms of small towns, small city municipal branding is what happened in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
Exactly.
You know, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan was like everybody else. Friendly, right? Like, they were like everybody else. And when we got invited to help the city of Moose Jaw, we discovered, oh my goodness, they've got this sordid and very sketchy past that Apparently Al Capone used to go hide out in Moose Jaw, and the city's, you know, most famous watering hole is named after the most notorious prostitute. I mean, there's things from Moose Jaw's past that quite frankly would be very out of step.
It sounds like they might have a notorious past.
Well, and that's the point, is that when we got the civic leaders and the business leaders in Moose Jaw together for what we call this, this boot camp to figure this out. Because the trick, the secret, figure out who are you beyond what everybody else does. And so that's how Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan wound up becoming known now and known forever as Canada's Most Notorious City.
Right.
Which of course dovetailed perfectly with that whole standoff with Norway and, and over who had the biggest moose statue. But because Mayor Fraser Tolmie had, you know, he drew the line in the snow. There's no way that the Norwegians are going to have a bigger moose statue than us because we are Canada's most notorious city. We're not the namby-pamby city. We're not, you know, the nice and friendly. No, we're the most notorious city.
So a couple of things I took away from that is first and foremost, you've got a flight to catch, so we're going to make this quick. Sure. You Had to hold a boot camp with the city of Moose Jaw. You got together and you peeled back what that means to them.
Right. So we have this whole discovery process, this— we call it a story extraction process. Excellent. And we involve people, real people, so that we get to the heart of figuring out who are they. With companies, it's about who are you beyond the products and services. Right. With municipalities, it's got to be something that is core core and unique to who you already are because you can't make it up.
Excellent. Gair, thank you so much for taking time to get— how do the people out there get to find you if they need your services?
Thank you so much, but I'm really easy to find. It's gairmaxwell.com. G-A-I-R. You're on the air with Gair. Used to have hair. I like to tell people I'm the easiest guy to find on the internet. Just Google Gair Maxwell. I come up. And yeah, feel free to reach out. And Marc, I so appreciate you because this is a guy that really cares about economic development. We've had many conversations, and Marc, what he does in his business as well always comes from the heart. So I really appreciate this.
Thank you so much for taking time. Okay, he's got to get and find a flight. He's flying out really, really quick. So thank you for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure. I hope you got some things out of this. And again, if you need to get a hold of Gare, it's garemaxwell.com. And if you need to find me, you can find me at marc@marchaine.com. Talk to you soon.
