The City of Elliot Lake has won a national marketing award in the under $200,000 budget category at the Economic Developers Association of Canada's (EDCO) annual conference in Vancouver, Sept. 24.
The former uranium mining town, which has blossomed into a thriving retirement and cottage living community, was recognized for a series of print ads for the city's image renewal campaign. In recent years, the city has wanted to cast a wider net by attracting cottagers with their lakeside lot developments, as well as snowmobile and ATV tourists.
“We wanted to get the message out that we're family friendly and we wanted to use more youthful images,” said Daniel Gagnon, the city's economic development director.
The campaign's objective was to present Elliot Lake as a full-service city with a top-notch quality of life for all ages. The target audience was families and financially stable adults with outdoor pursuits. Vacation travel close to home was also a consideration. The city enlisted Lucidia Ltd, a Sault Ste. Marie advertising agency, to help them come up with a new versatile logo and ad campaign.
Two other Northern Ontario municipalities also came home with national marketing awards.
Tourism Thunder Bay grabbed two awards including one for a campaign called Seven Days With the Giant, a postcard teaser intended to attract outdoor adventure seeks to the area. The second award went for their monthly tourism e-newsletter on upcoming events and hotel packages.
The Dryden Development Corporation was recognized with the award of Best of Category for its Dryden Tourism Development and Marketing Strategy.
The strategy lays out ways to promote the area by creating new tourism products with development of their waterfront, sports and convention tourism, business travel, arts and culture, trails and water routes, and guided area tours.
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