Prince Albert city councillors during Monday evening's executive meeting. (Alison Sandstrom/paNOW Staff)

By Alison Sandstrom

Marketing P.A.

Council pauses plan for positive storytelling campaign

Mar 23, 2021 | 8:00 AM

Prince Albert city council has voted down a proposal to hire a consultant to create a storytelling campaign for the city, although it appears the issue will be back on a future council agenda in the near future.

During recent 2021 budget deliberations, council allocated $50,000 towards a marketing campaign aimed at improving Prince Albert’s image and spurring economic development.

At Monday night’s executive committee meeting, the city’s communications manager Kiley Bear presented a draft of the requirements the city would ask the consultant hired for the project to fulfill. If approved by council, she said she would put the Request for Proposals (RFP) out for tender the following day.

The RFP divided the project into two parts, with the first being the creation of the strategy and the second being implementation. The consultant would be required to develop at least 200 topics to profile with a minimum of 156 posts over the course of a year.

Although the primary focus of the campaign would be social media, Bear explained her department also planned to create a microsite within the City’s website, “which will be used as a dedicated space to store and promote the positive stories.”

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Council ultimately voted 5-4 against putting the proposal out to tender. Eight out of nine members of council voted along the same lines as they did when the project was approved during budget deliberations, but Coun. Don Cody, who had previously been supportive, voted against the proposal.

Speaking to paNOW after the meeting Cody said he hadn’t changed his mind on the need for the campaign, he just didn’t like the approach being proposed by city administration and the amount of control it would give the communications department over the project.

“I think we should let a consultant do his or her work and let’s go from there, we can have a look at what the consultant brings and if we don’t like that, tell him to rework it,” he said. “But I think actually allow the council to have its say so that we are the drivers of this issue.”

He explained he plans to make a motion at a future meeting asking administration to rework the proposal for the marketing campaign and resubmit it to council for approval.

Several other councillors also voiced reservations with the communications department’s proposal during the meeting. Coun. Ted Zurakowksi, the original architect of the idea for the positive storytelling strategy, worried there wasn’t enough focus on economic development in the proposal or sufficient emphasis on hiring someone local. Like Cody, he saw the proposed requirements as limiting.

“Why are we restricting them,” he asked. “Why aren’t we using their expertise, in consultation with the communications department, to say ‘go make magic’”

Coun. Blake Edwards echoed many of Zurakowski’s points, adding he thought the proposed timelines for producing content were too strict. He also reiterated his support for the storytelling strategy more broadly.

“Social media is such a negative negative thing and this is why I support this motion,” he told council. “Positive messages about our city is just not what people in this city like to respond to. A good old negative story has 500 hits and a positive story gets next to nothing and I’m tired of seeing it.”

Meanwhile Coun. Head said he believed the $50,000 for the project could be better spent elsewhere.

“I too love this city and I think that people are going to come to this city because we have the services, not because a social media post is going to highlight it any better,” he said. “It’s because we have the proper services and we’re offering them to the community.”

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom