01 · Services
Think. Make. Do.
Three stages of one engagement, not three services you assemble yourself. The direction set in the first stage is the direction that ships in the third.
53.5461°N 113.4938°W · Edmonton AB
02 · The approach
The plan degrades at every handoff.
Most places end up managing three suppliers who have never spoken. A consultant writes the strategy. A studio designs the identity. An agency buys the media. Each does competent work, and the direction loses something in every transfer — until the campaign no longer argues what the strategy concluded, and nobody can point to where it went.
We hold all three. The same team that runs the research writes the positioning, designs the identity and books the media. Nothing is translated for a supplier who wasn't in the room.
It is also faster and cheaper than it sounds, because the expensive part of any place project is not the work — it's re-explaining the place to a new vendor every eight months.
Research, strategy and positioning. What the place stands for, who it's for, and what it will stop doing.
Identity, design and experience. The strategy translated into something a stranger can recognise.
Campaigns, media and partnerships. The point where the plan becomes visible on a street.
03 · Stage one
Think
Set the reference point.
Before anything is designed, the place needs one position everyone can measure against — including the people who will have to defend it at a public meeting.
An honest read of assets, gaps, perceptions and what the place already has that it isn't using.
Visitor, resident, business and stakeholder input — gathered properly, reported without softening.
Who else is competing for the same visitor, the same investor, the same weekend.
The single claim the place can defend, and the ones it should stop making.
The three things every partner says the same way, and the words that never appear again.
The version that survives a council chamber: evidence, cost, risk and what happens if nothing changes.
One direction, written plainly enough that a business owner, a board member and a funder each recognise their own stake in it.
[Adjust to your actual delivery. A stated range does more for a procurement conversation than "it depends."]
04 · Stage two
Make
Build what people actually see.
A place strategy that never becomes physical is a document. This is where it becomes a sign, a storefront decal, a website and a story someone can retell.
Naming, marks, type and colour, built to survive dozens of hands using them without supervision.
Gateway markers, district blades, banners and hoarding. Where a place brand becomes infrastructure.
Destination sites, visitor guides, event calendars and booking — built for the person planning a Saturday.
Documentary images of the real place, and written stories that hold up when someone else retells them.
Tours, trails and programming turned into product a visitor can find, book and repeat.
The version a volunteer, a BIA member and a printer can all use without calling us.
Assets, rules and templates that let a district look coherent when thirty different people are producing material at once.
[Adjust to your actual delivery.]
05 · Stage three
Do
Put it in front of people.
The stage most place strategies never reach, because the budget ran out at the guidelines. This is where the work either moves a number or doesn't.
Seasonal, launch and always-on campaigns built from the positioning rather than invented fresh each quarter.
Paid, earned and owned. Transit, out-of-home, print, search and social, bought and reported honestly.
Programming that builds a district's reputation instead of competing with itself for the same weekend.
Getting other organizations to carry your message because it also serves theirs.
Approvals, funding submissions and briefings. The room before the room.
What moved, what didn't, and what we'd stop doing — in language a board can act on.
A sequenced twelve months with owners, dates and budgets attached — and reporting that tells you when to change course.
[Adjust to your actual delivery.]
06 · Engagements
Four ways to start.
Not every place needs the full arc on day one. Most begin with one stage and add the others once the board has seen something work.
The full engagement, in six stages: destination audit, positioning strategy, brand framework, visitor experience, marketing roadmap and a twelve-month plan someone owns.
For places that need one direction everyone can agree on, and a case that will get funded.
One stage, one deliverable, one date. A district identity. A wayfinding system. A season's campaign. A visitor site.
For organizations that already know what they need and need it built properly.
Standing communications capacity — campaigns, content, media, stakeholder and event support across a year.
For BIAs and destination organizations without an internal marketing team, which is most of them.
Board-level counsel. A second read on a strategy, a funding submission, a contentious announcement or an agency you've already hired.
For organizations who have the capacity but want someone who has done it before in the room.
If you're not sure which applies, that's a normal place to start. Tell us the deadline and the decision, and we'll say which one fits — including if the answer is none of them.
07 · Start here
Let's set the reference point.
A short conversation about the place, the mandate and what has to get approved. We'll tell you which parts we'd run and which you already have covered.
53.5461°N 113.4938°W · Churchill Strategy · Edmonton AB