A decision by the City of Calgary to award a contract for creating its new brand to a California firm has several local agency execs scratching their heads.
Phase three of a project to replace the current “Heart of the New West” visual identity (introduced in 2000) was awarded to the Los Angles-based branding arm of San Francisco architectural firm Gensler.
Chris Bedford, CEO of Karo, the only local agency to make the three-name short list (the third was an unnamed Toronto agency), said he was surprised that more consideration wasn’t given to local agencies. “In this business you win some and lose some, but the message that Calgary Economic Development is sending out says that it doesn’t believe there is sufficient creative talent in Calgary to do this work.”
Joe Hospodarec, executive creative director of Wax, which also responded to the initial RFP, was similarly unimpressed. “I think Karo would have done a great job. There are lots of internationally regarded agencies in this city that could have done the work. The mandate of the CED is to support Calgary business, but it doesn’t seem that includes advertising agencies.”
However, Steve Williams chief creative officer of Venture, was not as offended by the decision. “I think this falls into the tempest in a teapot category. People go with who they think is best,” he said. “We have certainly competed and won on international projects.”
Lance Carlson, CEO of the Alberta College of Art and Design, and chair of the sub-committee which selected Gensler, said the committee was unanimous it its decision that the California firm was best for the job.
“Gensler hit it out of the ballpark with its response to the RFP questions. What was key to us was their response as to how they would work with our community on what will be a high profile and possibly controversial project. In the end, we looked at the quality of the successful firm, not its location.”
Carlson said the rebranding is just one part of a 10-year economic development strategy for the city announced earlier this year. Phases one and two of the rebranding project involved a strategic assessment of the existing brand and parameters for a future one. The assessment was undertaken by Toronto’s Cundari.
Phase three, which was awarded to Gensler earlier this year was to further define the brand and create a visual identity.
However, Bedford said his agency did not have access to the results of that assessment, so “it wasn’t clear what the committee was trying to accomplish. Heart of the New West is a logo, not a strategy or even a brand. It wasn’t clear whether they wanted an integrated brand strategy or just another logo, so we went into it with a lot of questions and because of that we didn’t really expect to win.”
