A royal visit (and a bigger budget) may bring new audiences
On a hot Friday in August, just one month after taking up her new role as vice-president of marketing and external relations for the Calgary Exhibition & Stampede, Deanne Carson is at work at the eerily quiet Stampede headquarters – a virtual ghost town now that most employees have taken their much-needed vacations following the hectic 12-day event.
Carson’s desk has several business cards from get-acquainted meetings with key stakeholders, which have been so frequent that the only time she can fit our interview into her packed schedule is late in the afternoon. She appears comfortable in her new role, with two of the Stampede’s traditional Smithbilt cowboy hats sitting on a credenza behind her.
This comfort belies the Herculean task she is currently undertaking: preparing the marketing and advertising for the Stampede’s centennial celebration in 2012.
Every new job presents a learning curve, but Carson’s is almost vertical. She started work July 11 – the third day of the Stampede when the grounds were still rocking from Will and Kate’s – the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s – much publicized visit.
The choice to start the job mid-event was a deliberate one, says Carson. “If you are going to try and market to the world, then you had better get up to speed quickly.”
And that is exactly how Carson defines her biggest challenge in her new role: using the centennial to take the Stampede beyond its cowboy hat and bucking bronco image to attract new audiences worldwide.
“I question how far the brand actually reaches. Certainly, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and in the rodeo belt of the U.S., we are well known, but I believe there is an opportunity to reach further than that rodeo brand and to promote the broader Western culture and values the Stampede is built on.”
One of her biggest weapons in meeting that challenge will be the young royals’ visit. International media sent the image of Will and Kate in white cowboy hats around the world, and Carson plans to build on that image “in countries that have never heard of the Calgary Stampede.”
She will also benefit from a much fatter budget created to promote the centennial. In addition to $25 million from the provincial government to complete a major agricultural complex on the grounds, the Stampede is receiving both government and corporate money to put on a once-in-a-lifetime birthday bash.
Carson won’t stay exactly how big the budget is, but “it will be markedly more money than we have ever had to promote the Stampede in a single year. We will be going into markets and countries that are brand new to us.” She is working closely with the Canadian Tourism Commission to leverage the centennial beyond Calgary, and with a Travel Alberta staff member who has been seconded full-time to the Stampede to help promote the event.
The actual marketing campaign will be rolled out in October, and Carson won’t discuss specifics until then, but she is already working on the campaign with Calgary ad agency Karo.
Not only will she supervise the marketing, Carson is one of only two executives with “executive sponsor” status, making her accountable for the centennial celebration as a whole. That means the buck stops at her door.
A B.C. native, Carson holds an MBA from Royal Roads, and has two decades of experience in marketing and communications with organizations including Canada Mortgage and Housing, Telus and, most recently, as director of environmental services for TransAlta Utilities in Calgary.
When the Stampede approached her with the job offer after her predecessor Laurie Schild moved to the Calgary Co-op grocery chain, she quickly accepted. “It offered the kind of things I love to do; taking a brand and marketing it for additional growth and revenue.”
But she acknowledges it will be a steep learning curve, especially moving from the corporate world to the not-for-profit operation of the Stampede where she works with thousands of volunteers whose “passion” leaves her “awestruck”.
Carson says that, by the end of her first year, she will consider herself successful if she was “able to attract people from markets who had never come here before. I would like to be able to say that these people remember the Stampede and what it stands for.”
Photo credits from top to bottom: Bill Marsh, Norma Ramage, Calgary Stampede
