Insight into how public realm changes may affect Gastown business members, workers, residents, and visitors.
211 online feedback submissions
The Gastown Business Improvement Society (GBIS) asked Cause+Affect to develop a community engagement brand and campaign that would increase awareness and participation in an Urban Design Study (by Ph5 Architecture) to further understand potential opportunities to make positive, functional, social, economic, and cultural changes to the neighbourhood.
#GastownTomorrow
We created the campaign name and developed a branded community engagement platform for the GBIS to deepen its relationship with its members and broader community, helping shape the decisions and design that affect the places they live and work.
Community ambassadors
The strategy we proposed focused on the curation of Gastown creatives to participate as campaign ambassadors by sharing their own visions of the neighbourhood through sketches and stories. These compelling visions were the catalysts behind the successful community engagement totaling the following:
- Total reach: 266,568
- Comments received/shared: 434 (+19.56%)
- New ideas shared in comments: 211
- Website: Pageviews: 1,372, New users: 681
- 196 QR code scans
- 81 people took 30 minutes to complete the survey
- 23 media hits were negotiated and secured across print, digital, and radio
Customizing community amenities
In addition to digital engagement, we worked with local businesses and customized public spaces with branded treatments to further create awareness of the opportunities for public input on the future of a much-loved community.
Custom branded illustrations
For a campaign launched in the month of April, the fresh and optimistic colour palette aligned with the feeling in the air while the custom crow illustrations brought personality and authentic charm to a neighbourhood that prides itself on uniqueness and quality design.
The #GastownTomorrow campaign was so successful that the GBIS decided to integrate the brand within their ongoing efforts to connect with the community on public realm and design-related topics, with the potential of mounting a Gastown Tomorrow community forum for ongoing dialogue.
With experience in community building and brand expertise, as well as a history of facilitating Gastown’s neighbourhood vision, we engaged Cause+Affect to develop a community engagement campaign to increase awareness of a recent urban design study. From campaign design to a members-driven strategy, the finished product injected the exact right tone and visual flavour to garner attention, support and participation with our neighbourhood businesses and public stakeholders.
Wally Wargolet, Executive Director
