Lakeshore Advance, 2013-10-23, Page 22 Lakeshore Advance • Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Nashville -based firm wraps up months of
focus groups, surveys and one-on-one Interviews
Lynda Hillman-Rapley
Lakeshore Advance
Finding the commonality for Lambton
County was loud and clear as 1315 people
responded to a survey done by North Star
Destination Strategies. The beaches. Clear
and simple. This was something the people
who live here already knew- and now there is
proof.
Ed Barlow, VP and Director of Planning for
Northstar spoke with a small group of people
at the Grand Bend Legion Thursday at a pub-
lic open house. He mapped out what the sur-
vey takers thought of this county.
This Nashville -based group suggests the
general public may have a more negative
impression of their community compared to
what outsiders truly think of Sarnia -Lamb -
ton. It's not unusual," said Barlow, "Commu-
nities are often more critical on themselves
because they live here and they're facing the
day-to-day:'
Having said that, ninny outsiders had no
idea where Lambton County is.
Barlow explained to the forum this was a
look at how we see the community and how
visitors see it. It is research that brings the
www.desttravel.com
Ed Barlow
community to life. "What do
people say about you when
you are not around," he said.
Barlow presented a swath
of research on the public per-
ceptions of Sarnia-Lambton.
The months of focus groups,
surveys and one-on-one
interviews are part of a
$65,000 community branding
campaign to create a single
image for Sarnia -1 ambton.
Barlow says every commu-
nity has a reputation- not
many know though how to
use that reputation to their
benefit. He said this process
usually comes from the his-
tory of the community but
that "emotion and experi-
ence is not a logo and a line:'
The main goal is to bring
Lambton County together.
Chamber president Glen
Baillie said, "I was very pleas-
antly surprised at the posi-
tive possibilities that are
coming out of the branding
exercise. While we have
always known the lakefront
is the best thing going, it was
a relief to find that the rest of
Lambton County found it to
be the same. The residents
of Sarnia proper also found
the lakeshore to be the best
thing, so we can hope going
forward that the brand exer-
cise revolves around the
clean water we all enjoy for
our tourism and lifestyle
based lives,"
Baillie explained that once
a means is found to tie in the
industrial, chemical nature
of the Sarnia industrial front
Lynda Hillman -Ripley
with the pure, natural aspect
of life along the lake, "we will
have gone a long way to uni-
fying the idea of what this
area is about. Once that is
done, we can look forward to
marketing the area in a
meaningful way:'
Baillie stated that the
Grand Bend Chamber of
Commerce has a core group
of members who have mar-
keted themselves as lake -
shore based businesses for
years. "'They can look for-
ward to working with the
brand, as it is very likely to
follow along with what any
successful business has been
doing here for years:'
'Ihe next step for this proc-
ess is to move forward to the
creative steps.
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