Summerside Economic development
Known as the "Green Province", PEI has established itself as the North American leader in renewable energy and Summerside stands behind it. With the availability of wind and solar energy, Summerside is well-positioned to be bold in its quest to become energy-independent as quickly as possible.
Challenge
Summerside has become one of the world's hubs of cleantech innovation. Businesses using Summerside PEI as their launch pad into North America can connect to a well-established support network with municipal infrastructure and their own utility. The municipal government engaged Art Fresh to help create an effective marketing strategy with a strong value proposition, branding and marketing communications to attract innovative cleantech companies and entrepreneurs from around the world for collaboration. The key benefits for the target business audience that we must promote on online platforms, marketing materials, presentations, and events are the provision of government support, competitive incentives and the offer of a place in a world-class eco-business park as well as being part of the island’s unique “Living Lab” initiative: a real-life test and experimentation environment where users and producers co-create innovations.
Idea
To create a strong value proposition for Summerside to effectively engage innovative companies in the cleantech field seeking growth opportunities in the North American market, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the goals, desires and triggers of the target business audience that will motivate them to move their operations to Summerside. Instead of directly promoting the incentives and business programs that Summerside offers, we looked from the perspective of the target business audience to get a crystal clear understanding of their deepest desires, fears, goals, concerns and doubts. Based on this vision, we built marketing communication with target groups using hard numbers, proofs, and business cases to create an irresistible offer.
Results
The series of campaigns and presentations we created, along with marketing collateral, consistent visuals, slogans, videos, and publications, helped develop compelling communications with local and international business audiences and investors at the UK Cleantech Conference (2022), Mayor’s Speaking Tour at the International Rotary Clubs (Toronto), NEG-ECP Conference (P.E.I.), Rotary Conference 2018 (Toronto), Summerside Storage Batteries Launch (P.E.I.), Samsung Solar Energy Project (P.E.I.), etc. to build the Summerside brand and present great opportunities. One of the campaigns was about launching a utility-scale solar and battery power generation project in partnership with Samsung Renewable Energy to change the way utilities do business. Summerside PEI is revolutionizing how electricity is delivered and consumed by utilities and communities, creating an energy system that puts environmental, economic and social needs first. We have created key messages and memorable visuals to use in the presentation along with the content to demonstrate Summerside's commitment to integrating innovative solutions into the community for the benefit of stakeholders worldwide. The marketing communication has resulted in attracting new innovative businesses from South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia to Summerside.