A COOPERATIVE of Swan Valley-based businesses has raised $100,000 to develop an umbrella brand for the region with the aim of boosting the number of summer day-trippers from Perth.
Despite its popularity as a tourism destination, the Swan Valley attracts no regional tourism funding because of its proximity to Perth.
There was no funding allocation, therefore, for the creation of a brand for the region, according to City of Swan product development officer, tourism, Samantha Seymour-Eyles.
“If you are a region you get regional development commissions so they can fund things like this. We have the disadvantages of rural community but we are in a metro area,” Ms Seymour-Eyles said.
“But there really is no point moaning about it; what we needed to do was invest in tourism marketing.”
And so the City of Swan approached businesses and asked them to help fund the development of a brand.
They were successful in attracting between $250 and $5,000 from about 100 businesses, raising $100,000 to fund a press advertising blitz.
The city appointed Marketforce to develop a brand and subsequent advertising.
The result is “A world of surprises just minutes away”.
“Everyone knows the Swan Valley but people forget about it except when it comes to Spring in the Valley,” Ms Seymour-Eyles said.
“Eighty per cent of our market is in Perth, so we needed to talk to Perth to remind people that we really aren’t in woop woop.”
She said the brand would help to keep the Swan Valley top-of-mind and it was hoped the campaign would prompt people to consider visiting the Swan Valley instead of other regions.
“We want people to think they can come here for the weekend,” Ms Seymour-Eyles said.
“Why go down south? You can stay here the night and feel like you’re a million miles away.”
Marketforce group communi-cations director Gavin Bain said that, while the region had excellent event branding, it needed to adopt a brand to communicate all that the valley had to offer.
“When you think wine what region do you think of? It’s usually Margaret River,” he said.
“Their event-based marketing has been excellent and lots of people know about Spring in the Valley. You don’t have to encourage that part, but what they needed was to increase weekday and weekend traffic.
“People know the Swan Valley but most people only recognise the big wineries, like Houghton and Sandalford. But there’s some amazing restaurants that have an outlook as good as what you get in Margaret River, and there’s range of art and craft operators.”
Mr Bain said Marketforce had produced a range of press advertisements to showcase the region’s businesses.
“They’re quite clean and simple but they are large copy tactical ads where we can have an explanation of the category and mention, for example, all the caravan parks or bed and breakfasts in the area,” he said.
“We want to show people that you can have a Margaret River experience within a half an hour.”
Mr Bain said Marketforce also was developing brand templates for Swan Valley businesses to use in their own advertising campaigns.