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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2014 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
MUSIC LOVERS Bobby Garcia and Six More Strings crooned some classic country tunes on Valentine’s Day to about 40 people. Some country lovers even hit the dance floor at the Desert Inn during the show. Emily Wessel/Herald
Merritt’s got a brand new tourism direction By Emily Wessel THE HERALD
newsroom@merrittherald.com
Merritt has a brand new tagline. “Country with attitude” was adopted by city council at its regular meeting last Tuesday. “The whole concept came up that Merritt is more than country music, but it’s a country living attitude,” City of Merritt economic development manager Jerry Sucharyna told council. “When you take a look at some of the new people who have migrated to Merritt, they come for that quality of life, they come for the tranquillity and being able to do all of these things in
their backyard, whether it’s mountain biking, hiking or fishing.” The brand direction was devised by the Thompson-Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA), which partnered with the City of Merritt to develop a new brand for the city. The process included workshops with stakeholders, a task force, and public online surveys. The brand will replace the Country Music Capital of Canada slogan. It will be featured on city signs, letterheads, business cards and city vehicles. “It’ll be a total immersion in it,” Sucharyna said. Sucharyna said the city will
replace signs with the old slogans “Flourishing under the sun” and “Country Music Capital of Canada” with the new brand. “We’ll make a change so that instead of being fragmented in different areas of the city or in different publications, we’ll have continuity,” he said. Sucharyna said the city would “hit the ground running” with the new brand direction immediately after council adopted it. However, it wasn’t adopted without some discussion, and the condition that implementation of the brand include an open house for people who weren’t involved
in the process to learn more about the branding and give their feedback. Councillors Dave Baker and Kurt Christopherson said they were hesitant to go forward without getting public input first. “I think it would take very little time to find out from the community whether they like it or not,” Christopherson said. “Merritt is usually pretty outspoken in its likes and dislikes. I just don’t want to go down that road where we adopt something that the community doesn’t feel like they’ve had a buyin. I know there was a task force, but a task force doesn’t speak for
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everybody.” “I would hate for us to spend a lot of money and time — Jerry’s already spent a lot of time on this — and have it come back and blow up in our face,” Baker said. Who had a say in the development of the brand and how Merritt residents might react to it were two of the main topics of questions from councillors. Sucharyna noted the consultation process was one of his challenges as he began working for the City of Merritt well after the process got underway in 2012.