The story of building a brand
- Written by
- Erin Harrison
The challenging thing about a brand is that you can never know if it will capture your audience the way you want it to.
So when Destination Great Lake Taupō (DGLT) were gearing up for a fresh look and new name a few years back, the team knew it had to be just right.
“We had decided it was time to reach different customers,” recalls Anna McLaren, marketing and communications manager at DGLT.
“But there were certainly a few pain points to overcome. One was to try and capture that we were more than just a lake, as it was doing the whole region an injustice.”
And as luck would have it, serendipity came knocking.
Originally from New Plymouth, Anna fondly remembered the large WOMAD letters and the DGLT team organised the now infamous #LOVETAUPO to be showcased at the 2017 Wanderlust Festival at Wairakei Resort – with the potential to move around as the town hosted different events.
After Wanderlust, they were installed at the lakefront for ‘the time being’.
But as The HUB team watched from their office, across from the letters, they couldn’t believe the level of interaction with the sign. It soon started popping up across social media, and when it was taken down, plenty of people got in touch to ask ‘when will they go back up?’.
A marketer’s dream
While all this was happening, in the background the DGLT team were furiously working away at the beginnings of a strategy.
“What we found when we started to work through that assessment phase and do our research, was that this one new catch phrase resonated on a whole other level with locals and visitors. I don’t think when we came up with the idea that we really thought it would become a brand,” says Anna.
But a brand it did become. A catchphrase. A conversation between locals and visitors. The new tagline for selling Taupō to the world. But for Anna, the most exciting thing was that people were voluntarily sharing their own stories and personal journeys about the region. That they ‘#loveTaupo’ too.
And when you have a budget that is a drop in the ocean compared to your closest neighbour – who also happens to have the biggest tourism market in New Zealand – this type of promotion is priceless.
A refurb and a relocation
Recently the letters had to be sent away for restoration, as they were literally worn out from use. And when they came back, they had a new home – still in front of the lake, but further down the road.
“It was important to maintain the connection with the town, and of course retain that incredible backdrop of the lake and mountains,” says Anna.
And there’s no doubt visitors and locals alike love everything to do with the letters. So far it has amassed 26,000 ‘tags’ on Instagram alone (not including private accounts or across other media channels), with it only expected to far exceed that number as the brand continues to gain momentum. A win for our special corner of the world? We think so.