Table of Contents

Customer Segmentation...............................................................................................................1

Wealthy Young Philanthropists............................................................................................2

Energetic Young Families....................................................................................................3

Almost Empty-Nesters.........................................................................................................4

Product Strategy...........................................................................................................................5

Pricing..........................................................................................................................................8

Place.............................................................................................................................................10

Promotion.....................................................................................................................................12

Target Audience...................................................................................................................12

Communication Objectives..................................................................................................12

Communication Strategy......................................................................................................13

Communication Tactics........................................................................................................13

Communications Mix...........................................................................................................14

Creative Execution...............................................................................................................15

References....................................................................................................................................18

Appendix A – Customer Segmentation (First Draft)...................................................................20

Appendix B – Past Marketing Communication...........................................................................21

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List of Figures

Figure 1 – Wealthy Young Philanthropists..................................................................................2

Figure 2 – Energetic Young Families..........................................................................................3

Figure 3 – Almost Empty-Nesters...............................................................................................4

Figure 4 – Past Marketing Communication.................................................................................

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Customer Segmentation:

Wildwood is a community located in the Southwest quadrant of Calgary, and is a pilot

community as part of the City of Calgary’s Inspiring Strong Neighbourhoods (ISR) initiative. As

the focus of this initiative is to better align the services provided by the city with its citizens,

market segments need to be identified describing the lifestyle of various individuals in this

community and their likely usage of these services. In order to properly identify these market

segments, research needed to be carried out regarding dominant demographic, psychographic

and behavioral variables associated with residents of this community.

Preliminary research about this community indicated that it is a small and quiet

community, where its residents spend much of their time outside interacting with one another

(Semko 2011). The majority of its residents are university educated individuals who own their

own homes, and represent high-income earning households with children of several different

ages (City of Calgary 2012). Several activities offered by the Wildwood Community Association

are targeted towards younger children, while some are targeted towards adults as well but the

majority of these activities require community volunteers to be organized and provided

(Wildwood Community Association 2012). Based on these findings, the residents of this

community closely resemble the Environics PRIZM (2011) segments “Urbane Villagers”, “Money

& Brains” and “Winner’s Circle”.

The following market segments for the community of Wildwood were created based on

the information described above:

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Wealthy Young Philanthropists:

Figure 1 below depicts what members of these households might look like:

Geographic: Located in the community of

Wildwood, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Demographic: Young (late twenties to early thirties),

married without children, university educated, high-

income earning, white collar occupations.

Psychographic: Based on the Environics PRIZM (2011) segment “Urbane Villagers”, these

households are somewhat involved in their communities and have a highly cultured mindset.

They are just past the beginning stages of their careers, taking on more responsibility and this

consumes much of their lives. Because of this, they enjoy more relaxing recreational activities, a

mix of indoor and outdoor. Despite their busy lifestyle, they still make an effort to build

relationships with other families in the community. Safety and respect for the community as a

whole are both important issues for these households. While having children is not a priority for

these households in the near future, they have no issue contributing their time to help organize

activities in the community for all ages whenever they have time available to do so.

Behavioral: Their usage will be less frequent, usually only occurring one day a week. This one

day will usually involve them engaging in several activities however, some that allow them to

relieve stress while others will allow them to get to know others and stay up to date with recent

concerns and events in the community.

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Figure 1: Wealthy Young Philanthropists

Source: www.centralwesleyan.org. Reprinted with permission.

Energetic Young Families:

Figure 2 below depicts what members of these households might look like:

Geographic: Located in the community of

Wildwood, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Demographic: Middle-aged (mid-thirties to

early forties), married with young children,

university educated, high-income earning,

mix of white collar and trade occupations.

Psychographic: Based on the Environics PRIZM (2011) segment “Winner’s Circle”, these

wealthy families enjoy partaking in activities with their young children but mostly outdoors. The

parents are very career oriented and their children are often actively involved in sports year-

round. They are not considered philanthropists, but enjoy spending time with each other and

others in the community, so they are willing to volunteer their time for services and activities

provided in the community. Money is not a primary concern for these families, however they try

not to spend exorbitant amounts of money so they try to avoid expensive leisurely activities.

They enjoy activities that promote physical health and encourage time spent outdoors. These are

social and outgoing families, and their reputation/presence in the community is important to

them.

Behavioral: Their usage of services provided by the city would consist primarily of outdoor

recreational activities, allowing them to remain active and provide opportunity to interact with

others in the community. The services would be used primarily on weekends, occasionally

weeknights, due to their busy lifestyle.

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Figure 2: Energetic Young Families.

Source: www.estateplanshop.com. Reprinted with permission.

Almost Empty-Nesters:

Figure 3 below depicts what members of these households might look like:

Geographic: Located in the community of

Wildwood, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Demographic: Middle-aged (late forties to

late fifties), married with university aged

children, university educated, high-income

earning, mix of white collar and trade

occupations.

Psychographic: Based on the Environics PRIZM (2011) segment “Money & Brains”, parents in

these families are well established in their careers and their children are often occupied by the

their university studies. In the past, these parents would contribute generously to various

charities and programs around the city rather than volunteer their time due to their busy

lifestyles. As their children become more self-sufficient and their careers become less demanding

their lifestyle is beginning to change, and these parents would like to become more involved in

the community. They have been a part of the community for a long time and occasionally

interact with their neighbors, but they have never been quite aware of events or issues in the

community and would like that to change.

Behavioral: These parents are willing to contribute their time at least a few times a week. They

want to feel a better sense of belonging in their community, and feel that building closer

relationships with their neighbors by participating more in community gatherings and

discussions will allow them to achieve this.

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Source: www.guardian.co.uk. Photo by Mango Productions/Corbis. Reprinted with permission.

Figure 3: Almost Empty-Nesters.

Product Strategy:

All organizations that need to market services face challenges that providers of products

don’t normally encounter, so the ISN initiative will need to address these challenges as well.

These challenges are the intangibility, inconsistency, inseparability and inventory of services.

The level of involvement from individuals in the community with the initiative will be a measure

of how successful it is when responding to these challenges.

Unlike physical products, services are strictly intangible so they cannot be held, touched

or seen by a consumer before they are purchased. As a result, the quality of a service can only be

determined once it has been used by the consumer and this is a particular challenge that the ISN

initiative will need to address. Having reputable sources who are knowledgeable of and/or

involved with the initiative were to endorse it and spread information about it through word of

mouth might be a solution to this problem. Examples of such sources are Aldermen for the pilot

communities or the board of directors for their respective community associations, as they could

distribute the information at community gatherings or through community newsletters. Once a

small group of community residents are aware of the initiative in more detail and what they can

do to become involved, they might be more inclined to discuss it with their neighbours. Ensuring

those involved with the initiative have a strong presence in the community and are enthusiastic

about promoting change will help provide tangible cues to residents that suggest the initiative is

being carried out in a high quality manner. Creating a recognizable brand image that reflects this

enthusiasm and high quality will help with this as well, which will be discussed later in this

section.

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Providing a consistent service is difficult to maintain in comparison to the manufacture of

physical products. This consistency is dependent upon the people providing the service, and is

only possible when they clearly understand what is expected of them. Because of this, the ISN

initiative should communicate unequivocally to those involved what needs to be accomplished

and what type of relationship to build with residents who participate in order for the initiative to

be successful.

Inseparability implies that services must be consumed at the same time they are provided,

and residents of the community need to be as involved as those organizing the ISN initiative in

order for it to be successful. Residents will also have an impact on each other, in the sense that

their opinions of the initiative will either encourage or deter others to participate as well. As a

result, those involved with the initiative must be highly trained to be receptive of suggestions

provided by members of the community and effective at communicating these suggestions to

those who are able to implement them. As mentioned earlier, those involved must also display

enthusiasm about the initiative’s objectives and confidence in its ability to achieve these

objectives in order to maintain the interest of residents in the community.

The fact that services cannot be stored as inventory is another challenge the ISR initiative

should take into consideration. The supply and demand of services is difficult to track, but those

involved with the initiative can do their best to manage supply by budgeting what resources they

have available to satisfy demand and allocating them according to the degree of which

communities need them. They can create supply through the recruitment of volunteers from the

community to help achieve the initiative’s objectives as well, which might satisfy demand that

cannot be met by the initiative’s own resources.

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As mentioned earlier, creating a recognizable brand image for the initiative as a tangible

cue for the communities involved will give the impression that it is successfully meeting its

objective of ‘inspiring strong neighbourhoods’. The development of this brand image is not so

much in the name itself, but rather what types of characteristics are associated with the brand.

Trueman, Cook & Cornelius (2007) identified that encouraging creativity, defined as a

“multifaceted resourcefulness to solve intractable, unexpected, unusual problems or

circumstances”, is crucial in generating positive change and when communities are less

concerned with “mere survival”, they become more concerned with civic pride and creativity.

This innovation and creativity is something that the initiative should strive to maintain

throughout its implementation. Encouraging fresh and unique perspectives regarding the issues

being addressed in pilot communities, as well as how to apply successful techniques used in one

neighbourhood to another, will be essential to the success of this initiative. Maintaining a

successful brand image can be accomplished by providing an environment in which all of this

can take place while implementing the initiative in pilot communities.

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Pricing:

Much of the cost associated with this initiative involved the research needed to identify

what drives community attachment, while some was allocated to repurpose existing resources to

better meet the needs of the community (City of Calgary 2012). A total of $225,000 was

budgeted and approved by city council, broken down into the following: $50,000 for consulting

services related to the project, $50,000 to repurpose existing resources, $100,000 to collect

information through surveys and $25,000 for communications support (City of Calgary 2012).

A similar community engagement initiative carried out by Halifax consisted of a budget

that was less costly and more thoroughly allocated than the ISN initiative, amounting to only

$62,000 but distributed among several strategic approaches that describe in great deal what

actions will be carried out, the progress of these actions and which departments will provide staff

for each (Halifax Regional Municipality 2008). This could be due to the fact that Halifax is

significantly smaller in size compared to Calgary, however the simplicity of the ISN budget

could have a negative impact on the success of the initiative due to its lack of transparency in

comparison to Halifax. As discussed in the prior section, providing tangible cues are quite useful

in countering the challenges faced by service oriented organizations and this transparency could

be one of those cues.

Since this is not a revenue producing project and relies only on funding from the city,

justification for these costs can be measured in terms of how well the results of this project

satisfy community needs in Calgary. It can be qualitatively described by the emergence of

stronger relationships within the community and the presence of individuals who are more

actively involved in the community, where its well-being becomes one of their primary concerns.

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It can also be quantitatively described in terms of a change in the level of productivity of the

community as a whole, and its contribution to overall growth of the city.

Sorensen & Grove (1977) provide an accounting perspective of how to manage costs

related to non-profit services like the ISN initiative, and how to measure the performance and

outcome of these services. In order to properly allocate costs, they emphasize controlling

program operations through assessing population needs and demand for services, clearly

established organizational objectives, identifying the amount of resources needed and how they

will be consumed, and evaluation of the outcome of particular programs and services (Sorensen

& Grove 1977). They also stress periodic evaluation of the program in terms of its ability to meet

objectives, research of potential direct and indirect competition in the form of similar objectives

being pursued by other programs, and developing objectives for improvement throughout the

process (Sorensen & Grove 1977). Aside from the lack of transparency in the budget, these are

all factors that the ISN initiative successfully took into consideration when submitting its

proposal to the city, especially competition in the form of other groups with similar objectives

which they actually choose to collaborate with instead (City of Calgary 2012).

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Place:

Recent research has shown that approximately 83% of Fortune 500 companies use some

form of social media to connect with consumers in the marketplace, and that consumers are

becoming increasingly more dependent upon using social media to investigate unfamiliar brands

(Naylor, Lamberton & West 2012). Social media has even become a popular tool for civic

engagement, as more citizens are talking to each other regarding issues in their communities

through various mediums such as tweets, blogs and podcasts (Mann 2010). Perhaps the most

useful form of social media in civic engagement is the use of forums that are used by both

residents and city officials to discuss issues in the community (Mann 2010). With so many of

these mediums available, it is difficult to determine which ones are best suited for the needs of an

organization.

In the case of the ISN initiative, the most benefit would be derived from a medium that

offers both a way to disseminate information about the initiative and a method of exchange for

communication between those involved with the initiative and citizens providing feedback. For

this reason, Facebook would be an ideal social media tool the initiative could use to achieve

direct contact with residents. Information about upcoming events or progress being made with

the initiative can be posted by those responsible for monitoring the Facebook page, and concerns

or comments can be addressed directly as responses to posts made on the page by residents. That

being said, the initiative should not be entirely focused upon using Facebook as a medium for

communication. Depending on their resources and ability to monitor other mediums of

communication (such as Twitter, forums or blogs) they should branch out to maximize their

presence in the online community.

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An assumption that is made when using social media for this purpose is that the target

audience is highly familiar with technologies like this, and that achieving direct contact with this

audience will prove to be successful. This may be more of a challenge with an older

demographic, which represents the majority of residents in the community of Wildwood. Given

that most of these residents hold post-secondary degrees and high income earning positions

however, exposure to technology in their workplace could be higher than expected and in turn

their familiarity with social media would be higher as well.

Indirect communication with residents can also result from the use of social media,

particularly through word of mouth from those who already use it as a means of communication.

The number of times the Facebook page is liked or shared can have a significant impact on how

quickly its popularity rises, and how far its communication will spread. Encouraging those who

are already interested in the initiative and its objectives to share this information through social

media will greatly increase awareness in this community.

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Promotion:

Target Audience:

The majority of Wildwood residents fit into an age category that would fit well with the

market segment “Almost Empty-Nesters”. In addition to a significant number of residents fitting

the demographic description, their lifestyles would also be congruent with the objectives of the

ISN initiative. Information regarding the initiative could be easily communicated to this segment,

given their existing interest in community involvement, and it is likely they would be highly

receptive to such communications given their philanthropic nature.

Wildwood is a quiet, clean and safe community that offers several amenities for its

residents to make use of such as athletic facilities, plenty of green-space and walkways for

leisure time spent outdoors and several community activities that cater to all ages. This market

segment has been a part of the community for quite some time and is knowledgeable of these

characteristics, however they have not been thoroughly involved in their maintenance or

facilitation. They are proud to be a part of the community, and with more free time or their hands

they are looking to become more involved now. There should be no difficulty inspiring interest

in this market segment to utilize the ISN initiative to do so.

Communication Objectives:

Since the ISN initiative was only recently developed, and investigating what drives

community attachment will be a relatively new concept to the target audience, an informative

communications approach would be most effective. These residents may personally have their

own conception of what would make their community a better place to live, or what makes it a

great place to live already, but the objective is to provide them with the ability to communicate

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these ideas to other members in the community and to city departments. Whatever the form of

communication, the target audience should be able to identify that it is promoting the opportunity

for residents to provide feedback regarding the well-being of their community.

Communication Strategy:

Because the objective of the ISN initiative is to identify what drives community

attachment, a pull oriented communication strategy would be most effective. Identifying what

this demand consists of will allow the city to better align its services with the target audience, or

allow them to be ‘pulled’ through the appropriate distribution channel and to the end user in a

more efficient manner.

Feedback is an essential element of the initiative and researching community attachment,

so a two-way communication strategy is necessary. The easiest and most inexpensive method of

facilitating this is to use social media in order to promote the initiative, provide information

about it and provide a medium to track feedback and input from the target audience.

It is not known with absolute certainty how successful this initiative will be, either for the

city overall or any individual community, but it needs to be conveyed that this is the most viable

solution to improve community attachment and inspire growth and positive change in

communities throughout Calgary. For this reason, an asymmetrical communication strategy is

necessary, and should leave no room for skepticism about the potential success of the initiative.

Communication Tactics:

The central idea of our communication strategy is to provide examples of what might

make a community a better place to live, then proceed to ask the question ‘What makes your

community a great place to live?’. This would leave the target audience with the opportunity to

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reflect on either why they enjoy their community or what changes they desire in order to make it

better. The execution of this communication will relay how implementing this initiative can fit in

with the lifestyle of the target audience, without requiring any substantial changes to be made

with regards to their attitudes and behaviour. The rational appeal of this communication needs to

justify why the target audience needs to become more involved in their community, but it will be

difficult to illustrate the impact it will have once this has been accomplished. The best way to do

this is to remind the target audience what it is that makes them feel attached to their community

in an effort to inspire them to actively maintain these characteristics, or possibly encourage them

to reflect on what is missing from their community and what they can do to solve the issue. The

emotional appeal of this communication is psychological, in the sense that the level of

attachment to one’s community can be measured in terms of their perceived satisfaction with

living in that particular community.

Communications Mix:

When developing an appropriate communications mix, factors such as available

resources and the potential effectiveness of certain elements should be taken into consideration.

Given the small amount allocated to communications in the ISN initiative’s budget, a less costly

approach should be utilized. This would most likely focus on online promotion and social media

as a means of communication, since it will reach the largest audience at the lowest cost and allow

for two-way communication. Internally managing the image of the initiative and its objectives

should also be essential component of the communications mix, and ensuring that it is associated

with growth and positive change throughout communities in the city should be a main priority of

those in charge of its implementation. This strength of this image can be measured in terms of

the initiative’s perceived credibility and effectiveness in encouraging community involvement.

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Television and print ads could be utilized as well, but should be used sparingly considering they

carry a higher cost. Because this is not a revenue producing project, the use of sales promotion

would not be an appropriate fit and neither would personal selling considering the initiative is

meant to communicate with whole communities and not individuals.

Creative Execution:

Before carrying out any creative execution, a recent communication attempt from the

City of Calgary to promote civic engagement was assessed in order to determine whether or not

our strategy would employ similar tactics already used or if our strategy would aim to improve

upon them. The communication that was assessed can be found in Appendix B.

This communication was meant to create interest in the new East Village community

through events, activities and a showcase of what the community will look like when

development has been completed. While the target audience is quite clear, it is also quite broad

as it includes all of Calgary. Our communication will be targeted to a much more specific

audience (the “Almost Empty-Nesters”), however this is due to the nature of the project and the

fact that the initiative will only affect those in the pilot communities during its implementation.

A broad communication such as the East Village one might actually be appropriate once results

from the pilot have been gathered and potential solutions can be applied to all communities in the

city. The advertising objective was very clear, to inform Calgarians about the new East Village

development and what the community will have to offer when it is complete. This informative

approach is something we hope to achieve when implementing our communication strategy as

well, however the push strategy used in this promotion conveys “look what we have developed,

you should be interested in it”, whereas ours should adopt a pull strategy that conveys “we want

you to be interested so you can provide us with feedback that will be useful developing a

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solution”. This communication employs a two-way, asymmetrical strategy where consumer

reaction can be measured and only positive aspects of the development are portrayed, which is

something we also hope to achieve in our strategy. Its interactive feature allows for tracking of

feedback regarding the development, which is similar to the social media platform we will

develop for our strategy. The central idea of the ad is to get people excited about what the

development will have to offer once it is complete, and its execution style is aimed towards how

this new development will fit with the lifestyle of the target audience. Its rational appeal is

towards those who prefer to live in an area that promotes strong community interaction through

“pedestrian-focused streetscapes, a National Music Center, and a robust calendar of community

focused events and activities”, since that is what this development will offer. These

characteristics are very similar to what we are looking for in our strategy. There is a weakness

however with regards to how the city decided to display this information. The blog article is just

over a year old, yet no comments were left on the page and there is no way to tell how many

visitors came to the page suggesting that it did not receive much exposure to the target audience.

This is why we would prefer to use Facebook to disseminate information and keep track of

feedback.

Based on the above, we propose that using Facebook as an avenue for communication

and feedback, as well as a source of information about the ISN initiative, will obtain the positive

results and strong community involvement in the initiative. This Facebook page will carry photos

of areas of interest and activities in the community, it will pose questions to visitors regarding

their opinion of the community and their level of attachment to it which can be responded to

using wall posts on the page, frequent polls with a similar nature will be posted and

announcements about activities taking place in the community will be posted as well. It is

16

expected that, along with a thirty second video announcement to stimulate interest in the

initiative and point the target audience in the direction of the Facebook and ISN webpages, this

strategy will attract a high number of visitors to the page and promote a high level of community

involvement from the target audience. This video announcement will explain what the

initiative’s objectives are and provide examples of “what makes Wildwood a great place to live”.

For example, it promotes an active lifestyle, it is a safe and clean community, and it has a family

friendly environment just to name a few. It will go on to ask “what makes Wildwood a great

place to live” in the viewer’s opinion, and provide information for the Facebook page and City of

Calgary website as to encourage them to voice this opinion. The idea behind this strategy is to

identify what the target audience loves most about this community and hopefully gain insightful

knowledge that can be applied to other communities that are in need of improvement.

Community engagement and/or attachment could still be improved in Wildwood, but our

strategy would provide a solution to this as well when the Facebook page encourages more

interaction between residents of the community and city officials as well as amongst the

residents themselves.

An alternative method of promotion we recommend to undertake in addition to the video

announcement and social media platform would involve an essay competition in which

participants would write an essay describing why they enjoy being a part of the Wildwood

community. Our target market would not be eligible to participate, however their school-aged

children would be. The opportunity for their children to become involved in the community and

potentially receive a monetary prize for their work might capture the attention of “Almost

Empty-Nesters”, and as a result they might be more inclined to participate in the initiative as

well.

17

References

Central Wesleyan Church (2013), “Mentoring Small Groups – Central Wesleyan,” online image,

(accessed March 18, 2013), [available at: http://www.centralwesleyan.org/mentoring-

small-group/ ].

City of Calgary (2013), “Application to the City of Calgary Council Innovation Fund,” (accessed

March 21, 2013), [available at:

http://lgdata.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/docs/739/695953/Application_to_City

_of_Calgary_Innovation_Fund.pdf]

Calgary City News Blog (2012), “Grand public opening of the East Village Experience Centre,”

(accessed March 23, 2013), [available at:

http://www.calgarycitynews.com/2012/03/grand-public-opening-of-east-village.html]

Environics Analytics (2011), "Money & Brains," Prizm CE Marketer's Handbook 2011.

(accessed March 18, 2013), [available at

ftp://mcqueen.tetrad.com/PRIZM_C2_Handbook_2011.pdf].

Environics Analytics (2011), "Urbane Villagers," Prizm CE Marketer's Handbook 2011.

(accessed March 18, 2013), [available at

ftp://mcqueen.tetrad.com/PRIZM_C2_Handbook_2011.pdf].

Environics Analytics (2011), "Winner’s Circle," Prizm CE Marketer's Handbook 2011. (accessed

March 18, 2013), [available at

ftp://mcqueen.tetrad.com/PRIZM_C2_Handbook_2011.pdf].

18

The Estate Plan Shop (2013), “The Estate Plan Shop,” online image, (accessed March 18, 2013),

[available at: www.estateplanshop.com]

Halifax Regional Municipality (2008), “Community Engagement Strategy,” (accessed March 21,

2013), [available at: http://libguides.ucalgary.ca/content.php?pid=425165&sid=3477061]

Mango Productions/Corbis (photographer) (2010). “Should I ask my parents to match the cash

they gave my brother?,” (accessed March 18, 2013), [available at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2010/apr/23/cash-parents-university]

Mann, Bonnie (2010), “Cities Embrace Social Media for Public Engagement,” Nation’s Cities

Weekly, (September 13), 3

Naylor, Rebecca Walker, Cait Poynor Lamberton & Patricia M. West (2012), “Beyond the

“Like” Button: The Impact of Mere Virtual Presence on Brand Evaluations and Purchase

Intentions in Social Media Settings,” Journal of Marketing, 76 (November), 105-120

Semko, Jesse (2011), “Calgary’s Best Neighbourhoods 2011: Wildwood,” (accessed March 18,

2013) [available at: http://www.avenuecalgary.com/articles/calgarys-best-

neighbourhoods-2011-wildwood]

Sorensen, James. E & Hugh D. Grove (1977), “Cost-Outcome and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis:

Emerging Nonprofit Performance Evaluation Techniques,” The Accounting Review, 52

(July), 658-675

Trueman, Myfanwy, Diana Cook & Nelarine Cornelius (2007), “Creative dimensions for

branding and regeneration: Overcoming negative perceptions of a city,” Place Branding

and Public Diplomacy, 4 (September), 29-44

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Appendix A – Customer Segmentation (First Draft)

20

Appendix B – Past Marketing Communication

Figure 4: Past Marketing Communication

Source: http://www.calgarycitynews.com/2012/03/grand-public-opening-of-east-village.html

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