June 2011 - by Jeff Nixon

How Does the Stanley Cup Riot Impact Vancouver’s Brand?

Wednesday June 15^th will go down as one of the most disappointing days in Vancouver’s history. But even the game seven loss to the Boston Bruins has become an afterthought due to the mayhem that occurred in the downtown core. Beyond the millions of dollars in property damage and costs of clean up and repair the city’s biggest concern should be the event’s impact on the Vancouver brand.

Brand is all about reputation, people’s attitudes and the gut feelings they have when they think of a place. The media and social media coverage of the June 15^th riot is obviously affecting how people perceive Vancouver worldwide. Even within Canada there are comments being made about how disgraceful Vancouver is and how embarrassing this is for Canadians. It is truly a sad time but as Mayor Gregor Robinson said, “rioters don’t define the city”. And lets be real, after viewing the countless pictures online and the hours of video footage it would be hard for anyone to dispute this point.

So with the devastation, the blow to civic pride and our international reputation is there anything good that can come out of this?

Any Publicity is Good Publicity?

As any place brand strategist knows the statement above is false. Branding a community is all about managing audience perceptions, attitudes and beliefs. This negative publicity has serious implications on how potential residents, visitors, tourists, and business owners perceive Vancouver. Unfortunately the damage is done.

The Silver Lining….

Within minutes of the riot the citizens who truly define Vancouver and are an accurate representation of the residents and business owners of the area were working online to develop tools to help prosecute those who were destroying their own city. By sunrise there were countless volunteers downtown cleaning the streets and starting to repair the damage. The shamed public of Vancouver is not hiding, they are standing out loud and proud, apologizing for the embarrassing antics of the few, and working towards restoring both downtown Vancouver and its reputation.

As the lingering hangover from Wednesday night fades, what remains is a loud voice from an engaged Greater Vancouver public that is speaking out against what has happened. A proud community that has stood together to show Canada and the rest of the world Vancouver’s true colours. Yes, it is true a few bad choices or single event can undo years of brand building and management. And unfortunately this riot has definitely diminished much of the good will built during the 2010 Olympics but maybe we needed a wakeup call. You can’t ride the wave forever and a place brand must be managed every day. Brand must be considered before making every decision, developing any program, or planning any event.

There has been an outstanding response from all of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland after this unfortunate incident. The support and efforts of many in the last couple days are enough to make every Canadian proud. Great work Vancouver, as we recover and move on lets take this blip as a reminder to never take our reputation for granted again.