36 INVEST in BC 2 0 2 5 Official Publication of the BC Economic Development Association in special partnership with BCBusiness.
ALL
PHOTOS:
OKGO
T H O M P S O N O K A N A G A N
campaigns over two years, and Schatz
believes Princeton Welcomes the World
will translate well into 2026, when the
FIFA World Cup brings even more exotic
visitors to B.C.
BETTER TOGETHER
For many years the Central Okanagan
Economic Development Commission
(COEDC), Tourism Kelowna and
Accelerate Okanagan, a business
development and investment office, all ran
their own marketing campaigns aiming
to promote the Central Okanagan. But
beginning with some conversations in 2018
and 2019, they got the idea of pooling their
resources.
"We realized we were all marketing the
region and its value proposition to slightly
different but overlapping audiences in
slightly different ways," explains Krista
Mallory, COEDC's manager. "We looked
at how we could work together to leverage
our resources and tell the story of the
Okanagan in a more impactful way."
Instead of talking about event spaces
or hotel capacity, the resulting campaign
focused on entrepreneurs and innovators,
growth sectors such as aerospace,
agriculture and digital technology, research
taking place at area post-secondary
institutions and other community assets.
Launched after a COVID -related delay in
the fall of 2020, it went by the name OKGo.
OKGo aims to attract not just tourists,
business events, entrepreneurs, talented
workers and business investment to the
region but all at once. "We see all those
pieces as linked," Mallory says.
Over time OKGo added new key
industries (cleantech, Indigenous
business) and community partners
(University of B.C. Okanagan, Okanagan
College) to its scope. But it's stuck to
its strategy of letting local business
ambassadors take the lead in a physical
and digital magazine, supported by videos,
social media and sharing the message in
person at conferences and trade shows.
"This is really a storytelling campaign.
It's not coming from the municipality,"
Mallory says. It took small individual
budgets and leveraged them into a bigger
joint pitch, while leaning into each
partner's strengths.
Since its inception, the OKGo website
has attracted 35,756 views and 21,625
users, with a big uptick in web traffic in
2024. For that OKGo won the Economic
Development Marketing Innovation
Award (Community more than 25,000
population) this year from BCEDA. •
FROM PAGE 34
DIVERSIFIED: The Okanagan Valley is home to (clockwise from
top) aerospace, viticulture, Indigenous tourism and agriculture
businesses
