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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/394777
bcbusiness.ca november 2014 BCBusiness 59 (The other boxes on that shelf? Meena Wong, the mayoral candidate from the left-wing COPE party, running a kind of no-logo campaign that's true to COPE's deliberate focus on policy and content over branding. And the Green Party of Vancouver, which isn't running a may- oral candidate but is relying largely on the strength of its global brand to elect a select group of councillors, school trust- ees and park commissioners.) The NPA's then-vice-president, devel- oper Rob Macdonald, acknowledged the importance of marketing when LaPointe's candidacy was being dis- cussed internally. He hedged about confirming anything before the market launch because "when you're rolling out a product, you want to roll it out per- fectly." The rollout that aimed to help consumers differentiate started with all kinds of cues for the symbol-readers (a.k.a. journalists). For his first meeting with local media, LaPointe, a long-time management guy for various big Cana- dian media outlets, chose the ultra-hip- ster coffee shop on Main Street, Kaa's. Amid the social-enterprise entrepre- neurs and grad students working on their laptops, to the grinding sound of the espresso machine, he said, in visu- als and words, that he was not your old- style candidate from the NPA, a party often described as appealing mainly to the professional class residing in Van- couver's tony west side. He insisted on telling reporters about his tough life as a kid being raised by a single mother. Cool, different, not a privileged martini- drinker from Shaughnessy—check. (His team went back there for a second media op a month later.) LaPointe started his own blog about the campaign and posted videos of himself talking about the issues, including a journalism-style stand-up on the Arbutus corridor rail line. He's also been out on Twit- ter, challenging Robertson on this or that issue. He lards that with conver- sational comments about pop music, books and sports. So a visual, social- media demonstration that he would be more open, more transparent, more of an information-loving jour- nalism-style politician—check, plus the cool factor reinforced. "He's got a strong foundation," says Levy. "His media credentials are important—he has a dyed-in-the- wool belief in the free press and in access." The key will be whether he can keep adding to that image, Levy adds, turning into an interactive, con- versational Facebook-style politician, demonstrating that he can generate a real dialogue. Long-winded blog posts about his learnings on the campaign trail won't cut it. His early videos and news releases were aimed right at his target audience: the traditional NPA base of older, home-owning profes- sionals who live in the most suburban parts of the city. That over-35 crowd that drives SUVs, wants value for money and abhors inefficiency. LaPointe's hashtag, #greatcitybadlyrun, speaks directly to a group of people who are enraged by lit- ter, unmowed city parks, any sign of fis- cal sloppiness—a lack of order. He's also clearly working to pick up secondary markets of people who feel marginal- ized in the city: the shrinking commu- nity around the Punjabi market, seniors in southeast Vancouver. Of course, the branding of LaPointe has two hurdles to overcome. One is that the party LaPointe is running with has a much more established image than he does, one he might not be able to get out from under. "You can't expect one person to be the brand ambas- sador," says pollster Mario Canseco. "There's a difficulty becoming the inde- pendent or a voice for change when the party itself didn't go through a proper rebranding." And then the Vision Van- couver team—the people who framed NPA Mayor Sam Sullivan as the root