Objective

The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative is a bi-national, non-partisan alliance of U.S. and Canadian mayors working to protect and restore the vitality of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River and improve the quality of life for the residents of the region.

As the Cities Initiative continued to grow in both size and scope, the need to enhance the organization’s brand, increase its membership base and improve its communications capacity swelled. In 2008, the organization partnered with CG&A to create a marketing and communications plan, develop new materials and design a new website.

Action

As an important first step, CG&A conducted a messaging session with Cities Initiative staff and mayors who serve on the Board of Advisors. This session yielded a wealth of new messages and served to reposition the organization relative to
its growth and increased focus on a more holistic approach to the bodies of water and the people who rely on them.

With new messaging in place, CG&A focused on
the redesign and redevelopment of marketing materials including annual reports, brochures and the Cities Initiative website, www.glslcities.org.

Results

CG&A managed the design and development of a refreshed Cities Initiative website that better illustrates the organization’s important work, highlights the member cities and mayors, provides incentive to become
a member, improves user experience and clearly conveys the organization’s mission.

One of the more unique site features CG&A helped to implement is the Member Cities Map, which utilizes a custom Google map application to pinpoint members and provide information about each city.

CG&A proudly continues to assist the Cities Initiative with media relations, annual report design and other communications needs.