2015 ACE: Award of Excellence
In August 2014, the Quad Cities launched a regional vision for 2030. The vision is: The Quad Cities region is recognized globally for growing and attracting talent and business, is energized by a culturally rich community, inspires innovation, and embraces lifelong learning. What this amounts to is that we want to be more cool, creative, and prosperous.
In August 2014, the Quad Cities launched a regional vision for 2030. The vision is: The Quad Cities region is recognized globally for growing and attracting talent and business, is energized by a culturally rich community, inspires innovation, and embraces lifelong learning. What this amounts to is that we want to be more cool, creative, and prosperous.
Since the launch, we’ve learned that regional pride is critical to achieving a vision for a stronger community, so we got members and residents engaged. We set forth a challenge, asking people to tell us what they think is cool, creative, and prosperous about the Quad Cities, and then share it on social media through a campaign we called #TagtheQC.
The campaign launched through our young professionals network, because not only are they the biggest users of social media, but because this campaign is largely geared at attracting and retaining young talent. We launched with a video showing local YPs on a mission to find their favorite things within the Quad Cities, and then tell the world. The video first aired on December 4, and has become our highest-viewed video, with 984 views to date. The campaign resulted in hundreds of posts and gave residents the opportunity to have fun while celebrating the community that they love. We were also extremely excited when MavSocial ranked the campaign as one of 2014’s social media campaigns to inspire, alongside campaigns by brands including Evian and UPS.
As we go down the path to identify opportunities and obstacles in achieving the regional vision long-term, we continue to celebrate the positive to get and keep people engaged. What’s more, by relying on the young professionals group to own this initiative, they shared their passion and enthusiasm for the region.