YEAR
2011
PROJECT
Brand Design, Advertising and Marketing
CLIENT
Lazy Bear Lodge
Where in the world?
Churchill, Manitoba is a small seaside village on the shores of Hudson Bay. It’s also the polar bear capital of the world, a summer home for the largest concentration of beluga whales, a perfect locale to watch mesmerizing Northern Lights, and a prime destination for arctic adventurers. Though tiny in population (less than 1,000 residents), its cutthroat competition for ecotourism is significant.
He did what?
Enter Wally Daudrich and family, owner of the Lazy Bear Lodge, Wally is a tourism pioneer, a maverick entrepreneur, a clever tinkerer, and a wiley marketer. As a young man, he and a buddy built the Lazy Bear Cafe as a means of serving hamburgers to local residents. In time, his vision expanded to create a wilderness lodge for tourists to experience all the incredible wildlife. He personally built the lodge by hand from recovered logs hauled by snowmobile out of the nearby Boreal Forest.
The Need to Compete
A fellow DKYer and adventure traveler, Michael Ruhs, took his family to the Lazy Bear Lodge and experienced the summer adventures firsthand. Upon his return, Michael shared the need to help Wally compete as other tourist companies were more advanced in their marketing efforts. So DKY got to work.
Brand-building with Bears and Belugas
The DKY team helped Wally with a new brand identity, clarified his marcom strategy, forged a new website, crafted marketing literature to help sell his lodge and adventure tours, and designed a variety of digital and print ads. All the work was aimed at a niche audience of higher-income, adventure travelers from around the world who were engaged in eco-tourism.
Just Bear This in Mind
When polar bears wander into town, which they often do, they are humanely captured and put into a polar bear jail and then flown by helicopter back out to the remote wilderness. Here’s one safety tip should you ever visit Churchill. If the town loses power and you happen upon a freezer, don’t stuff your garments with packages of thawing meat to carry elsewhere. It won’t end well for you. Just saying based on what we were told.
The Takeaway
There can be remarkably savvy marketers even in remote places where few people live. Back in those earlier years of 2.0 websites, SEO/SEM strategies, and an expanding universe of digital advertising, a tiny cluster of local brands were (and still are) battling for dollars. The Churchill brands knew their target audiences, offered enticing products and services, crafted compelling messages, and aimed their content in the right places. Whether your brand is small or big, these same fundamentals apply to all.
We are big fans of Lazy Bear Lodge and wish Wally and his family continued success. If only the monetary rates between Canadian and U.S. dollars were more favorable…
