Brantford-Brant Cultural Audience Development

Project Description:

The City of Brantford and Brant County selected Cobalt Connects to work with a collection of almost 40 local cultural agencies to explore audience development. Ranging from large organizations like the Sanderson Centre, the community’s A-house theatre, to much smaller entities like the Horticultural Society, the needs were varied. This required a customized and localized approach to consulting.

Each organization was given a deep dive analysis of their current marketing and audience development actions. We reviewed financial statement and marketing plans, social media engagement and public programming, collaboration and municipal involvement for each participating organization.

Following the data review, Cobalt crafted a public survey and engagement process for the public by visiting festivals and events across the region to gather data with our well-known creative survey tools.

Finally, based on the information, we submitted a series of recommendations that provided guidance to the Municipality and County, tourism agencies, local media, and specific recommendations on how the organizations could more strongly collaborate to make the region a cultural hot spot. 

These recommendations were followed up with the creation of a free workshop series and set of manuals on how to develop audience specific to Brantford and Brant County. Cobalt Connects and Kitestring Branding delivered the workshops multiple times to the cultural leadership of the community, making the learning process fun and generative.

Client: City of Brantford & Brant County

Collaborators: City & County staff, Kitestring Design, 40 local cultural organizations, hundreds of residents

Website: https://www.brantford.ca/en/things-to-do/arts-and-culture.aspx

City: Brantford & Brant County, ON

Date: 2016