It’s official: after more than a decade, “Boundless” is a dud.
At Monday night’s council meeting, Fort Frances town council accepted a report from administration recommending the town begin the process to officially drop the slogan from its branding identity. The report pointed to the slogan having failed to achieve its “intended impact,” as well as garnered a negative opinion from local residents.
The “Boundless” identity was adopted in 2014 following consultation with Twist Marketing, who eventually presented the now-familiar bird and boundless identity to the town. According to the town’s website:
“The colours spring leaf green and deep grey describe Fort Frances as the meeting place between the wilderness landscape and an industrial center. The wings of the bird which has been interpreted as either an eagle or a phoenix are the F’s from Fort Frances. The bird is stretching to take flight. The word Boundless describes our human spirit of entrepreneurship and the opportunity ahead of us.”
However, in the report from town administration to council, it admits the branding project has been a failure, with residents expressing significant negativity towards the branding, as well as general confusion as to what the word “Boundless” is supposed to represent.
“Recent communications survey results show 80-90% negativity towards Boundless brand indicating it does not resonate with the community,” the report reads.
“Residents indicated wanting to have been further engaged/surveyed for the branding choice. Common informal feedback received further shows dislike for the branding, including using it in negatory/joking fashion. The branding is perceived as ambiguous/not fitting to the Town, and requires explanation.”
The report also notes that in researching the slogans/branding of other municipalities, their slogans tend to be more fitting and easily understandable at first glance. While it doesn’t name the municipalities presented as examples, the report includes “Hub of the North” (Sioux Lookout), “Naturally Wild” (Atikokan) and “Superior by Nature” (Thunder Bay) as slogans that more efficiently and accurately present their communities as brands to the wider world.
At Monday night’s meeting, councillors discussed the report’s suggestions, which included the choice to either keep the “Boundless” brand as is, incurring no financial or resource implications while continuing to elicit public derision, or to create a new tagline that would see “Boundless” removed from public assets while working to create a new branding identity through community surveys and consultation.
“In front of you, you have both options,” said Town of Fort Frances CAO Marcel Michaels.
“We believe ‘Boundless’ is so disliked, with all the input Ms. Greig received and compiled, that that’s an option; to just discontinue it. We can leave the first section of this direction alone and just continue having it there, we wouldn’t remove it from the vehicles or whatnot, but if there’s an appetite that you’re pretty sure tonight, based on the input, then just simply support both. By not doing the first one but doing the second one, we’ll begin that process to replace it. One is a bit firmer to the community, saying ‘we’ve heard you, we know you don’t like it.’”
Coun. Wendy Brunetta noted that while she has heard the public discourse surrounding the tagline, she expressed some concerns surrounding the cost of removing it from the town’s assets, which would include official letterhead, vehicles, flags and more. She suggested the town wait until a new tagline was found, and include the associated costs into the budgeting process for 2025 rather than making them unbudgeted expenses, rather than remove the branding immediately.
Mayor Andrew Hallikas took a moment to speak during the discussion to stress that the process of developing a new tagline for the town would not go to a “bunch of consultants at large dollars,” instead making the process community-focused in a way the previous branding exercise has been perceived as not being.
“We want to stress that we’re not going to hire a bunch of consultants at large dollars,” Hallikas said.
“What we’re going to do is we’re going to ask for input from the community. We’re going to survey the community. We want the community’s ideas and so that should keep costs down.”
Council eventually passed a resolution that directed administration to begin the process of discontinuing the “Boundless” brand in favour of a new tagline for the town. This process should begin immediately and will see the removal of the defunct slogan from locations where it can be “easily removed” for no or low cost to the municipality, while larger items where the tagline would be more time intensive or expensive to remove will likely remain as is until the new tagline is selected or the item needs to be replaced due to natural causes (an example given in the administrator’s report was the town’s flag supply, arguing that the current supply of flags containing the Boundless slogan could be used until they were exhausted due to weathering and regular wear and tear, and then the next batch of flags could be ordered either without the tagline or with the new tagline in its place, depending on the length of the process.)
