Handed a brand. We took it to market.
Arrow Slocan Tourism is the smallest destination marketing organization in British Columbia. ASTA handed us its brand and website and brought us in to take them to market, and we run almost everything that follows, from strategy and campaigns to crisis planning and a brand-new tourism product.
Drawing from the source
With Italian animator Giovanni Maurutto, we turned the valley’s own legends into anime: the train at the bottom of Slocan Lake, the eagles locals talk about like old friends, the sasquatch and the hot springs yeti. Each film starts in our live-action footage and slips into animation, and its characters were hidden in ASTA’s feed before release, so every drop became a scavenger hunt.
Creators on the route
We hired small and mid-sized creators and let each one pick their own trip. They documented it in photo and video for their own channels, then posted a trip report in the Facebook groups and Reddit threads we chose, where travellers go to plan. We then ran the best of it across ASTA’s channels, so every trip reached people three times over.
Every day, every channel
We run ASTA’s organic social and paid ads across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, with our own photo, film and copy feeding both. Within eight months, Instagram followers grew 107% and average monthly Facebook views climbed from 483,000 to over a million, with engagement nearly three times the tourism industry average.
Ready before the smoke
Wildfire season can stop a trip before it starts. We wrote ASTA’s Emergency Communications Plan so the team knows exactly who posts what, when, and from which official source.
Day 1 | Immediate response | Confirm facts with official sources; Assign roles and backups; Pause scheduled campaigns; Post a holding statement | amber
Ongoing | Daily monitoring | Check sources every day; Pin one emergency post; Watch for misinformation; Brief partners and Visitor Centres | amber
Escalation | Evacuation orders | Reset strategy with leadership; Revise public messaging; Issue a media statement; Tighten social monitoring | red
Wrap-up | Back to business | Thank visitors and communities; Take the banners down; Restore regular content; Debrief what worked | green
JCLT
Japanese Canadian Legacy Trail
ASTA’s Executive Director had the idea: a trail linking the places in the Slocan Valley where Japanese Canadian families were interned during the Second World War. We built everything around it, from the brand and website to the content, a trail map and a printed zine for visitors.
Tags: Brand; Trail map; Photography & content; Website; Printed zine
Site: https://jclegacytrail.com/
Palette: Charcoal #0C0C0C; Burnt Ember #8E4B23; Autumn Grass #A09677; Cedar #4D5944; Sandbank #E7DECE; Cloud #FFFFFF
Type: Coconat, headings; Figtree, body copy
Stops: Nakusp | Trail start; Rosebery | Camp site; New Denver | Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre; Sandon | Camp site; Silverton | Village; Slocan City | Camp site; Bay Farm & Popoff | Camp sites; Lemon Creek | Camp site; Nelson | Trail end
The rest of the job
Behind the campaigns is a lot of coordination: working with local stakeholders and Visitor Centres, managing creators and influencers, and directing contractors like animator Giovanni Maurutto. Add trade show signage and printed collateral, ongoing updates and optimization on ASTA’s website, and the copy behind all of it, and a small organization shows up like a big one.
