The City of Penticton's Economic Development department announced "Picnic-ton" in April 2021 as part of its ongoing efforts to support local food and drink businesses and build resiliency during the pandemic. At the time, indoor dining was closed due to Provincial Health restrictions.
As part of the City's ongoing Love Local campaign, which supports shopping and spending local, this Picnic-ton initiative aimed to inspire citizens to order takeout food and/or drinks to enjoy as a picnic at local parks. By building upon an already much-admired local brand (Love Local), combined with a catchy name for the event (playing on "picnic" and "Penticton"), Picnic-ton fast received widespread media attention.
Program highlights:
- 36 extra picnic tables pulled out of storage to set up at city parks in addition to the permanent tables.
- 40+ businesses registered to take part in the program.
- Each business was provided with complimentary picnic packs to hand out to customers who ordered takeout.
- Registered businesses distributed 2,500 picnic packs throughout the community. These included branded beverage koozies, Love Local stickers and Picnic-ton branded placemats, which highlighted safe local outdoor activities in Penticton, as well as other swag items donated from Visit Penticton (t-shirts, bottle stoppers, etc.). The Picnic-ton branding incorporated the City's ongoing Love Local campaign logo by placing it on a dinner plate to connect the image with dining.
- Program aligned with Penticton's responsible outdoor public consumption of alcohol program, allowing people to drink alcohol responsibly outdoors within designated park zones. This encouraged residents to also purchase locally crafted beer and wine from our many wineries and breweries.
- A new interactive map was created to plot out the locations where people could drink responsibly outdoors, all picnic table locations and businesses taking part, as well as park amenities including splash pads, playgrounds and washrooms.
- The City also waived patio permit fees, encouraging further spaces for outdoor dining.
- Free 10-minute Picnic-ton parking spots added throughout the community for customers to pick up their meals without having to pay for parking.
- Contests to win picnic baskets and other prizes were conducted both through the City & Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce.
Picnic-ton was on the tips of everyone's tongues for many weeks, receiving wide media coverage, including television and radio interviews with Global TV, CBC and Bell Media's EZ Rock, as well as newspaper and digital media coverage. The catchy name, combining the words "picnic" and "Penticton" combined with a visual brand that built upon the City's existing Love Local campaign, was widely well-received and embraced community-wide.
Our community partners helped promote the campaign throughout their channels and were deeply engaged in the campaign throughout the process. Some provided giveaway items to include within the 2,500 free picnic packs and others organized their own Picnic-ton contests, encouraging community engagement by asking questions and requesting picnickers to take photos of their meals and favourite picnic spots. Also, the 40+ registered businesses conducted their own social media promotions, making the campaign widely known within a short amount of time.
Picnic-ton was announced in April 2021, launched a few weeks later, and ran until October.
The huge participation rate and overwhelmingly positive feedback indicated that businesses felt supported and benefited from the free promotion. They particularly benefited from being featured on a specialized Picnic-ton webpage (penticton.ca/picnic) and on the interactive Picnic-ton map, and promoted through social media and partnerships.
We also had overwhelmingly positive feedback from patrons, who were encouraged to visit new food and beverage businesses that they might not otherwise have tried, and were grateful to enjoy them as picnics in our local parks (along with their fun Picnic-ton themed goodies)!
As an added bonus, the City now has a comprehensive list of local food and drink businesses, including up-to-date contact information. This has helped build stronger contacts and has made it easier for us to reach out to them if/when needed. The work spent creating a GIS/digital map of local restaurants, cafes, wineries and breweries has also proved useful for other projects and can be adapted for other purposes promoting economic development. In fact, we have already used this template to develop a Tasting Room Map to highlight the wineries, breweries, cideries and distilleries in Penticton (many of which were Picnic-ton participants).
Absolutely, the project is highly replicable and sustainable. For a city like Penticton, which has quieter shoulder seasons, it's critical to remind and encourage residents to continue supporting local businesses year-round. We have already had significant interest in the continuation of the program in 2022 and plan to replicate some of the program moving forward. In 2022, we plan to launch Pop-Up Picnic-ton, a campaign that will close down select roads to create outdoor pedestrian spaces where people can enjoy picnics with local takeout food and beverages. We will add picnic tables and activate these spaces with yard games, live music, and Picnic-ton-themed picnic kits, giveaways, and activities for all ages.
Lessons learned:
1: Don't try to go too big with the number of giveaways. We provided 50 complimentary picnic packs to each business. In total, it took three people about three days (day and night) to stuff the 2,500 picnic packs and deliver them to the 40+ businesses. In hindsight, fewer bags with greater substance would have had more impact.
2: Lean on partners for marketing and giveaway support. Fortunately, Visit Penticton provided a variety of swag including t-shirts, bottle stoppers, beer koozies and other items to include in the picnic packs. Also, the Downtown Penticton Association provided a $100 gift voucher to include for a contest gift basket and the Chamber of Commerce arranged its own contesting giveaways, offering cross-promotion. This helped keep our costs down.
3: We benefitted from creating a digital webform on the website to simplify the registration process. This cut down on data entry substantially and allowed us to capture key contact information for future use. If you don't have that option through your website, another option is using Google Forms.
4: Having a catchy name and brand helped raise awareness of the program and grabbed media attention.