SARANAC LAKE – The Adirondacks’ Coolest Place. The Capital of the Adirondacks. The All-America City. The Little City in the Adirondacks.

This village has had its share of marketing slogans and catchphrases over the years, and now it needs to get behind a single brand.

That’s what Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism CEO James McKenna told the village Board of Trustees Monday.

During an update on marketing work ROOST has done for the community, McKenna noted that his organization is gearing up to unveil a new branding message and look for Tupper Lake. It’s something ROOST has been working on with local leaders in Tupper Lake for the past nine months.

“Moving forward in Saranac Lake, I think we have to start looking at that, too,” McKenna said. “When you put the same image, the same look, the same feel out there, everything has sort of a ripple effect. I think the time is right to start looking for that.

“There’s a lot of Saranac Lake images and brands in the marketplace. What happens is when you don’t have one singular (brand), they all become less effective.”

“We can coalesce here in Saranac Lake,” said Mayor Clyde Rabideau. “Let’s do it.”

Rabideau said he recently attended a seminar on the topic of branding where “Pure Michigan,” the slogan used by the state of Michigan, was mentioned as an example.

“Everything they do – tourism, economic development, even their license plates – it’s all ‘Pure Michigan,'” McKenna said. “In the marketplace, there’s no confusion, and I think that’s what we have to start striving for.”

Rabideau suggested the village could be ‘The Capital of the Adirondacks,’ a moniker the mayor came up with in 2010. It’s since been “servicemarked,” similar to a trademark, by New York’s Department of State, put on village signage and letterhead, and used repeatedly by the mayor.

McKenna said creating a brand should be a process that takes time and involves local stakeholders but, more importantly, people from outside the community.

“You create the brand from the outside world, not the inside world, although you might have the inside world (be) a part of it, because it’s what we’re putting in the marketplace to attract new residents, economic development, tourism,” he said. “It’s not something that’s decided over two or three weeks. It’s gotta be a process. Tupper Lake took nine months. Placid was a year and a half.”

When Lake Placid went through a similar effort in 2007-08, McKenna said ROOST brought in an outside company to do a visitor analysis, “to try to poll what people were thinking about Lake Placid.” Similar work was done in coming up with Tupper Lake’s brand, McKenna said.

“Tupper Lake’s image has changed radically in the last three years, and it’s geared around that Wild Center (nature museum) experience where you can learn about nature,” McKenna said.

The Lake Placid branding effort resulted in the “Invent your own perfect day” slogan, which McKenna said has gradually caught on in the two-time Winter Olympic host village.

“It’s a little bit trickier over there because there’s a couple other engines pushing other brands,” he said. “The Olympics are part of Lake Placid’s heritage and will be forever, but the people driving the travel industry today are a younger demographic that, in some cases, weren’t even born (before the 1980 Olympics).

“If we want to do a brand analysis (for Saranac Lake) that will take some time,” McKenna said. “If that’s something you want to do, mayor, we’ll put it in our hopper.”

“Yes,” Rabideau said. “Please do it.”

Marketing efforts

Earlier, McKenna summarized some of the marketing work ROOST has done, or is planning, for the Saranac Lake area. He said a series of all-electronic media buys are planned this fall and winter.

“Two of them are what we call contest promotions,” McKenna said. “Those are predominately (online) banner ads that invite people to enter to win something. That generates names on a list that we use to market to on a continuing basis.”

ROOST manages www.SaranacLake.com, and the site now has over 2,600 content pages, 660 blogs, 119 video clips and an inventory of more than 3,000 photos that can be used by local businesses. Website traffic has increased, McKenna said, with overall sessions up 11.8 percent and page views up 6.7 percent compared to last year.

Social media marketing has also been successful, McKenna explained. The Saranac Lake ADK Facebook page has 8,252 followers, with more than 403 new likes in the past week. Followers have also increased on the Saranac Lake ADK Instagram and Twitter accounts, he said.

The village will host the 2017 World Snowshoe Championships in February. A Facebook page promoting the event now has 370 total likes, according to Marjie Waterson, a ROOST employee who works at the Saranac Lake Visitor Center on River Street and oversees the Facebook page.

“That’s not bad,” Rabideau said. “I’ve surfed around looking at other snowshoe Facebook pages, and anybody that breaks 400 is big time. I want 500, but we’re going to get there.”

Among other marketing work, McKenna also said he’s talked with village Manager John Sweeney about ROOST promoting Saranac Lake’s downtown over the winter, tying the effort in with the potential re-opening of the Hotel Saranac sometime next year.