For the Love of Lethbridge

The Challenge

Lethbridge is Alberta’s third-largest city. Two universities. A booming agricultural corridor. Housing that costs forty percent less than Calgary, two hours north.

But the City was losing the talent war.

Construction and healthcare were pulling from the same labour pool. Wages were rising faster than public sector budgets could match. And the traditional government pitch, pension and stability, wasn’t landing with a workforce that had just spent two years rethinking what work meant to them.

The City couldn’t compete on salary. They needed to compete on something else.

Purpose. Place. Pride.

They needed to attract people who didn’t just want a job. They wanted people who already loved Lethbridge and wanted to serve it.

The Solution

Government recruitment campaigns don’t usually talk about love.

That was the point.

We produced a two-part cinematic campaign called “For the Love of Lethbridge.” The primary video serves as the emotional anchor for the City’s careers page. The extended cut provides additional footage for internal use and conference presentations.

We partnered with Alberta-based writer Miles Konrad on the script. The City’s brief was open: they wanted something that felt different from typical municipal messaging. We pushed for language that would have been rejected in most government boardrooms.

The result was a script built on humble pride.

“Lethbridge is a place unlike any other. It’s not that we think we’re better than other places. But we can’t help but be proud of the things that make us special. Not the coulees’ iconic span, the wind-carved landscape, or world-renowned flora. But the people.”

The visual strategy matched the tone.

We used aerial cinematography to establish scale: the High Level Bridge, the Oldman River valley, the coulees at golden hour. These shots signal legitimacy. They tell ambitious candidates this is a serious city with serious infrastructure.

Then we intercut with handheld footage of real City employees. Not actors. Not staged. A transit operator. A librarian. A maintenance crew. When viewers see actual staff looking proud and purposeful, the message lands differently than a stock photo ever could.

The word “love” in the title was deliberate. It acts as a filter. It repels candidates looking for a purely transactional relationship. It attracts candidates who already feel something for this place.

The production itself was a test of patience. Southern Alberta weather doesn’t cooperate with rigid schedules. We shot across multiple days, waiting for the light. A locked-in timeline would have produced flat, grey footage. By staying flexible, we captured the dramatic skies that define this landscape.

The Result

The campaign became the foundation of the City’s entire recruitment voice.

The videos live on the careers page, integrated directly into the application flow. The same language appears in job postings, seasonal hiring campaigns, and volunteer recruitment for boards and commissions. Every touchpoint sounds like the same organisation.

The City has reported significant recruitment wins since launch, including 43 physicians recruited to the community and successful hires for specialised roles in housing and clean energy programs.

But the result that surprised us most was the adoption.

A year after the campaign launched, a local artist collective applied for a downtown activation grant using the same name: “For the Love of Lethbridge.” They weren’t connected to the City project. They just used the phrase because it felt true.

When independent creators voluntarily adopt your slogan for their own charitable work, you know something landed. The campaign stopped being a government message and became a shared vocabulary.

What we learned from this project is that the most effective recruitment tool isn’t a clever tagline or a cinematic drone shot. It’s permission. Permission to say out loud what people already feel.

The City didn’t invent civic pride in Lethbridge. They just gave it a voice.

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