Tourism Burnaby is promoting the city this summer in a different kind of way – by making people into walking billboards.
The organization has been selling trendy t’s and tanks as part of their T-shirts for a Cause program, which kicked off June 6 at Hats Off Day.
“We had a lot of buzz before we started,” said Anna Schlagintweit, manager of business development for Tourism Burnaby. “(We) had orders coming in over the phone and by email.”
Of the 500 shirts printed, 167 were sold that day, she added.
“People said they had heard about it online, their friends had shared it. There were people who lived in Burnaby for a really long time that were really excited about it,” she said. “We had a lot of SFU students coming by, and they posted on Instagram and they would come back and get four more for their friends.”
To date, more than half of the T-shirts have made their way into people’s closets.
While Tourism Burnaby’s goal is to promote the city as a destination, Schlagintweit said the initiative is also being used to raise funds for Burnaby Neighbourhood House’s Community Kitchen, a weekly program offered at Edmonds Neighbourhood Resource Centre and Burnaby Neighbourhood House South, where limited-income families join together to prepare healthy meals to take home, and to have lunch.
The design itself, which is set against a dark grey backdrop, is a white outline of Burnaby’s boundaries, with words like Edmonds, Kingsway and Metrotown filling the space.
“There’s a few maps like that floating around for Vancouver and B.C. We were all sitting around one day brainstorming and that’s what we came up with,” Schlagintweit told the NOW.
If the campaign proves to be successful and everything sells out, she added her team will look at doing something similar in the future.
T-shirts come only in adult sizes, from small to double XL, and carry a minimum donation of $10. They can be picked up at Tourism Burnaby’s office, located at 309-4603 Kingsway, by calling 604-419-0377, or by emailing [email protected]. They’ll also be sold at various events throughout the summer, including Burnaby’s Blues and Roots Festival on Aug. 8.
