Report blames Regina’s sexualized rebranding fiasco on unnamed junior staffer, but critics say that’s absurd | CBC News

An investigative report into Regina’s recent rebranding fiasco, which played on the fact that Regina rhymes with vagina, blames a junior staffer, who it says authorized the publishing of sexualized slogans to the city’s tourism website without management authorization.

But CBC’s review of the report, documents obtained through access to information and other public records shows that Regina Exhibition Association Ltd. (REAL), Regina’s tourism arm, was using those slogans months before, including commissioning a hoodie with the slogan, “The City that Rhymes with Fun.”

The campaign, which launched March 16, received international mockery and criticism for its use of that slogan and another, “Show me your Regina.”

“The issue of who initiated the surprise release of slogans onto the Experience Regina website lies at the heart of the ‘Incident,’ ” wrote Alberta consultant George Cuff in his report, released last month.

Regina city councillor Andrew Stevens doesn’t buy that. He says REAL couldn’t have been surprised about those slogans or their inclusion in the tourism campaign, noting the whole rebrand was designed around the vision “Make Regina sexy.”

“This was not just some lowly marketing grad who put together a slogan and it happened to weasel its way through a maze of oversight mechanisms,” said Stevens. “It was all deliberate. This was not an accident.”

The campaign was cancelled days after it launched, and REAL hired Cuff to investigate. Stevens was one of the people who recommended Cuff.

The report said there were many contributing elements — poor oversight, a busy CEO and underfunding — but the biggest single factor was when a junior employee gave the thumbs up for the website with sexualized slogans to go live. 

“So the first time he probably had an opportunity to make a significant decision and he did so without getting the green light from somebody up the food chain,” said Cuff in a news conference.

Cuff said he was told the racy catch-phrases “were considered at best ‘draft slogans.’ ” He said he was told it was going to take another couple of weeks before the site was ready for public consumption.

“So there was no need to worry about, ‘Is this publicly palatable or isn’t it?’ because there was no urgency around that,” said Cuff in an interview with CBC.

Stevens said that he and the rest of council received a briefing shortly after the March controversy, but until he read Cuff’s report last month, he had heard nothing to suggest that the troubles were caused by a low-level employee.

“There was no indication this was an ‘oops’ until this report comes out,” Stevens told CBC. 

Have a tip? Contact Geoff Leo at geoff.leo@cbc.ca

‘Groupthink’ inside REAL

Sean Tucker, a University of Regina professor who writes reports for organizations, told CBC he’s surprised that no one inside REAL appears to have pushed back. 

“Surely somebody at REAL would have had discomfort with this,” said Tucker. “And the question is, why didn’t they speak up and why did this get so far along?”

Cuff’s report acknowledges there was “groupthink” inside REAL. 

“It is our understanding that there seemed to be a reluctance to question process as though that had already been endorsed. This type of ‘groupthink’ was not healthy,” the report says. 

At one point in his report, he appears to question his conclusion that the “heart” of the matter relates to the actions of the junior employee, asking if senior management had the greater responsibility.

“Was it a reflection of the ‘tone at the top’ (‘just go for it!’) or independent and perhaps inexperienced exuberance?” Cuff asked.

Tucker said he wishes Cuff’s 114-page report would have answered that critical question. 

“This analysis was needed to understand why this campaign happened.” 

Instead, Tucker said, Cuff’s report focuses on irrelevant details like a five-page list of REAL’s accomplishments, a deep dive into the intricacies of the organization’s policy and even a review of its history dating back to the 1800s. 

“Tell us more about the culture at REAL. What was the tone at the top? We’re not clear on that in this report,” said Tucker.

How it all began

REAL took over the operations of Tourism Regina in July 2022. This was in addition to its existing role running Regina’s exhibition properties. 

The company almost immediately started working on a rebrand of the city based on the vision statement: “Let’s make Regina sexy,” according to a PowerPoint presentation created in July/August of 2022. 

It offered some “catchy” tagline suggestions including one of the sexualized slogans — “City that rhymes with fun.” 

REAL was shooting for a brand relaunch on Dec. 5, 2022, according to Cuff’s report. 

It says a senior REAL manager reached out to Regina clothing company 22Fresh in November 2022, encouraging it “to make use of one of the sexualized logos ‘City that Rhymes With Fun’ and to have that ready for the proposed December launch.”

Kristen McLeod, a former Tourism Regina director, said this clearly shows REAL approved the use of that sexualized slogan long before the March 2023 launch. 

“The slogans didn’t just happen the night before the brand launch,” said McLeod, who is working with a group of outraged Regina women who are analyzing controversy and creating a timeline, trying to figure out why this went so badly off the rails. 

“I question the judgment of every single person in any room who saw or were aware of hoodies containing these slogans,” she said. “I’m surprised that got anywhere, any traction, that it was ever written down, that it was turned into a slogan on a hoodie.

A puzzling contradiction

In its review, CBC noticed a striking contradiction between George Cuff’s public comments about those hoodies and what he said in his report. 

At his July 13 news conference, Cuff said 22Fresh made them without REAL’s approval.

“And so I think [REAL] thought, ‘That’s up to them, that they’re a private company. They can do what they want with regard to their own materials and merchandise. We haven’t endorsed this yet.’ “

Yet his report says REAL encouraged the company to have the “City that Rhymes with Fun” hoodies available for the December launch. 

The contradictions don’t end there. 

In a March 20 letter to the REAL board, CEO Tim Reid acknowledged that the hoodies were approved by Tourism Regina. 

In an email, CBC asked Cuff about the contradictions.

He he doesn’t recall having seen Reid’s letter to the board.

He said REAL told him directly that 22Fresh “had proceeded without REAL authorization” when it made the “City that Rhymes with Fun” hoodies.

He said he would check into all of this and if necessary “issue a correction to what I have publicly said.” CBC hasn’t heard from him since he wrote that. 

‘It’s meant to be cheeky’

The planned Dec. 5 launch was pushed to a later date in December, then pushed again to February. 

A Dec. 7 PowerPoint presentation shows that the vision for the brand relaunch remained “To make Regina sexy.” And the “rhymes with fun” slogan was still around too. 

One of the slides featured the slogan “Do it in Regina,” and offered this explanation: “Don’t worry, it’s meant to be cheeky. This campaign is to own who we are (the city that rhymes with fun).” 

Cuff’s report said during planning sessions, where the sexualized slogans were explored, staff were told, “With everything we do, always ask yourself first, ‘Will it make Regina sexy?’ “

On Jan. 24, the slogan “Show us your Regina” was posted on Tourism Regina’s Twitter account, according to a screen capture posted by Paul Dechene, a journalist who covers Regina city hall.

The Tourism Regina tweet, which has since been deleted, featured a picture of a church with two steeples, saying, “Bet you can’t guess what building this is … wrong answers only!” adding the slogan “Show us your Regina.” 

In his March 17 retweet, Dechene wrote, “Apparently, Tourism Regina’s “show us your regina” campaign dates at least to January.” 

The planned February relaunch didn’t happen either. A new date was set — March 16. 

‘Will everyone like it? No!’

On Instagram, REAL staff began foreshadowing the rebrand campaign, suggesting it might be controversial. 

“Let’s push the narrative; the same old is boring.… Your same old grandma’s Regina is no more!” said the March 3 post. “Will everyone like it? No! But that’s okay.” 

The Cuff report said the website was being constructed and controversial slogans like “Show us your Regina” were added to the site in early March. 

Shortly before noon on March 15, the day before the launch, Tourism Regina’s Instagram account sent direct messages to influencers in the city, asking for help promoting Regina’s “sexy new brand.” 

The message offered swag in exchange for posts using hashtags like “The city that rhymes with fun” and “Look at my Regina.” 

This, once again, seems to suggest the slogans were at the heart of REAL’s rebrand campaign. 

The Cuff report said the March 16 launch was seen, by REAL, as successful. The website went live that day and social media posts began the following day.

“No more pretending who we aren’t but embracing who we are, and we are the city that rhymes with fun,” said a Facebook post which has since been deleted. REAL’s Twitter account told a high profile sportscaster, “Next time you’re in town let’s connect and we can show you our Regina!” 

Reid defends ‘childish’ joking about Regina’s name

The day after the launch, March 17, Reid defended the campaign in an interview with CBC, arguing it is merely leaning into a long-standing joke about the city’s name and the way it is pronounced. 

“I mean, we always talk about the joke — our city is named Regina,” Reid said. “We have artists that come in and they talk about it.” 

In 2006, during a concert at Regina’s Mosaic Stadium, the Rolling Stone’s Mick Jagger said, “Someone told me, ‘Regina, it rhymes with fun.’ ” 

Reid told CBC, “It’s always this kind of undertone almost in this — childish kind of way that exists — and I think this is about embracing it,” he said, adding, “For those that want to have a moment of humour with it, that’s not a bad thing. Embrace it. We’re not changing the name of the city Regina any time soon.” 

However, two days later, after the campaign was widely criticized on social media, he had a change of heart. 

On Sunday, March 19, Reid issued an apology on Twitter, saying, “It was clear that we fell short of what is expected from our amazing community with some of the slogans that we used.” 

Duelling stories

The next day, March 20, he sent a letter to the REAL board in which he described the chronology of events. 

“On Friday, (March 17) we received some feedback on the brand change, some questions on the decisions around Experience Regina but nothing that would be beyond the scope of traditional business,” Reid wrote. 

U of R professor Tucker noted that Reid’s description of what happened the day after the website with the controversial slogans went live doesn’t seem to match the Cuff report’s version. 

“There’s an inconsistency between Tim Reid’s version of events and George Cuff’s account,” Tucker said. “[Reid] doesn’t say, ‘I’m investigating the unauthorized release of slogans.’ That’s not the message to the board.” 

Instead, Reid seemed to indicate the program rolled out essentially as planned. 

Former tourism director McLeod said if Cuff’s story about a website inappropriately going live was really “at the heart of the ‘incident,’ ” then Reid’s letter and his initial nonchalant tone talking about nothing “beyond the scope of traditional business,” doesn’t make sense. 

“It would be an entirely different letter if some rogue employee did something and blew up your brand. It would be, you know, ‘We are managing the fallout from the actions [of a rogue employee],” she said.

Reid’s letter indicates that the sexualized tone of the campaign was on purpose, saying, “Our stakeholders asked us to be cheeky in the development of our brand.” 

He also told the board, “We tested our brand position with agencies and stakeholders” before the campaign launched. 

But he said by the weekend, it became “clear based on the public feedback that we overstepped what might be considered reasonable,” adding that the “negativity” surrounded “the use of our city name Regina as a play on words.” 

“The accountability for this should be mine solely,” he said to the board. 

‘Push the boundaries’

In his report, Cuff agreed that Reid, as CEO, bears the ultimate responsibility. 

Cuff said Reid admitted he was “not as engaged as he should have been.” He said the CEO was busy running a large organization and also ran a private business on the side (with the approval of the board).

Cuff said he discovered a host of problems within the organization, including “a lack of managerial oversight, loose procedures, inadequate policy guidance and unavailable senior staff.”  Members of REAL’s management team told Cuff there was “inadequate leadership, no job manuals, no checks/balances, no due diligence, no guardrails.” 

In the midst of all of that, the CEO was encouraging REAL staff to “push the boundaries” in the development of the campaign. In addition, Cuff said, there was pressure to ” ‘get on with it’ due to earlier missed deadlines.” 

Cuff found that rush may help explain why REAL failed to run the slogans past focus groups of Regina residents. “The absence of focus groups reduced the number of potential ‘eyes’ on what was being rolled out,” he noted. 

Were focus groups supposed to be part of the plan? The Cuff report found conflicting evidence. 

He said the advertising agency hired to assist REAL, Brown Communications, “was not tasked with doing focus groups.” 

But then, Cuff notes parenthetically, “(This was not as portrayed to the Board who recall being advised that Brown had done focus groups without any pushback).” 

The REAL board chair, Wayne Morsky has declined an interview for this story. 

Stevens says that’s unacceptable. 

“You’re in a public organization. You’re accountable to the public,” he said. “I have no time for folks who shy away from these interviews. That’s their job.” 

CBC asked for an interview with Reid. A REAL spokesperson said he is not authorized to discuss this topic. 

‘No evidence of pushback’

Cuff said during his investigation, he found “no evidence of pushback” against the sexualized slogans from any of the 51 people he interviewed. 

“There should have been,” Cuff told CBC in a telephone interview. “Somebody should have … been the adult in the room and said sorry but this isn’t going to fly. This is not part of who we think Regina is … so take that stuff back and come back with something that’s funny and so on but a heck of lot cleaner.” 

City councillor Stevens doubts Cuff’s claim that no one pushed back. 

He said he has heard from confidential sources and has seen documented evidence that officials in tourism, in the city of Regina and in the federal government voiced concerns but “that kind of fell on deaf ears.”

In an internal chat group, City of Regina communications staff discussed the problematic campaign as it rolled out in March.

“It was very apparent to us at the office that our team was not involved and I really wish that they were,” the city staffer wrote. “Seems like something that needed someone to pump the brakes at some point.” 

‘No apparent need to fire anyone’

In the end, Cuff recommended the organization improve its policies, procedures and communications. 

He also recommended that no one should be dismissed. 

“Personnel changes are not required based on the ‘Incident.’ There is no apparent need to fire anyone connected to this episode.” 

McLeod said she and her group are disappointed with this report. She said she’s not pushing for anyone to lose their job, but she does wish that the CEO, the board and this report had been more transparent about what actually happened. 

She said the way this has unfolded, “calls into question the integrity of not only the report but [REAL] itself and that then affects how citizens trust and move about in a community.”