Abbotsford Police Department

Abbotsford Police Department (AbbyPD) provides services to a culturally diverse rural and urban community of more than 178,000 people. The department emphasizes community engagement and education as a strategy to help prevent crime, rather than relying solely on reactive enforcement. In addition to the typical policing issues associated with a growing population, the team has faced some unique challenges, such the devastating floods of 2021.

THE ASK

In 2023, in response to the challenges and opportunities AbbyPD was facing in a rapidly growing city, Indalma’s brand strategists were brought in to help refresh and strengthen the agency’s brand.

The department has a higher-than-average community approval rating, and it wanted to deepen that connection and create a strategy for increasing brand awareness and engagement among a wider, more diverse audience. AbbyPD was looking for ways tell a larger brand story – to both their employees and the community – about their vision statement, “Strength in Community”.

THE WORK

Indalma began with a Brand Discovery, working with a group of sworn and civilian stakeholders to explore the existing brand, establish specific goals for a brand refresh project, identify the brand’s target audiences and market position, and develop a brand identity that would resonate with key audiences. One of the tasks coming out of the Discovery would be to gather the agency’s unique selling propositions into a single and compelling brand story.

During the Discovery session, the group identified the need to explore the organization’s internal culture with a larger group of employees, to ensure the refreshed brand would align with the employee experience.

The follow-up session, a Cultural Discovery, was a day-long exploration of what “Strength in Community” meant to employees, identifying lived organizational values, and the gaps, challenges and opportunities in the employee experience. At the end of the session, we asked employees to describe a vision, moving forward, for a thriving internal community.

Both Discovery sessions were documented in detailed reports that outlined our findings.

Since those sessions in 2023, Indalma has continued to act as a strategic creative partner for AbbyPD. Our team enhances their ability to create brand-forward, professional-looking marketing materials in a range of languages, including: community safety campaigns, surveys, vehicle graphics, and digitized patches.

AbbyPD continues to reinforce their identity as a community-focused agency. By providing consistent, relevant, and transparent content online, they have trained their community to visit their social channels as a trusted source of information. When needed, they back up their online communication with targeted, door-to-door communication– using doorhangers to spread the word about anti-extortion measures, safety campaigns, and surveys. Leveraging the tools they have on hand, this agency manages to stay connected with their community and amplify their presence across a vast territory.

To see more of the branding work Indalma has done for police agencies, please visit our portfolio pages for Port Moody Police Department, Delta Police Department, Surrey Police Service and Grande Prairie Police Service. To see the full range of branding services we offer police agencies, please visit our Policing section.

OUR SERVICES 

• Brand Discovery sessions and report

• Cultural Discovery workshop and report

• Design and editing services for 2023-26 Strategic Plan

• Community safety campaigns and surveys

  • Doorknockers

  • Posters

  • Social media posts

  • Newspaper ads

  • Rack cards

  • Retractable banners

• Digitized Truth and Reconciliation patch

• Consultation for crest redesign

• Vehicle graphics for Community Engagement vehicles

  • Graphic design

  • Series of vinyl vehicle posters