That’s the question on the lips of some people as they consider the success of the innovative Evocities campaign.

Launched to great fanfare in 2010 as a means to strengthen regional cities, it appears to have achieved moderate success.

However, it’s hard to quantify exactly what that success is and whether the large injection of public funds has been justified.

There’s no doubt it was a clever and unique idea which stemmed from former Wagga City Council staffer Garry Wells way back in 2004.

His idea: get seven inland NSW cities together for a marketing campaign to collectively promote their regions.

It targeted Sydneysiders and sought to lure them to the country through a variety of means like billboards, bus signs and a swish looking website.

Every level of government thought this was the best thing since the Big Banana at promoting regional NSW and before it even began more than $2.1 million was thrown into the pot to see this vision achieved.

The federal government has since launched a nation-wide campaign modelled on the same idea.

But has Evocities been successful?

Well, maybe. And that’s about as good an answer as you will get.

The marketing may subtly change urbanites view of “the bush” but it’s hard to gauge that.

It’s also impossible to tell if people have been influenced by the campaign and moved but haven’t told the Evocities team.

By its one-year anniversary 38 people had made the transition to Wagga through the formal Evocities process.

That might not sound too bad for a fledgling initiative except for the fact this broad number includes children and possibly even newborn babies.

An Evocities spokesman on its anniversary refused to say how many individual families make up this number – arguing the total figure is a better representation.

This means potentially only a handful of people may have made the conscious decision to move and campaign organisers are claiming credit for youngsters who obviously had no say in the matter.

This comes to the heart of another issue of Evocities, which is who is promoting its success and why.

While every level of government contributed funds, the campaign is run by a PR company which wants to convince us Evocities is working.

This isn’t to say they mislead us, but it’s fair to assume they aren’t going to champion Evocities’ conclusion either.

For their part the councils involved also won’t want to admit they have invested in a failure and there’s the added pressure of not wanting to be the first council to pull out and undermine the project.

But what is beginning to be talked about is the future of Evocities, and there are differing opinions here.

Do you bury the proverbial horse or apply the defibrillator and hopefully jump-start it back into action?

“That’s the million dollar question,” said Wagga councillor Wayne Geale.

Who, incidentally, is the former chairman of council’s tourism and marketing committee and board member for Riverina Regional Tourism.

“Personally I think it’s winding down when it should be winding up,” he said.

“You might argue it’s running on its past glories.”

Evocities supporters argue it’s still too early to tell how successful the campaign has been and that it was always a long-term process.

Regardless, if more public money is going to be invested into the campaign there needs to be strong evidence to justify it.

Greater transparency on who exactly is included in the numbers wouldn’t go astray either.