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Alberta’s “image” problem? It’s not Alberta!

Alain Saffel — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:07:14 +0000

Can things get any worse for Alberta’s new branding initiative? After taking a lot of flak about the slogan “Alberta: freedom to create. Spirit to achieve” and even more flak about the price tag, $25 million, it’s been discovered one of the photos used in the campaign isn’t even from Alberta.
Today Edmonton Journal columnist Paula Simons told the story about the latest chapter in Alberta’s ill-fated rebranding. It’s an interesting story. You wonder how, or if, it could get any worse for the Alberta government.

How did it get worse? One of the photos they used in their campaign was of Northumberland beach in England near Bamburgh Castle; quite a famous beach.

Sure, it’s not the end of the world, and really, it’s funny, depending on whether you’re in government or not, but it sure doesn’t help Alberta’s PR efforts. It seems sort of… small time.

They say that any publicity is good publicity, but Alberta’s had plenty of bad publicity these days. I’m wondering when Edmonton PR company Calder Bateman’s $25 million campaign is going to start generating positive results for the province.

I’ll cut Calder Bateman some slack though. They’ve really got an uphill battle to try and rebrand Alberta. The oilsands aren’t exactly the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and every ecologically-conscious person on Earth seems to have the oilsands as a target. It’s hard to fight that. You can see the oilsands from space though; so that’s something.

Image of an English beach

One thing is obvious: doing PR for Alberta is not easy! You have to be aware of every little detail, like race. Yes, now that’s become an issue. I mean, I don’t really think it’s an issue, but somebody raised it, so now it is.

Paula Simons brought up the observation that there are few, if any, “ethnic” faces in the promotional video.

Nobody’s denying that Alberta has a rich cultural heritage and is made up of a diverse ethnic population. Dropping in some video from any one of Alberta’s many cultural festivals would have proven that. Just wait for the “racist” labels to start flowing now.

Now Alberta’s PR efforts are damned if they do and damned if they don’t with Paula Simons suggesting:

“We shouldn’t include token “minority” faces in our promotional video because that’s the “politically correct” thing to do. We should include them because they represent the rich reality of contemporary Alberta. We should be celebrating and promoting our authentic cultural diversity because it’s what makes us unique.”

So now if any promotional videos include Alberta’s minorities, they’ll be pandering. If they don’t, they’re racist. It’s a rare day when I feel sympathy for politicians, but today I do. I can respect their desire to rebrand Alberta and show the world what a wonderful place Alberta is. Unfortunately, the whole exercise has just blown up in their face.

Rather than spending $25 million on rebranding the province, they should be focusing some serious effort on making the whole oilsands project more environmentally friendly. The whole operation has a huge carbon footprint (it uses massive amounts of natural gas and other fuels), its huge toxic tailings ponds are leaking and killing ducks and it uses very large amounts of fresh water (which ends up in the toxic tailings ponds). From what I’ve heard, there’s also a great deal of air pollution that results from the operation too.

I can see why the $25 million rebranding initiative was done. It just seemed like the easier way to go. They must be thinking otherwise now.

Oilsands PR disaster continues: 1,600 dead ducks

Alain Saffel — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:00:47 +0000

You’d think that executives at oilsand company Syncrude would have learned, but it’s obvious they haven’t after revealing that it wasn’t just 500 ducks that died in their toxic settling ponds, but 1,600. (CBC story on dead ducks.)

Who advises these guys? Looking at this whole thing from a public relations perspective, and with the Alberta oilsands under attack from practically the rest of the world, you’d think they’d realize that you should put the bad news out first. All of it.

Be right up front with the disaster and lay it all out. You don’t want people thinking that you’ve swept it under the carpet, have something to hide, have skeletons in the closet, etc. Of course, that’s the line of thinking. People inherently don’t trust the oilsands companies anyway, but there would be a chance of that if they handled these things properly.

The perception might change slightly if you’re the first to the table with bad news, exactly what happened and what you’re doing to stop it from happening again. It defuses the media a bit because they’re so used to the opposite. It will hopefully help the perception that you’re truly sorry and are really taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again. And, hopefully, the company really is.

Any true PR professional would have advised Syncrude to go public with all the details immediately and not extend the news cycle on this fiasco. If Syncrude executives didn’t listen, shame on them.

The whole situation with the oilsands is going to take more than just a $25 million publicity campaign by the Alberta government to make it go away. For world opinion to change, there’s going to have to be real action to clean up the tar ponds and minimize the carbon footprint. There are no shortcuts.

I’m just curious how they’re going to handle it when it happens again, because it will.<–>

Zi.ma is gone, @martinbowling in jail

Alain Saffel — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:07:47 +0000

I have always been a big fan of a little website called zi.ma. I was sad to learn yesterday that the creator of the site, Martin Bowling, was sentenced, just over a week ago, for committing credit card fraud.

I guess Martin fraudulently used credit cards to purchase just under $5,000 worth of goods. It’s really a shame he did that. He was sentenced to three years in West Virginia for the crime. I’ve chatted with Martin on Twitter and I like Martin. That won’t change either. It’s a shame he’s ruined a promising career and everything’s come crumbling down around him.

What I’m pissed about, and apparently there are many others who are upset in this case, is the sentence. Three years for credit card fraud? Doesn’t that seem a little harsh for someone who has no record? There have been many people who’ve been convicted of far worse crimes and only had house arrest. I remember one case where a guy molested his daughter many times and never ended up in jail. The judge should be convicted of stupidity in that case.

I think judges should really weigh whether it’s worth the cost to the taxpayer to keep someone in jail who’s not violent or dangerous, depending on the severity of their original crime of course. I don’t think crime should go unpunished, but why not community service, restitution and fines?

What’s happened to zi.ma?

The great thing about zi.ma was that it was a URL shortening service that tracked visits through the URL you created. Now it’s been redirected to kl.am. Apparently the arrangement is legitimate, but kl.am pales in comparison. The name sucks too. But, I’ll use it because I don’t know of any other service that does the same thing. Know any?

It’s nice that the old zi.ma URLs have been recovered to an extent, along with the statistics. I’m not sure how accurate or complete either are.

Martin Bowling’s future

According to the story, Martin could get out of jail on parole within 12 months. Let’s hope he does and that he gets back on the path to success quickly. I hope for his sake that it does happen. Hang in there Martin! You do have support out there.

Story update:

March 24 – Martin Bowling hoping to serve sentence at home

Writing press releases & more this week

Alain Saffel — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 03:30:04 +0000

I haven’t blogged all week, so you must be wondering what I’ve been up to. It’s been a productive week I must say!

I have worked on my next big article entitled: “how to get the media to pick up your news release.” Still not done yet. I think I’m writing a book on it! I want to polish it up a little more before I send it out. It might end up being a multi-part story.

I don’t like to rattle off poorly thought out blog posts and would rather have a better quality article instead of a shoot-from-the-lip piece.

That being said, I’ve been doing some search engine optimization work on some of my sites, client sites and have had a couple meetings with potential SEO clients. I’ve also met with some potential public relations clients, mainly doing press releases and media outreach.

I love this kind of work. It really gets my creative juices flowing. It’s been four weeks since I was laid off from my last job (now I’ve started my own Edmonton SEO company). I’m not seeing it as a bad thing necessarily. I’ve been writing a lot more and felt more creative in the last few weeks than I have in a long time. It’s been great!

I have rattled off a half-dozen articles this week and plan on publishing those in the near future, so make sure you keep checking back.

While the fruits of my labour might not be out there for all to see (yet), they will be soon.

Will write for food!

On that note, I might as well see if there’s anyone who needs any writing done. I am capable of writing just about anything, but if it’s a sequel to War and Peace, that’s going to cost you!

I was thinking more along the lines of blogging, articles (I’m a former newspaper reporter), press releases, website copy, ad copy, ebooks, etc. I might even do an obituary if you really want. Maybe you’d like yours done in advance? Don’t leave it to the last minute!

I believe in writing well-researched, quality copy. I think that there’s a sad lack of quality writing out there these days and people know it. I believe that readers appreciate well-written articles and web content. If you’re looking for something like that, let me know.

Just go over to my new Contact page to get in touch with me.

Cruising around Edmonton

I was out on my scooter the other day in one of Edmonton’s many beautiful old neighbourhoods. I found the La Boheme building down 111 Ave. This city has many architectural gems. I love these old buildings. It’s nice to see a city that preserves its heritage.

I’ve lived in places where heritage doesn’t mean much and the cheapest construction is preferred. I’m not sure if I can take cinder blocks and metal siding anymore. Not making much of a statement with that kind of construction.

I am happy to be living in Edmonton. We made a good choice coming here. The people are friendly and it really is a beautiful city.

Comments:

1. Adam Snider Says: October 24th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

I’m not sure I’d say that Edmonton preserves it’s heritage. I mean, we’ve been doing better lately, but in the ’70s and ’80s (the last oil boom) a lot of old building were destroyed in the name of progress, and cheap, ugly, concrete rectangles were erected everywhere because they were the easiest and fastest things that could be built.

While there are a lot of gems in Edmonton, the city is unfortunately pretty ugly compared to most major Canadian cities (especially older, eastern cities).

Don’t get me wrong, I love Edmonton and I think there are a lot of beautiful areas in the city. But, taken as a whole, I’d have to say that Edmonton is pretty ugly because, for so long, no one cared about history and no one cared about erecting buildings that actually had some architectural merit.

2. Iris Says: October 24th, 2008 at 2:38 pm

Alain – I am a PR girl, and if you have some sure-fire ways of getting the media to pick up one of my releases, PLEASE fill me in! My clients would appreciate it.

Adam – I have to reluctantly agree. The fact that Edmonton’s history is so short and the fact that for so long, we didn’t care about preserving that history, has turned my beloved city into a bit of a eyesore, save for a few lovely neighborhoods (Old Glenora, Ada Boulevard etc)

3. Mack D. Male Says: October 24th, 2008 at 3:11 pm

I’d say on the whole, you’re right Adam, Edmonton is not as nice to look at as other major cities. But that’s what makes the gems, such as the one Alain found, all that much better

4. Alain Saffel Says:October 24th, 2008 at 3:49 pm

Thanks for your comments!

Adam/Mack: I can’t speak for the past, but I do see a lot of nice old buildings here. At least they’re doing the work to preserve them now. You can never preserve all of them, but there are some that definitely should be.

I will quarrel with you about being an attractive city. There are a lot of attractive areas here. The new shopping areas, I’d agree, aren’t attractive. Some of the old, run down areas, I’d agree, but look at cities everywhere. They all have run down areas. They all have these clone malls.

It’s impossible to compete with the history of cities back east, but I think Edmonton is doing a good job generally. If you want to see an ugly city, try my hometown of Prince George, B.C. It’s better now, but has a long way to go. Kamloops has a nice downtown.

And how could you possibly hope to compete with the natural beauty of Vancouver?

I think Edmonton’s bigger issue is the rate at which we’re consuming productive farmland for what amounts to ugly sprawl. To me, row upon row of condos is not attractive. More non-descript shopping malls are ugly.

Iris: I’ll have my article out next week so you can check it out. I wouldn’t say they’re sure-fire ways, but will improve your odds. Let me know what you think once you’ve read it.