Watching television tonight, I saw the new Ontario Liberal Party ad for the first time. The ad is basically a paraphrased version of the hugely successful Chrysler Superbowl ad that featured Eminem and did a tremendous sales job for Detroit. Both begin with a narrator’s voice over short clips of gritty city scenes and hardworking men and women. In the Chrysler ad, the narrator opens with “I got a question for you…” and the Liberal ad (narrated by Dalton himself) begins with “Ask yourself something…” The similarities only get creepier from there. Watch them in a row below:

The Ontario Liberal Party:

And the original Chrysler version:

Curious, I went to the internet for answers and found this excellent National Post article about the appropriateness of the deliberate rip-off by the Liberals, and the complete lack of ethics of the ad agency that stole from one of its peers. It’s not uncommon to be inspired by each other, or to come up with similar ideas independently, don’t get me wrong. But this crosses the line – for both the Liberal party and the ad agency that represents them.

We are pleased to present the results of the 2nd Annual Economic Development Marketing in Canada survey. In June and July of 2010, we asked members of the Economic Developers Association of Canada about their marketing practices, budgets, challenges and ambitions. The results are now available, and will serve as a valuable resource for the profession when it comes to benchmarking, planning and budgeting.

Some of this year’s key findings include:

• Business attraction is the top-ranked marketing objective. Business retention is a distant second.
• 37% of respondents say their website is the single most effective marketing technique they are using, and 70% have a dedicated, frequently updated web presence.
• With the exception of radio, advertising has decreased overall. Those that indicated they aren’t doing any advertising at all has increased by 8% over the 2009 survey.
• The adoption of social media is increasing, and continues to be the top planned activity identified for 2011.

A big thanks to all the respondents who took the time to participate. We will continue to conduct the survey annually and welcome your feedback, questions and suggestions. We hope you find it useful.

You can view and download the 2010 and 2009 surveys here.