“In the 1960′s little Leavenworth, Washington’s population had dwindled significantly since its boom days as a railroad and logging town east of Seattle. Town officials dreamed up a last ditch effort to save the town from total demise and converted it to a Bavarian-themed destination. Businesses caught on and now the town is as alpine as can be in the Cascade Range. Surprisingly without being too kitschy, Leavenworth is a must-stop town for tourists and Washington locals alike. Now with their nutty mascot, Woody Goomsba and this hilarious video, Leavenworth is making the most of its reinvented location.”

This is brilliant. I’m still amazed that small town leadership would take such a huge risk, but it has paid off big time. They did something fun, the campaign got noticed and they are reaping the benefits. (A nice outcome given the dire straits the town was in before they conceived of this.)

Here are the takeaways for economic development and tourism professionals – it works because:

• It takes a stand and takes a risk
• It embraces a niche market and sells the hell out of it
• It’s a complete campaign that engaged the local community
• It’s funny, memorable and completely unexpected from LEAVENWORTH (!) – how can you not take notice?

Sure beats “Live. Work. Play.” now doesn’t it?  

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.

#5 Teleflora – Faith Hill

No rocket science here, this one just made me giggle. Faith’s delivery of “So you just sent that?” and Sound Guy’s subsequent delivery of “My heart told me to” make the spot.

#4 Career Builder – Parking Lot

I love it when a brand revisits something that worked well and puts a new twist on it. This ad gives the viewer enough credit to remember the excellent 2006 chimpanzee spots Career Builder ran, and revisits our miserable employee and his chimp coworkers in the parking lot.

#3 Bridgestone – Reply All

An excellent spot that actually shows the product it’s advertising in use. For your next email gaffe, make sure you’re riding on Bridgestones.

#2 Chrysler – Imported From Detroit

The cinematography is gritty and beautiful, and this one gets on3 bonus points for the excellent place branding for Detroit. “Imported from Detroit” is the best piece of copywriting of all the Superbowl ads.

#1 Audi – Escape Old Luxury

And our pick for top spot goes to Audi for a spot that is genuinely creative from concept to the final line “Escape Old Luxury”. Nice to see something really different, although it would have been much better without the Kenny G cameo at the end.

The campaign asks residents to submit their “with love” idea in the hopes of  having them selected to appear on one of the billboards along I-95 purchased for the campaign. They are also encouraged to share their billboard ideas via social networks, thus increasing the reach of the campaign further.

Although crowdsourced campaigns often have the potential to go terribly wrong (see Gap logo fiasco October 2010), this one falls less on the side of exploiting the crowd being sourced, and more on the side of rallying that crowd to create pride in the city they love. It is admittedly a very fine line.

This campaign is smart and they are already getting great material for the billboards. The sharing, bragging and smiles that will come from this campaign will have a positive effect on the city and its visitors. A nice initiative all around.

You can learn more here.

Found via Place Marketing Group.

If your email recipients like your content, they can use the buttons to quickly share it with their network, thus increasing the reach of your communication and encouraging new subscribers.

It’s as easy as adding a quicklink in the 3mail editor:

What’s even better, is that every time someone tweets or likes your content, it shows up in your 3mail campaign reports in real-time, closing the loop and helping you to see how often your content is shared on these social networks.

We are very excited about this new feature, and have more in the works. Next up: Unlimited monthly plans for 3mail’s heavy users who prefer to pay a flat fee instead of paying everytime they send. You asked, and we’ll deliver! Look for this update in February 2011.

About 3mail:

3mail is an email marketing tool designed specifically for economic development and tourism. With 3mail, you’ll know exactly how your campaigns are performing. See who opened, clicked and forwarded your email.

3mail lets you:

1. Create and send your own beautiful email campaigns
2. Manage and grow your recipient lists
3. Review powerful reports and campaign statistics

Check it out here and start sending amazing email campaigns today. Thanks for your continued support. We hope you love this new feature as much as we do!

This post represents the best of what I thought was tweet-worthy in 2010. I challenge you to do the same and post your best of in the comments section or @ me on Twitter.

You can follow me here. I’d love to connect.

- HC

Best Tweets of Q4

One of the best posts I’ve read on writing for the web and email: http://ow.ly/3vMX3

RT @mashable 5 Ways Cities Are Using Social Media to Reverse Economic Downturn – http://on.mash.to/hm2l2n #econdev #placebranding

Very cool. RT @fastcompany San Francisco Aims for 100% Green Power by 2020 http://bit.ly/fKJpO0 #econdev

Hip does not equal sustainable. RT @mellormurray Great post – Cool or uncool cities? What really matters is prosperity http://ow.ly/3p20G

Need a social media policy for your EDO? Good database of corporate, gov’t and non-profit examples here: http://ow.ly/3hq2k #econdev #sm

RT @mellormurray How do you measure economic development success? http://ow.ly/39xqD

Approaching tourism from a regional perspective. Applies to #econdev too. http://ow.ly/35v4G (via @sandyratliff)

RT @jupia Low corporate taxes not a major draw of foreign investment; Conference Board http://bit.ly/c7TRa7

Business incubators as an #econdev tool – more likely to succeed AND stay local when they do – http://bit.ly/b4H7KK (via @EcDevComDev)

Best Tweets of Q3

Data as a municipal asset. http://bit.ly/b2A36R (via @MartinProsperiT) We were pretty impressed when Vancouver did this: http://ow.ly/2K8OH

Interesting ideas in here for cities/ #econdev too RT @mashable How Universities Can Win Big With Location-Based Apps – http://mash.to/2Io3I

Good news for small cities! RT @urbanophile Michigan State Study: Networks, not size, give cities competitive edge – http://is.gd/eTB9H

Don’t rely on clean tech industries for job creation: http://ow.ly/2qoIT via McKinsey Quarterly

How cities are using mobile apps for tourism and economic development http://ow.ly/2qoFL #econdev #tourism #placebranding

Why low taxes alone won’t get the job done for economic development. http://bit.ly/apHlhT via @edmarketingpro #econdev

“I‘ve seen thousands of ads that were too complicated or too generic. I’ve never seen one that was too simple or too specific”-@adcontrarian

Is marketing really the job of economic developers? Damn right it is. Our thoughts on why: http://ow.ly/2keu5 #econdev

Best Tweets of Q2

Make lemonade out of a tourism lemon: Wales sells the hell out of its shortcomings http://ow.ly/21aSs #placebranding #tourism

Real-life example of the diff’ce a copywriting tweak can make: Adding the word “not” increases organ donors like crazy! http://ow.ly/23leJ

For economic developers, tourists in your city are like fish in a barrel. They are here, loving the place – take aim and market like crazy!

Marketing in lean economic times is a competitive advantage. Here’s why: http://ow.ly/1Tvn1

One of the most pragmatic and intelligent articles I’ve read about social media measurement. http://bit.ly/c5qI4B @AmberCadabra

A great tourism campaign rises from the ash cloud: http://ow.ly/1VENs Iceland’s new commercial is sooooo good. #econdev #tourism

Australia seeks to attract business investment with new logo. http://ow.ly/1PKhx Australia Unlimited? I give it a 4 out of 10.

@PureMichigan deserves their own “Ads We Love” blog post I think. Amazing job guys. http://bit.ly/9O8ldx

on3 is THRILLED to announce that we’ll be opening an Atlantic Canada office! http://bit.ly/de5OXk

Best Tweets of Q1

Colorado tries to woo California companies away with campaign professing their love: http://bit.ly/baITtc

Email marketing you can measure: http://bit.ly/bKy5WU

Love how this CEO thinks about digital vs. traditional – i.e. there is no “vs.” http://bit.ly/cyY1kD Found via @danaditomaso (via @acriley)

Why companies are choosing to locate in smaller cities. http://bit.ly/7KGiaM

Survey of 1,000+ EDOs (US): Median marketing budget for effective marketers? $99,000. Ineffective ones? $40,000 from http://bit.ly/aIJ1BE

The avg company that blogs: 55% more visitors, 97% more inbound links, 434% more indexed pages. via @hubspot. Only 11% of Cdn EDOs blog.

Test your email campaigns to improve results! Lots of studies that show why it’s so worth it can be found here: http://bit.ly/9CUsIV

Eleven myths of economic development. http://bit.ly/5v9Og

Neat tourism/ec dev idea: private company sponsoring free parking. In this case, very colourful! http://bit.ly/c6fbgv via @ibelieveinadv

Place Branding: 5 ways to get it right http://bit.ly/ak7esO

If you are a city/region on Twitter, you WILL get negative feedback. The opportunity lies in how you respond.

Why you shouldn’t hire a local marketing agency: http://bit.ly/8Ah0oo

Microsoft is off to an excellent start with this ad for the new Windows phone. They’re being very strategic by spending big on the creative for the launch. When you’re up against a marketing giant like Apple, you’ve got to bring your A-game and this spot is *really* well done.

Not only is it entertaining, clever and wonderfully shot, it works because it is so resonant. You watch it and nod because you see yourself or someone you know. It then takes this modern problem of being glued to our smartphones and hits you with their sales pitch to directly address the problem – this phone will let you “get in, get out and get back to life”. Great work.

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.

The towns of Gamvik and Lebesby in Norway have developed a new regional identity that embrace their volatile weather conditions by linking the online version of their logo directly to the Norwegian Meterological Institute data. The online logo updates every 5 minutes, and when the temperature or wind direction changes, so does the colour and orientation of logo:

What a great concept for an identity. In the case of Nordkyn, with its arctic and rapidly-changing weather conditions, this is a distinctive and smart logo that deserves a big kudos for doing something really different and fun. The tagline – “Where Nature Rules” – is reflected directly in the execution of the logo. Neat.

Here are some applied executions from the website of Oslo’s Neue Design that did the work:

PRINT AD:

VARIOUS ITERATIONS OF LOGO DEPENDING ON TEMP/WIND:

T-SHIRT:

STATIONERY SUITE:

ANOTHER PRINT AD:

I love that some of the most creative ideas are coming out of tiny places that you’d never expect it from. Great work.

(Found via Brand New)

The on3 team will be attending the Annual Economic Developers Association of Canada Conference next week in Quebec City. We hope to see you there. If you’ll be in town for the event, drop us a line and let us buy you a fancy French cocktail. And be sure to attend the presentation of the Marketing Canada Awards, emceed by our own Jim McGimpsey.

We will also be releasing our annual Economic Development Marketing in Canada survey at the conference so if you are a registered delegate, watch your email for a link to download it. To see last year’s survey, click here.