Manitoulin Living has begun its Ontario advertising campaign with ads set to appear in Harrowsmith Magazine and on the CTV television network in Southwestern Ontario beginning in May.The Harrowsmith ad, slated for the May/June issue, features a golfer in mid swing with the phrase "Morning Drive" above the picture. The image hopes to capture the imagination of Southwestern Ontarions who are looking for an alternative to the hustle and bustle and traffic that plagues most of Southern Ontario.
Accompanying the ad in the May/June edition will be a postcard inserted in the poly-bag mail out issue. This image shows a closeup of a brood of ducks congested in a narrow part of the river with the the phrase "Rush Hour" above. The concept is intended to play on urban phrases placed in a rural context.
The CTV ad campaign, scheduled to begin in May as well, spans14 weeks with close to 300 commercials airing in the southwestern Ontario market. The Commercials will use existing footage compiled over the last 8 months and will also be framed around the concept of urban terms in a rural context.Stay tuned in the next few weeks for updated information on Manitoulin Living's 2008 Ad Campaign.
I realize you have the intentions of 'economic development' at heart, trying to build an economy where there are not many options, but as someone who has seen this erosion happen his whole live I must ask: are you SURE this is what you want?
ReplyDeleteGrand Bend is gone, Muskoga is gone, Wasaga is gone, the Bruce Peninsula is vanishing at an alarming rate. These were precious reserves of nature and a natural unhurried way of life.
Manitoulin is the next precious space within reach of SouthWestern Ontario, saved from the rampages of the urban development culture only by the great 'height' one had to scale to get there, like a Shangrila paradise atop a Tibetan mountain. Your adverts are cute and all, but in my humble opinion, these adverts are asking for trouble, and as I say, I've seen it before. Ducks in water as 'rush hour' and a golf course for a 'morning drive' seem innocuous enough, but consider the target audience, the sort of Islander you are inviting and the demands they will place on your island once they've invested their savings to get there. It won't be enough to have a round of golf every morning, they will want a latte at Starbucks first, and a Wal-mart, they'll want to flush whatever they please and dump whatever they please and, as one of our past (frustrated and departed) public works directors once said, "They want city style services on city style timelines, and don't care about our rural-style budgets."
As I say, I have seen it before. Whole neighbourhoods, whole towns in some cases, one moment there, the next moment, devoured and gone. I have moved many times in my 53 years, and nearly every time for the same reason: I'd found some little bit of undiscovered country that was a gem of a find and thought I'd found home until the bull-dozers and renovators and lawyers and insurance companies arrived, and then,very quickly, it was all gone, all now homogeneously identical to any other bedroom-community suburb of Anytown America.
I escaped from just such an Anytown, and have been running ever since. It boggles my imagination each time I find these places so rich in natural beauty and find the people there in such a hurry to replace it all with strip malls and SandyBay Crescents of Happyville Developments Inc. I struggle to comprehend. "It's jobs," they say, but at what price?
Yes, it is not my land to say what you should do with it; my own family lands were sold off to developers nearly a century ago, but nonetheless, if I were you I would be defending my paradise from all intruders, asking for a stack of personal references for any prospective new settler and as the Aztecs say, be cautious who I invite and be very very careful about yelling out loud in the forest.
Because there may be jaguars out there.
Very well said, and totally agreed!
ReplyDeleteI hear what you say. Be careful what you wish for - you may get it. I understand the dangers of development and the potential loss of what we hold dear here.
ReplyDeleteI've heard similar sentiments (though not so eloquently applied) from many individuals who state they return year after year only to see the further encroachment of "progress".
The key here is "they return". They earn their living elsewhere and they return to Manitoulin. It has become their retreat.
What about those of us who live here? Raise children here? What opportunity exists for those living year round? My family goes back
four generations on this island. I have over 50 cousins. Yet only a handful remain because there are few real living opportunities to stay
so they move elsewhere. Status quo sounds great but who will be here when you want your dock dragged out at season's end or put out the fire
in the woods that threatens your shangrila?
Can families survive here, earn decent livings here, feed their families here without some growth? That remains doubtful. Tourism is
the Key. It's the number one industry here. There are a lot of things we could do without ruining this beautiful island - without making it crassly commercial - without removing the inherent charm that is Manitoulin. The resistance seems to largely come from seasonal visitors and the older generation. Quite frankly, those with the least to lose
in Manitoulin's future. The biggest resource Manitoulin Island loses every year is people. Good people.