Sorry, Canada: Ely stays put
by Tom Coombe
OVERNIGHT the area was flooded with signs like this one as the spoof began. It attracted the attention of media around the state. Photo by Ann Weckman-Folz
An elaborate April Fool's Day joke - a tall tale that Ely was about to be purchased by and become part of Canada - put the community in the news across the country.
And that's just what the Ely Chamber of Commerce, which released the "news" on April 1, intended.
The Chamber, with the assistance of a Twin Cities marketing firm, was looking for a unique way to raise awareness about Ely and drum up business for the summer tourism season.
If media attention and public response are any indication, the effort paid handsome dividends, including nearly 500 telephone inquiries to the Chamber offices during the hours after the story broke on April Fool's Day.
"It worked better than we ever expected and it's still going strong," said Linda Fryer, the Chamber's administrative director, on Thursday afternoon. "There are stations in Colorado that are just picking up on it now. Our phones are still ringing, but not like it was on Tuesday."
Chamber representatives and local officials including mayor Chuck Novak made guest appearances on radio talk shows in more than 50 markets, including the Twin Cities, Chicago and St. Louis.
The spoof was written about in many newspapers, and the Chamber attracted over 1,500 signatures on an online petition, from people who wanted Ely to remain in Minnesota.
And while most people quickly caught on - realizing that Ontario really had no plans to add Ely into the province - some people fell for the ruse hook, line and sinker.
Fryer reported that the Chamber did take several phone calls from people who believed that Ely was, as indicated in the April 1 reports, to become part of Canada in 2009.
As part of the storyline, Ely officials encouraged visitors to come to the community - the gateway to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness - one last time this summer while it remained a part of the United States.
The initial release stated: "Minnesotans are left wondering if this might be the last summer to enjoy the one million acres of unspoiled wilderness Ely is known for worldwide."
According to Fryer, the media attention served one of its purposes by planting the seed of a potential Ely vacation in the minds of thousands.
"A lot of the comments we got were from people saying that 'I haven't been in Ely in a long time and it's time I got back, and that this made me realize what if Ely wasn't there,'" said Fryer.
Giraffe Consulting of Minneapolis developed the campaign on behalf of the Chamber, and it is the latest in a series of sometimes off-the-wall efforts aimed at increasing Ely's visibility.
It comes on the heels of the "Obsessive Compulsive Fishing" campaign and guerilla marketing efforts that included leaflet drops
and street theater performances in the Twin Cities and Chicago.
The April Fool's joke centered around an idea of what would happen in case Ely was no longer in existence.
The plan was quickly formulated, and the Chamber administration got its members as well as civic officials in on the act.
By the time most area residents woke up Tuesday, the "news" was already being reported on radio stations across the Midwest and there were signs blaring "Say No to Canada" plastered across town and on highways leading to and from town.
Novak was a call-in guest on two separate occasions on Twin Cities FM station 107.1, and the spoof picked up steam.
One of the "Say No" signs even made its way into the hands of Twin Cities television anchor - and host of Ely's Mukluk Ball - Don Shelby. Shelby talked about the spoof during a WCCO-TV newscast.
The signs mysteriously disappeared by Wednesday morning.
"We would have loved to seen them up longer, there were a number of people coming in that wanted to buy the signs or were asking if we were going to do bumper stickers," said Fryer.
The joke prompted several additional take-offs on the campaign - including reports that Ely was fielding counter-offers from Nebraska, Uzbekistan and a private island in the South Pacific.
But reality is that Ely is staying put, and the joke will undoubtedly turn out to be the most talked about part of a multi-dimensional campaign that will take place over the next several weeks - all designed to bring more people to Ely.
Ely, Minnesota. In the United States of America.
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