Lessons from Innnovation

[Mike Gange]

Editorial by Mike Gange

Chances are, if you live between Boston and the Canadian border, you might have heard of Prince Edward Island. If you are a Canadian, you might recall school lessons about PEI, the tiniest Canadian province, as being the birthplace of Confederation. But if you are in Kansas or Ohio or California, you might not have ever heard of PEI, let alone considered vacationing there.

Until this week.

Surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, and known for its locally caught seafood such as lobster, oysters, mussels and fresh fish, as well as its white sandy beaches, fertile red soil and lush pastures, Prince Edward Island is heavily reliant on tourism for a large part of its GDP.  The downturn in the American economy seriously affected tourism to Prince Edward Island and something innovative had to be done to increase traffic. Some bright lights in their tourism department arranged to “buy” Regis and Kelly’s TV show. PEI paid one million dollars to have the popular New York-based talk show move to PEI for one week.

Regis and Kelly were shown eating lobster dinners and discussing which end of the lobster to open first. They were videotaped on local fishing boats, discussing how mussels grow and shown wires of cultivated mussels being harvested. The lush greenness of PEI filled every camera shot as an inviting backdrop.

Nearly a million people requested the free tickets to the live shows on PEI. Hotels all over PEI sold out for that week. Hotels that were available were in the $300 range, and those were very few. Line-ups for the annual musicals performed live on stage at the Arts Centre doubled. PEI Tourism bought Regis and Kelly for the week; the whole of North America bought into PEI.

Innovation spawned innovation. A local ice cream company, Cows, makes their ice cream from PEI milk that comes from PEI cows, that are fed on the lush green PEI pastures. Cows also markets funky, distinctive T-shirts celebrating their ice cream. A few years ago Cows marketed a T-shirt it called Sidney Cowsby, a play on words for Sidney Crosby, the young Canadian hockey star who won the Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh Penguins. This year, Cows unveiled Regis Philbarn and Cowy Ripa T shirts. Of course the company presented Cowy, um Kelly, with one of the shirts. Sure enough, she dropped into the ice cream store with her kids and a camera crew in tow, and talked about the varous flavours of the high end ice cream.

A million bucks went into getting “Live with Regis and Kelly” to come to PEI. The gamble might not pay off this week. But it will in years to come. Every TV station from PEI to the Pacific Ocean carried news clips about the popular talk show coming to the island. The show reached millions of moms, who will sure to influence the family vacation for the next few years. The family-friendly island will be welcoming visitors for years to come all because of the innovative marketing. Proof positive? Among the top ten searches on Google this week: Prince Edward Island.  

So, what's the lesson for media educators?

Maybe we need to do some outside-the-island thinking. Instead of dealing with the media at arms-length, we need to invite the media into our schools, our classrooms. We need to find an issue that shows our kids at their best. Reporting on kids is typically "courts or sports." Kids are either portrayed as criminals-in-the-making, or heroes by the media. We need to find a way to show off our kids thinking, talents and innovations, setting them in the best backdrop possible, the way PEI did for Regis and Kelly.

 

[Anne Gaspers]

Great example!

[Frank W. Baker]

Invite Regis & Kelly to a school and show off its best attributes: teachers and students...AND media literacy as 21st century learning.

[Mike Gange]

The school I teach at is 225 years old....the oldest in Canada (not the building, the organization). We are in the process of arranging to have our local supper hour news broadcast from the school and many of the stories will focus on the students -- scholarships available, high cost of university, other options rather than university for graduating students, profiles of high flyers, etc. The local Breakfast show may also come, and they would be concentrating on the social aspect of the kids at our school.

[Kelly Farrow]

And to make that library connection, don't forget the link between PEI and Anne of Green Gables!!!! ;)