Caledonia tells world: It's safe to visit us

Blitz hits TV, print and radio

By Jon Wells
The Hamilton Spectator(Aug 21, 2006)

A tourism official in Arkansas once lamented, "it's not that Little Rock had a bad reputation, it's that we had no reputation." These days Caledonia would gladly settle for no reputation, rather than the ugly one that grew like a weed over the summer from the native land occupation.

"Are you sure we can come back into town? Will we be able to get back out again?"

That's what a still leery, out of town friend recently asked Donna Richardson, who owns the Cafe Amore on Argyle Street downtown. Richardson had to reassure her friend. It's fine, the barricades are down, things are back to normal.

That message seems to be the primary goal of a 12-week, $210,000 print, television and radio marketing campaign, paid for by the province, to restore Caledonia's image and bring tourists and shoppers back.

There's a lot of ground to make up.

"Caledonia businesses have lost millions of dollars," said Chris Leosis, who owns the iconic antique and furniture store, Haldimand House.

He said his business this year is down 53 per cent because of the controversy.

One marketing slogan, focusing on Caledonia's small town feel and proximity to Hamilton and other cities, is: "Caledonia: Close by, but a world away."

At the Cafe Amore yesterday, there's the smell of bacon and eggs in the air.

"It's the all-you-can-eat buffet, it's always popular," Richardson said. "But our Saturdays are way down."

Is the marketing campaign working?

"It's too early to tell," she said. "We think the campaign is good, but these things take time."

Marketing experts say that a city, or company, that tries to market itself following a hit to its image, can follow one of two approaches: actually invoke the negative image and counter it, or ignore the bad news completely in the presentation.

Caledonia has chosen the latter tactic.

Ken Hardy, a professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Ont., said it's the right way to go.

"It would be folly for the campaign to say, 'By the way, you can shop or fish safely.' To do that, he added, would be akin to airlines pledging that it's still safe to fly.

"There are fundamental assumptions we make about purchases, and safety is one of them."

The fact is, if you drove yesterday to Caledonia from Hamilton on Highway 6, right into the heart of town, crossed the historic bridge with nine arches, stopped in for a bite at the popular Oasis, checked out the shops, and walked the riverbank, you would not see anything to suggest something unusual happened in Caledonia this summer.

The problematic gateway for the city is to the south, on the road to Hagersville. It is safe, the barricades remain down, but the police cruisers are there just in case, and native flags still fly, along with examples of what one might charitably call counter-marketing, homemade signs that say: "Boycott racism, shop elsewhere" and "Not for sale."

In the big picture, enticing tourists back before summer's end is positive, but also a drop in the bucket for business owners such as Leosis. He's unsure if he'll be able to stay afloat next year. The business has been owned by his family for 70 years. He says the province needs to offer affected Caledonia businesses and homeowners an effective, long-term subsidy program.

Caledonia Mayor Marie Trainer agrees that Caledonia's comeback is a slow process, and more importantly an uncertain one, since the possibility of more instability remains with the land dispute still outstanding.

"There's still that stigma of danger. I get calls from people in Hamilton, people asking me, 'What if we turn down the wrong road?' All I can say is things are very safe. But they have that little bit of a doubt."