April Fool's Day

I thought what the people up in Ely did on April Fool's Day was a stroke of genius! That morning, I'm listening to 'CCO radio and hear an ad about how Canada is looking to buy Ely from Minnesota. Canada, it seems, wants the best of what Ely has to offer with tourism dollars and all. I knew full well what day it was (it would have been my dad's 64th birthday), so I figured it was a joke. But I went to the Web site the ad directed me to, www.ely.org. There it was, again, the full-blown press release about Canada wanting to acquire Ely. I could have even signed a petition to keep Ely in Minnesota.

On 'CCO again in the afternoon, Don Shelby was talking to a woman representing Ely and they had the conversation going on for about 10 minutes. Finally, at the end, Shelby announces, "April Fool's!"

This was a brilliant bit of marketing for Ely. Not only do they get the town's name out there, but if you signed the petition, it put you on a mailing list for Ely information. I bet the mailing list grew by 1,000% that day, easily!

Whoever thought of this should get a big raise.

It was the perfect April Fool's Day joke, because it was rather outlandish, yet not crazy enough to be discounted. Even though I knew what was going on, there was a tiny bit of me thinking, "Could this be for real?" They disguised it very well as a legitimate news story, with the radio ad, the Web site press release, and the Shelby interview.

Makes me want to move there even more if there's that much creativity flowing around up there! I'm thinking these are the type of people I want to surround myself with.