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Profiling the City of Edmonton’s Environmental Leadership

The Back Story:
Edmonton asked Media Profile to help it tell the world why it’s a great place to settle, to open a business, to pursue top-level research or just to enjoy.

The Task:
Media Profile’s job was to reach national and international audiences with clear, focused messages that shed light on Edmonton’s incredible arts, culture, diversity and environment leadership, qualities that have generally been under-recognized.

What Happened:
On May 31, 2008 we secured a full page feature for the City’s new electronics waste recycling facility, in the Globe and Mail’s Focus section. It was a story that took about a year to come to fruition, from the initial pitch to its publication. It was a great piece positioning Edmonton as a leader in environmental sustainability.

The Globe and Mail feature was read by the producers of the Rick Mercer Report, who then asked for a visit to Edmonton’s world renowned Waste Management Centre, home of the electronics waste recycling facility. The resulting segment, which aired in December 2008 of season six, was another amazing piece profiling the City and its stewardship in municipal sustainability.

In May 2009, two years after the initial pitch to the Globe and Mail, that episode of the Rick Mercer Report received a prestigious Rose d’Or award in Lucerne, Switzerland, an international award for comedy. The resulting coverage from that announcement, including a link to the segment on the visit to the Waste Management Centre, was seen by millions of eyeballs all over Europe and North America.

The story is a great example of the unique power of public relations and how efficient it can be at creating long term awareness – how one simple pitch can keep reaping rewards two years after the idea was first conceived.