Ken Wong, Queens University: “The people who come to this are not going to be embarking on the kind of activities that Toronto tries to impress itself upon the world with: the ROM, the Science Centre, the lakefront, these are not things they're going to be able to do, given the security concerns. And when you combine all of that with what I anticipate will be a very hostile person on the street, it's like bringing the world to see you on the wrong day. In theory, it's a nice idea but it will not be executed well. And the local media have of course been filled with stories of resentment about this, and that may become a story in the international press.
“In the case of Toronto, it's in a very precarious state of the city's brand development: It's not unknown, in fact it's known to be a very nice city. Americans love it, it's known to be a city that has considerable ethnic diversity that adds to its colour … So now when you're bringing people in, you're going to expose another tranche of the world to what is Toronto and they're going to come with a certain set of expectations based upon what they've read and what they've heard – most of which has been positive – and now they're going to see a city behind fences and they're going to see a city with protesters and a city with angry pedestrians, and drivers inconvenienced.”
Is this the image Toronto wants the world to see? Protests are an accepted part of the G8 and G20 summits. During a gathering in 2001 in Genoa, Italy, demonstrators, shown above, overturn a car during a clash with police. — Darko Bandic/The Associated Press
The Catch-22 (or is that Catch-G20?)
Robert Li, University of South Carolina: “If you do not host such events, if you say: 'We don't want to spend any dollars on brand awareness, because it doesn't bring us direct economic impact,' and then your competitors are doing this and they're enhancing their awareness and they're continuing to build on that, they can eventually built a competitive advantage over you. So even though you think, ‘What is the point of people mentioning our name?' in place marketing, your name is a very important asset for you.”
The bottom line on the bottom line
Ken Wong, Queens University: “If you were going to spend that kind of money to create a tourism opportunity, you'd want to be putting your best foot forward, and this intrinsically doesn't give you that opportunity, and the way that they've played it out, it absolutely means there is no opportunity. Nice idea, absolutely worst execution I can imagine.”
A police officer stands near security fence for the June 26-27 G20 Summit in Toronto June 14, 2010. — Mike Cassese/Reuters
$930-million worth of publicity
The staggering cost of the G20 made us wonder how much advertising could be had for nearly a billion dollars
- Every billboard in Times Square for 12 years
- Every commercial in 6 U.S. Super Bowl broadcasts*
- Every ad in Vogue magazine for 3.6 years**
- 5,816 full-colour, full-page ads in national editions of the Sunday New York Times
- 18.6 billion impressions on USA Today’s iPad application
* assuming low inflation
** based on 2009 ad sales
