Moose Wars Wins Award And Generates Millions In Free Publicity
It may have seemed silly to some but the “Moose Wars” held between Moose Jaw and the municipality of Stor-Eldval, Norway this past Winter has turned out to be a marketing promotional triumph for the city with the actual impact worth millions of dollars. So much so it just won a national award.
At the start of tonight's Council meeting Mayor Fraser Tolmie announced the City was the recipient of a national economic development award.
Mayor Tolmie said “truly this is a community accomplishment.”
At the annual Economic Development Association of Canada (EDAC) conference, the City of Moose Jaw was given the award for best marketing material in the “Event” category..
Mayor Fraser Tolmie (left) and Jim Dixon economic development officer display the EDAC Award to the City
Additionally Moose Wars generated a lot of marketing exposure for the community.
In a report prepared for the City the firm Metwater estimated the marketing value of the Moose Wars at $7.4 Million. The estimated marketing value of the news coverage generated was $6.3 Million and online the marketing value was $1.1 Million.
Meltwater is a firm specializing in on-line media monitoring and analytics.
During the two month period of January to March 2019 Meltwater analyzed how many times the term “Mac The Moose” was mentioned on the Internet. The analysis was Mac the Moose was used 993,000.
The cost of the Meltwater analytics report was $1,060 and came out of the Communications Department budget.
“MARKETING VALUE OF MOOSE WARS
Media Reports $6.3 Million
Online $1.1 Million
TOTAL MARKETING VALUE = $7 4 Million ”
Communications Manager Craig Hemingway stated the report was used as part of the submission for the EDOC Award.
“Beyond the sheer number of mentions we were able to find a Canadian company that was able to come up with an estimate of what it was worth.”
Hemingway called it a once in a lifetime opportunity the City would not likely witness again.
The “Moose Wars” was a tongue and cheek war set off by Regina internet celebrities Justin (Reves) and Greg (Moore) when they filmed a January segment of their online show in front of Mac the Moose pointing out the fact Norway's moose was now the biggest in the world. They challenged Mayor Fraser Tolmie to “stick it to Oslo” make Mac bigger and reclaim the title of World's Tallest Moose.
Failing that the pair said Mayor Tolmie should crawl back into a hole and rename the city to simply Jaw.
Mayor Tolmie responded to the challenge and the Norwegians got involved leading up to a mention on the Stephen Colbert show, appearances on the BBC, articles in the New York Times amongst others.
The campaign to raise $50,000 to again make Mac the largest moose in the world garnered a $25,000 donation from Moorhead Breweries.
The “Moose War” led to a visit by Linda Henriksen Deputy Mayor of Stor-Eldval and the signing of a Mooserandum of understanding.
Moose Jaw's moose Mac on the left and Norway's on the right.
Presently Mac is anterless as a new set of antlers are being constructed to allow Moose Jaw's moose to reclaim the title of the largest moose in the world. But that is set to change on October 9th when the antlers are re-attached.
Due to the fact 70 percent of the materials and work was donated a community barbecue is planned at Tourism Moose Jaw on October 10th.
Mayor Tolmie thanked communications manager Hemingway for his efforts in the Moose Wars story.
“The amount of work Mr Hemingway put into this (is massive),” Mayor Tolmie stated going on to say it went above and beyond the call of duty ensuring the story was told.
A retrospective video shown at Council nay be watched below.