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Storm surgeNational basketball league racking up brownie points in P.E.I.

Summerside Mayor Basil Stewart calls the Summerside Storm “a tremendous way to promote our city.” He notes that the team has brought jobs to the city and fans to the new arena as well as increased exposure for Summerside in Ontario, Quebec, and the rest of the Maritimes. “We are,” he says, “absolutely delighted that they’re here.”

You hear it all the time from new entrepreneurs: there are a lot of hoops to jump through on the way to getting established. While Duncan Shaw and Darren MacKay

haven’t had to literally jump through those hoops, their latest start-up is consumed with shooting for them.

Shaw and MacKay are the proud co-owners of P.E.I.’s professional basketball team, the Summerside Storm. Neither had worked in the sports entertainment industry before founding the team last fall. They were, in fact, about as far away as you might get: owners of software development firm Cogsdale Corporation. Now, not only are they the owners of a new team in what is — to them — a new industry, they’re members of a new league too: The National Basketball League of Canada was founded in May of 2010, and is finishing its first regular season this March. If that name sounds familiar, that’s because there was a Canadian NBL once before, in the early ‘90s. That league folded before the second season ended, but this time, says Shaw, things look like they might be different.

“You are starting with established teams, which is different from other attempts. The business model is strong, we have a salary cap to keep costs under control, and we have some stuff that allows us to share revenue within the league if that comes to be and we have some national sponsors . . . so there’s certainly some strong reasons to think the league will make it and be successful.”

When it comes to jumping into a new business, starting a basketball team sounds like a pretty fun venture. And it has been, according to Duncan Shaw: “It’s a start-up business, so there’s real work to it, and there’s real issues. I don’t want it to sound like a trip to Disney. But yeah, it’s an awful lot of fun.”

Most of the frustrations are the same as you might have with any young business getting off the ground — principally, that everything takes longer than it should. Last fall, everything seemed to happen at the last

minute, including a coach hired at “the eleventh hour” and a stadium contract signed only a week before the first game. With those hurdles out of the way, though, professional basketball has been very much “game on” in P.E.I.

As far as business models go, this one follows a “Field of Dreams” type of scenario: If the Storm is successful in attracting the fans, it’s expected the revenue will f low naturally.

The team hopes to earn 40 per cent of its revenue from attendance, 40 per cent from sponsorships, and the final 20 per cent from merchandise and incidentals.

Surprisingly, however, Shaw says that making money was never his or MacKay’s primary goal when they took on the Summerside Storm. He says they bought into the league because they believed it would be an important community-building initiative. And community they have. Talking to the co-owners, it sounds as if team members spend all their time visiting schools and hospitals, leading reading programs or fundraising for breast cancer research and youth basketball.

The game held on January 20 was an apt case in point. That night, the Storm won their first home game in seven weeks, on a league-wide “Cure on the Court” breast cancer awareness night, in front of a 75 per cent capacity crowd of 3,094 fans at Credit Union Place. It was a close match, with the Oshawa Power starting strong, then lagging in the last quarter.

During the game, Shaw and MacKay announced that they would personally match fan donations, which totaled $2,200 by the end of the night. At the same game, in an entirely different fundraising venture, the Storm presented P.E.I. minor basketball with a cheque for almost $5,000. Final score: 129 to 121 for the Summerside Storm and an unbroken winning streak for the community. —Martin Connelly

You are starting with established teams, which is different from other attempts. The business model is strong, we have a salary cap to keep costs under control, and we have some stuff that allows us to share revenue within the league if that comes to be and we have some national sponsors . . . so there’s certainly some strong reasons to think the league will make it and be successful.

12 | ATLANTIC BUSINESS MAGAZINE | March/April 2012

After mainstream media across Canada and beyond reported on

the comedic scribblings of a previously unknown office worker from Moncton late last year, Gene Fowler fired up his laptop and began searching for one Weh-Ming Cho.

“I found him like millions of others did, through his ad on the kijiji online classified service,” says the owner of the Miramichi, N.B.-based animation studio, Loogaroo. “Man, he was funny!”

Indeed, Cho’s 800-word screed, offering a snow blower for sale, has garnered more than 400,000 hits (the second-highest in kijiji history), and proposals for both work and marriage.

“This isn’t some entry level snow blower that is just gonna move the snow two feet away,” the gifted amateur wrote. “This is an 11 HP Briggs and Stratton machine of snow doom that will cut a 29-inch path of pure ecstasy. And it’s only four years old. I dare you to find a harder working four-year-old. My niece is five and she gets

tired and cranky after just a few minutes of shoveling.”

Thanks to this creative brio, he and Fowler are now collaborating on an animated web series called “Roaches.” Cho describes the project with typical jocularity: “It’s about the adventures of three anthropomorphic joints. They say you should write about what you know . . . I’ve been anthropomorphizing objects since I was a kid. And yes, I’m trying to see how many times I can use the word anthropomorphic.”

Fowler says the project is still in its early stages: “Weh-Ming is still writing drafts of the script, and I’m still trying to figure out what the characters are going to look like.”

As for the future of their professional bromance, he reports, “We’ll see this project through first. If we want to continue with something different, we will . . . It’s all for fun right now.”

In fact, Cho hasn’t let overnight success go to his head. “I have no illusions that I’m going to write the Great Canadian

Novel, mainly because I find so many of the books that get that label to be incredibly depressing,” he says. “But I hope I’ve made the best possible use of my 15 minutes of fame.” – Alec Bruce

Weh-Ming Cho’s creative kijiji snowblower ad spawned job offers, marriage proposals and yes – a sold snowblower. Here he’s shown with the new owner of the “snow doom” machine: Atlantic Business Magazine’s contributing editor, Alec Bruce.

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Painting the town red(and blue and green and yellow and orange)

At first glance, it’s a dancing array of party balloons. Look again and it’s a

conga line of air bubbles, trailing playfully above and behind a scuba diver. Blink, and it’s the telltale effervescence of high quality champagne.

You may never decide exactly what it’s supposed to represent, but if you catch on to the fact that it signifies fun, then the new brand and marketing campaign just launched by Destination St. John’s has done its job.

Cathy Duke is CEO of Destination St. John’s, the organization responsible for marketing the greater metro area’s tourism, meeting and convention products. “It’s a very competitive market out there,” she said, “and we needed to break through all the noise and the sea of sameness. What DSJ needed was a fresh new campaign that would be consistent with the province’s campaign but, at the same time, would ref lect who we are as an urban destination and would allow us to stand out in the crowd.”

The task of fulfilling that goal fell to The Idea Factory, a marketing and advertising firm based in (where else?) St. John’s. The firm conducted an intensive brand audit, conducting interviews and focus groups with meeting planners and tourism leaders, asking them to define the St. John’s experience.

What they found was that people tended to reference the “unexpected good” when they described the region: the person who, when asked for directions, walks the visitor to their destination; the friendships made over lunch in one of the city’s many pubs; the stories that f lowed from shopkeepers and taxi drivers.

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Another theme that surfaced was “colourful”, as in colourful characters and colourful scenery. Which explains why the common theme throughout the new brand is colour – and lots of it, presented in all its primary glory.

Still, with most hotels in the city operating at close-to-capacity and restaurants struggling to keep up with reservations, why did Destination St. John’s feel it was necessary to invest in a brand and marketing campaign?

Duke explained that most meeting and convention organizers plan four to five years in advance. “The expansion to the St. John’s Convention Center will be completed in 2016, so we’ll see available meeting space double. And there are a handful of hotels under consideration, which means we’ll see several new hotels being constructed in the next few years. It is important for us to make a significant impact now, so that the market is there when that extra capacity becomes available.”

The brand and marketing materials (which include a destination planner, visitor’s guide, web site, mobile app and trade show booth) cost approximately $150,000 to develop. Duke adds there will be incremental costs each year, but she expects those expenses to be managed within the organization’s regular marketing budget. “The campaign will remain fresh as collateral materials are managed and manipulated electronically and as DSJ’s social media platform utilizes new images, video clips and stories of our partners and our destination.”

Cathy Duke (photo left), CEO of Destination St. John’s on the importance of maximizing the tourism, meeting and convention potential: “This is a $40-million-a year industry in St. John’s. We had 23,000 delegates here last year, almost 50 per cent of them extending their stay and approximately 50 per cent travelling outside the city, so the meeting and convention business is good for the whole province. We know we’re doing well now but that there is the potential to grow even more.”

16 | ATLANTIC BUSINESS MAGAZINE | March/April 2012

Stephanie Beaumont was visiting friends in Holyrood, Newfoundland, when she decided

she wanted to go shopping. She used Google to try and hunt out cool places to shop in St. John’s – but didn’t have much luck.

“I thought, wouldn’t it be amazing to have a resource where all the cool people from this part of Canada weighed in on their favourite spots,” says Beaumont. That was the seed that grew into SeaAndBeScene, an entertainment magazine-style website that profiles the places, personalities and events of the four Atlantic provinces.

Since launching the site 18 months ago from her home in Chester, Nova Scotia, Beaumont has published a constant stream of articles, videos, event announcements and features. The production values are high; the updating regular.

The site is gathering momentum, thanks largely to an active social media presence and Beaumont’s long experience in the marketing, journalism, and entertainment businesses (some may recognize her as a former guest co-host of Breakfast Television).

The primary challenge ahead, says Beaumont, is “The same as any brand: to build awareness, through social media marketing and ideally mainstream communications outlets . . . we’re working to get the word out that we are here.”

Maintaining a website in today’s 24/7 news cycle can be a tall order, Beaumont admits, but for now, she’s enjoying the challenge – and the benefits – of running her own magazine.

Her favourite moment so far? “The fact that it was pouring rain the day I first interviewed Republic of Doyle star Allan Hawco on location still remains a highlight . . . it allowed me to hang out in the backseat of the GTO with Jake Doyle.”

It’s not just the celebrities, Beaumont says, but the wide-ranging talent and energy of this part of the country that will keep the site vibrant. That, she says, and “folks are some funny too.” —Stephanie Porter

Waving the fun flagMagazine-style website celebrates the people and places of Atlantic Canada

Stephanie Beaumont, founder of Seaandbescene: “It’s an online celebration of the four Atlantic provinces, featuring the people, places and things that make this part of the world so special. Telling those stories and providing folks with a spot to wave their East Coast fun flag – well, you just can’t beat it!”

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