Congrats to Tracey Gard in her new role as president of the Williams Lake & District Chamber of Commerce.
It’s one of those proverbial thankless jobs that somebody has to do … but you also get to help steer your community in a direction you believe in.
At the very least, the entire community should thank Gard in advance for her time.
Having said that, just loaded up the local “C of C” home page and found it … well, a little surprising, to say the least.
If the chamber is even a little bit interested in enticing any new business to WL I suggest Gard take some stock where the home page is concerned. It might just as well say “move anywhere but here.”
It shows an uninteresting frontal perspective of the TDC set above a cliché blurb about the community in smallish print (the only positive thing on the whole page) followed immediately by a doom-and-gloom video about the economic disaster just over the horizon if we don’t receive a “life line from industry.”
Perhaps a look at some successful marketing strategies would be a good idea.
No matter how truthful the statement, car company websites will never say “Hey folks, we’re really hurtin’ so watch this depressing video about one of our recalled cars blowing up out of the blue, then please buy one before we all go broke.” And the breweries won’t ask you to “Buy our beer … but first watch this YouTube liver transplant and, oh yeah, you can only drink at home now because the fun police will throw away the key if you have more than one.”
Not only does the C of C homepage give a person the impression that the whole town is built out of logs but it makes it clear that without the Prosperity mine we’ll all be kicking horse turds down a deserted Oliver Street in no time.
If that doesn’t drive investment, I can’t imagine what will. Right under the Prosperity video part it says “Check us out, you’ll be glad you did!”
No kidding.
Dean Fulton is a freelance columnist for the Tribune and local musician.