Bring Hong Kong to Toronto

I came across a tweet yesterday that read, “Convincing Hong Kongers to become Chicagoans should be among the city’s top priorities for the next 5 years”.

This got me thinking.

I don’t think it would take much money to make Toronto top of mind for Hong Kong emigrants, given that we already have a large Cantonese speaking community both in the city and in Markham.

How much could the City do with $1M? Given the right agency partner, a lot.

The mere fact that the campaign would be officially sanctioned would propel it through media, including local Hong Kong media. The ads and other campaign materials would be secondary.

I think that this could materially impact many thousand destination decisions. With a $1M campaign budget, I’d consider anything north of 10,000 new immigrants over the next 24 months a success. And I think we could do much, much better than that.

This would ideally be paired with a federal announcement that Canada will welcome every Hongkongers now choosing to leave, but I’ll save that thought for a separate post.