COVER

The company was overwhelmed with requests from employees to relocate to the South.

A long-range vision for Mitzpe Ramon

With its new branch, McCann Erickson hopes to bring the South out of the economic wilderness
Text and photos: ARIEL ZILBER

ucked away in a quiet, semiimpoverished corner of this rustic town, a group of techsavvy 30somethings are brainstorming, fleshing out ideas about how to turn a tiny tourist hub in the middle of the Negev desert into something more than a scenic pit stop for Eilat-bound vacationers. We can have the first-ever marathon in the history of Mitzpe Ramon, says Hana Rado. She is the CEO of the Israeli branch of McCann Erickson, one of the worlds premier advertising firms, which has garnered a great deal of media attention in recent months. The discussion centers on sponsorships, media coverage, exposure, photography all the trappings and pro-

motional aspects of publicizing an event that one would normally see in a large city like Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. This time, however, McCann is determined to put Mitzpe Ramon on the map. In a bold move, the Tel Aviv-based company built McCann Valley, a digital and new media branch office in Mitzpe Ramon. With the financial and logistical assistance provided by numerous government agencies such as the Development of the Negev and the Galilee Ministry, the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry, the Finance Ministry and the Mitzpe Ramon Local Council, the new media center, which will offer its services to small and medium-sized businesses across the country, is the first of its kind in a town where unemployment is higher than the national average.

This project was hatched over a year ago, says Michal Romi, a Mitzpe native who left her job as manager of an interactive graphic studio in Tel Aviv to run the day-to-day affairs of McCann Valley. I had met with Hana because I wanted her to buy advertising in the magazine that I founded, says Romi. During the conversation, I mentioned that I was returning to Mitzpe Ramon. That was when the idea of opening a studio in Mitzpe came up. This past January, that idea became a reality. McCann Valley opened its doors to a group of 20 advertising and digital marketing professionals, most of them in their late 20s to mid-30s, who found the prospect of relocating to the central Negev quite intriguing, particularly given the prohibitive costs of raising a family in the greater Tel Aviv area.

McCanns vision for the project is both philanthropic and corporate. On the one hand, it seeks to promote business through advertising on Google and Facebook, provide services to small and medium-sized firms with limited budgets and help companies brand their products through Facebook-friendly strategies. While the company is mindful of its bottom line, it will also require its employees at the Valley to donate a portion of their office time to giving back to the local community through volunteer initiatives. The work we do here is unlike the work that we do in Tel Aviv, Rado says. In Tel Aviv, we handle some of the major, large-scale clients in the market. Here, we focus more on small and midsized firms that want to promote their wares on Google.

18 METRO

I FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013