Persuasive Argument

I’m an adman from Toronto, and the host of the Age of Persuasion on CBC Radio One. I’m in Halifax to do a book tour event, was just reading your beautiful magazine, and wanted to drop you a line to tell you why I instantly loved your “print challenge” to clients.

To me, magazines are about great writing. More than the terseness of newspapers, lasting longer than the fleeting nature of TV or radio, magazines offer a reader a sumptuous meal.

Great magazine advertising can be the same feast. While the rest of the advertising world moves closer and closer to one-second radio ads and three-word slogans, magazine ads can still offer that rare thing – emotion, a well-stated position, and the opportunity to sit down with a cup of coffee to enjoy both.

To me, the collateral damage of fast/quick/short ads is persuasion. Persuasion needs time. You simply need to spend time with a potential customer to establish a meaningful connection.

Magazines offer that. Any client who cares about their relationship with customers, and not just the transaction, should be in magazines.

In a world of speedboat advertising, magazines are the yachts.

Terry O’Reilly
Host, The Age of Persuasion
CBC Radio One
Toronto, ON

A Lot of Hot Air

I like receiving Atlantic Business Magazine because it feels so rich to the touch and because of the highest quality of paper used in its production. However, I want to comment on your feature report called “Whistling in the Wind” because it is little more than a wish list from PEI’s Minister of Environment, Energy and Forestry, Richard Brown. Firstly, the true cost of producing wind power is 19 cents per kilowatt/hour while the Province (via the PEI Energy Corp.) sells it to Maritime Electric for the bargain rate of 7.75 cent per kilowatt/hour while Island consumers pay an average price of 17 cents per kilowatt hour for electrical power.

Green energy is expensive and will never be cheaper than conventional sources. Today, Maritime Electric gets about 18 per cent of their total power from wind energy and the cost of power to consumers has steadily increased, not decreased, every year since. The PEI Minister of Energy’s dream of energy swaps with other provinces for wind power is not likely to happen because producing and selling power is all about profit, not good will. Most of the statements made by Jamie Ballum, once a dairy farmer, next a Binns Conservative cabinet minister and now an energy consultant are equally invalid. It’s unfortunate the writer neglected to interview people like Malcolm Lodge who are experts concerning the facts and fiction with regards to wind power on PEI. He ran the original test site at West Cape about 20 years ago.

I like reading articles about PEI but this one lacked sufficient research and left the false impression with readers that the solution to our energy needs is wind power while it isn’t and never will be.

Ian McQueen
BSc, MEngSc, chem. Eng.
Climate Truth Initiative
Glenwood, NB