18 METRO I FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

COVER

A long-range vision for Mitzpe Ramon

With its new branch, McCann Erickson hopes to bring the South out of the economic wilderness

Tucked away in a quiet, semi-impoverished corner of thisrustic town, a group of tech-savvy 30somethings arebrainstorming, fleshing out

ideas about how to turn a tiny touristhub in the middle of the Negev desertinto something more than a scenic pitstop for Eilat-bound vacationers.

“We can have the first-ever marathonin the history of Mitzpe Ramon,” saysHana Rado. She is the CEO of the Israelibranch of McCann Erickson, one of theworld’s premier advertising firms,which has garnered a great deal ofmedia attention in recent months.

The discussion centers on sponsor-ships, media coverage, exposure, pho-tography – all the trappings and pro-

motional aspects of publicizing anevent that one would normally see in alarge city like Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Thistime, however, McCann is determinedto put Mitzpe Ramon on the map.

In a bold move, the Tel Aviv-basedcompany built McCann Valley, a digitaland new media branch office in MitzpeRamon. With the financial and logisti-cal assistance provided by numerousgovernment agencies such as theDevelopment of the Negev and theGalilee Ministry, the Industry, Tradeand Labor Ministry, the FinanceMinistry and the Mitzpe Ramon LocalCouncil, the new media center, whichwill offer its services to small and medi-um-sized businesses across the country,is the first of its kind in a town whereunemployment is higher than thenational average.

“This project was hatched over a yearago,” says Michal Romi, a Mitzpe nativewho left her job as manager of an inter-active graphic studio in Tel Aviv to runthe day-to-day affairs of McCann Valley.

“I had met with Hana because I want-ed her to buy advertising in the maga-zine that I founded,” says Romi.“During the conversation, I mentionedthat I was returning to Mitzpe Ramon.That was when the idea of opening astudio in Mitzpe came up.”

This past January, that idea became areality. McCann Valley opened its doorsto a group of 20 advertising and digitalmarketing professionals, most of themin their late 20s to mid-30s, who foundthe prospect of relocating to the centralNegev quite intriguing, particularlygiven the prohibitive costs of raising afamily in the greater Tel Aviv area.

McCann’s vision for the project isboth philanthropic and corporate. Onthe one hand, it seeks to promote busi-ness through advertising on Google andFacebook, provide services to small andmedium-sized firms with limited budg-ets and help companies brand theirproducts through Facebook-friendlystrategies. While the company is mind-ful of its bottom line, it will also requireits employees at the Valley to donate aportion of their office time to givingback to the local community throughvolunteer initiatives.

“The work we do here is unlike thework that we do in Tel Aviv,” Rado says.“In Tel Aviv, we handle some of themajor, large-scale clients in the market.Here, we focus more on small and mid-sized firms that want to promote theirwares on Google.”

• Text and photos: ARIEL ZILBER

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