Dolan, Pollak & Schram is an award-winning real estate development company based in Charleston, South Carolina that specializes in creating unique outdoor-sport themed communities. In 2003, they partnered with a syndicate to develop an island in the Caribbean’s Turks and Caicos chain called Ambergris Cay. Over the past two years they have been laying the groundwork for this ambitious undertaking and the project is truly taking shape. The island site plan of 450 individual lots and amenity infrastructure has been defined; the landing strip is plowed and roughed in, construction crews have erected temporary housing structures for the workers and construction has commenced.

The marketing of the island development is well under way. The initial focus has been in the United States, but the principals at Dolan, Pollak & Schram recognized an opportunity to market the development in Canada. As a result they engaged Red Rocket Creative Strategies to create and execute a Canada-focused marketing program.

The innovative program included creating a Web portal specifically for Canadians, an innovative Public Relations campaign directed at Canadian travel and business writers plus a significant Direct Marketing initiative targeting high net-worth families. Red Rocket collaborated on the creation of the diary-style brochure, which was based on a series of fictitious postcards sent from a T&C vacationer. For the program to be truly successful we also needed to focus on the details: altering the language (tone, spelling and measurements) to speak to a Canadian audience and securing a Toronto mailing address. These details lent the program a truly Canadian appeal, a factor often overlooked by US-based companies when they attempt to market products and services to Canadians.

Although it doesn’t appear that Ambergris Cay will anytime soon be recognized as Canadian soil, several Canadians have shown interest in selecting T&C as their home away from home.