Moose Jaw benefitting from worldwide attention

“Canada’s Most Notorious City” is cashing in on its notoriety.

Moose Jaw, which earlier this year rebranded itself from “The Friendly City,” became known worldwide in January thanks to its moose war with a town in Norway.

Now the city is back on the map after it’s mentioned in a Skip the Dishes commercial featuring American actor Jon Hamm.

It all has resulted in a cash flow for Moose Jaw.

“The reach that we’ve been able to have equates to over $7.4 million and now with Skip the Dishes, (it will be) so much more,” Mayor Fraser Tolmie said Tuesday during a chat on The Greg Morgan Morning Show.

“I know the economy has been slow and we’re doing what we can to combat that. But tourism numbers have been up in the city of Moose Jaw, stores have been filled (and) restaurants have been filled.”

The city recently had an analytics company do a report that found the words “Mac the Moose” and “moose war” had been seen 993,000 times around the world while the city fought to have the world’s tallest moose.

The company found that stories had appeared in Norway, Sweden, Spain, Australia, Romania, India, China and Russia. The monetary value of the coverage was estimated at $6.3 million, with another $1.1 million in social media value.

Moose Jaw’s success of late was honoured on the weekend by the Economic Developers Association of Canada, which gave the city a Marketing Canada Award for its promotional ads.

Tolmie also has starred in material himself, most notably in a video in response to the Skip the Dishes ad in which Hamm finds out he was turned down for Canadian citizenship.

“I said, ‘If I were the prime minister of New Canada, Jon, I’d have you swear allegiance to the moose’ — which would be our national animal …,” Tolmie said. “I said we’d do new things in New Canada. Thursdays would be a new Friday (and) chocolate would be a vegetable.”

In the video, Tolmie also reveals he’s launching an online petition in hopes of making Hamm a Canuck.

“It was to say, ‘Hey, y’know what, Jon? You shouldn’t have been denied,’ ” Tolmie told Morgan. ”The man loves hockey.”

If 1,000 people sign the petition, Tolmie said, he’ll personally apologize to Hamm. Chances also are good the former “Mad Men” star will be invited to Moose Jaw, where Tolmie would present him with a Warriors jersey and take him to a WHL game at Mosaic Place.

That may have to wait until October, when Mac the Moose is slated to get his new, larger set of antlers.

— With files from Discover Moose Jaw