In the margins between centers of economic power, local communities are forced to stage their public image in a spectacular way or disappear into oblivion. Regional PR-campaigns mimic economic power centres and metropolitan cities, adapting corporate "serious speech", communicating pretensions often exaggerated and sometimes misleading. I argue that these campaigns do not deliver sustainable public relations for these marginal regions because: (a) the images they generate change rapidly according to economic and technological fashion, and (b) the images are not rooted in real-life experiences. Thus the "serious speech" will not take root in the mind of the passerby. On the other hand, experiences of authentic places and encounters with genuine people are unique and irreplaceable, establish real personal bonds, and encourage sustainable memories. This sustainable public relations we might argue takes "small talk" - not "serious speech". In my presentation I report on a project involving a visit from the Swedish community of Falkoping to the City of Groningen, both communities considered to be marginal regions. I analyse the visit through the theory of civic learning (Biesta 2011) and argue that it both sparks democratic processes of mutual community image building and the generation of plural and contradictory images.