Marketing Firm Wants Novato to Buy Into 'Shop Local'

The city of Novato on Saturday will launch a marketing campaign that aims to influence the buying habits of local residents.

And the advertising executive at the center of the marketing campaign wants to get one thing straight from that start: The city's "Shop Local" push, which kicks off at the Novato Art, Wine and Music Festival, is no ordinary marketing campaign.

The city commissioned Novato-based Kiosk to head an ad blitz aimed at getting local residents to shop locally.

Kiosk Founder and Chief Operating Officer Claire Knoles ran a similar campaign in Liverpool, England, in 2008 that Novato business leaders say resulted in measurable success.

Duplicating that success will depend in large part on Novato's business community, citizenry and public officials working together for the collective good of the community, Knoles said.      

"What we learned in the Liverpool campaign is that it has to be a collaborative campaign," Knoles said. "You can't commission an agency to go and do some nice posters. It has to be something that works for  the local businesses. It has to work for them and the messaging has to be right. The residents have to buy into it and it has to be done in coordination with the local city council and the chamber of commerce.

"The only reason we will be able to this here is because it's a collaboration, not just marketing."  


Retail Leakage

Novato brought Kiosk into the mix on the heels of a study estimating the city is hemorrhaging approximately $169.5 million in "retail leakage" (how Novato residents spend on goods and services outside the city limits versus what they take in from outsiders).

The campaign is unprecedented for Novato, city council member Jeanne MacLeamy said in an interview last month.

"This is all part of our acknowledgement that we need to improve our finances and this is one small way to do that is through our retail sales dollars," MacLeamy said.

"The whole idea is to make people aware of how important spending your dollars in your local community is to our revenues."

Knoles insists her company was no passive observer in the process of developing the "Buy Local" campaign.

Her company employs 26 at its Novato headquarters (it also has offices in Toronto and London), most of whom live in the city and share her passion for civic enrichment.

"How it's come together is in the In the spirit of the campaign itself,"  Knoles said.

"We took some ideas to the city, to the chamber, and to the downtown business association and got their buy-in. "It's a been a real collaboration."  


Fresh Ideas

Kiosk's varied clientele include mobile app development giant Tapjoy, 2KGames, a Novato-based gaming company, and the National Eczema Association.

Kiosk's experience launching a similar campaign in Liverpool, combined with the firm's solid reputation and local ties made them an obvious choice to lead the local campaign, Novato Chamber of Commerce CEO Coy Smith said. Smith said he's liked what he's seen of the company.

"They seem to have a very creative team of people there working on all sorts of marketing concepts and ideas," he said. "They're fresh, they're new, they're just really brilliant creative folks over there.

"The images they showed us of the campaign look really sharp, really catchy, so all of that leads to that they were just clearly a good choice with some good energy and some good ideas behind them."

The city is counting on Kiosk to channel some of its creative juices into a  campaign facing inherent challenges.  

Knoles acknowledged that a diverse business community that includes corporate Goliaths Costco and Target and mom-and-pop shops and restaurants does not lend itself to an easy marketing script.   

"What others cities have done is take almost more of a propaganda approach, ramming facts and figures down residents' throats, and that doesn't always go across that well," Knoles said.

"What we're trying to is just kind of showcase the different businesses and allow residents to connect with them in a way that's relevant.

"How we think it will work is we're featuring the local store owners in the campaign itself and the local restaurant owners. That's to remind people that money that spent locally stays locally."  


"From the Heart"

If successful, the Kiosk campaign could be template other cities are sure to take note of, with local agencies throughout the nation struggling to provide essential services amid a long-term economic downturn and growing pension burdens.

But from a marketing standpoint, Knoles insists that what happens in Novato will stay in Novato.

"We're not necessarily doing this because we want to take it elsewhere," Knoles said.

"It's more from the heart than anything else."

Knoles considers herself a stakeholder in the city's fiscal future, noting that her company was drawn to Novato and went against the grain by locating a company outside a metropolitan area.

A thriving Novato is in Kiosk's interests, she said, noting that her company needs to compete with the best and brightest in her field who are typically attracted to trendy cities such as San Francisco.

"We love this city and we believe Novato can be a thriving hub of creativity and business," she said.

"Novato has a fantastic heritage and we believe there's a very bright future ahead.

"We want Novato to succeed but we can't just rely on the city council to do it for us. I truly believe that great change comes from small growing businesses like ours, but one company can't do it alone. We have to do it through collaboration and that's why we're so passionate about joining up with other businesses we've met through the chamber."