Berkley Downtown Development Authority

I have decided to volunteer with the Berkley DDA. Basically, my drive behind this is twofold: first, because I live here, its in my best interest. Secondly, Berkley is in dire need of some branding. The city does not seem to have a strong image with the folks that I've talked to. Why not? Unfortunately, I can't answer that without some wild speculation, but I'm good at wild speculation, so here goes...
Berkley for a while had a campaign that was "Berkley is unique" - the goal I think (can't stress enough, this is all speculation/personal opinion), was to not get lumped in with Royal Oak and become something different than that sort of restaurant/bar scene. While it may be unique, that doesn't really communicate a strong message of what it means for the community to be unique.

However, having said that, there are a lot of things that the DDA and city overall does very well. The city hosts a very successful art fair, a Dream Cruise parade/party, and a holiday parade. In the last year or two there are several new businesses that have been attracted to Downtown Berkley. I know there has been parking issues in the past, and the DDA is actively working on those issues.

So, I'm tossing my hat into the ring to help. Here's an except from the letter I am sending them that talks about my vision for Berkley:

For Berkley’s downtown to flourish, I envision a community that has several anchor businesses that provide a wide variety of options for individuals who wish to keep their dollars in the community, with a wide variety of business types (e.g. restaurants, bars, clothing shops, music shops, etc.). I recently saw an estimate of the amount of dollars that Detroit residents spend outside the city of Detroit, indicating how much “lost” revenue there is for Detroit businesses. I think a similar study for Berkley would be a fascinating and eye-opening assessment of how the DDA needs to target businesses to move within the city.

In my unresearched, personal opinion, I believe there are two key demographics that are driving the future of the downtown in Berkley – families and the “subculture” of young urbanites who use scooters and bicycles for transportation. The Berkley DDA should focus on attracting business that fit these niches (or really ANY niche as long as it is well defined and substantiated) for its downtown business development work. Catering to both groups will hopefully result in an attractive, lively downtown with strollers, scooters, and pedestrians sharing the pavement on their way to local businesses.

There's a lesson in all of this.

In the words of reality tv show fans, the world is a "hot mess" (if you listen to the pundits, that is). That's part of the reason why President-elect Obama's message of Hope played so well this election season. But there are other marketing-related reasons why he did so well...
- he had a much more consistent and singular message than his rival
- he had a huge following of younger activists that were engaged and participating
- he presented a compelling image that was easy to understand and get behind

I'm not at all going to dive into the specifics of policies between the two campaigns or examine ideology or tax policy or anything political really, that's not the point to this article. But what I do want to look further into a few things that I gleaned from that second point...

Obama's campaign was very effective at "getting out the vote." A lot of individuals got involved and many, I believe, felt a tangible part of Obama's election because of their participation. (Ok, I'm not going to argue that this is a simplistic view of what occured, but again, we're not talking politics in this article, its just to see the lesson for us marketers. And that's all.) I have several friends who participated in the Obama campaign, some traveling great distances to canvass or offer help. Some took time off work to do community events for Obama. And when I speak to them about it (once you get past the politics), the reason is because they felt they were physically doing something that they were passionate about.

Earlier I posted an article about DIY projects and why those appeal to me. I suspect that there are fundamentally similar things going on deep inside the brain of community activists for Obama: These community activities are hands-on, they are interesting (moreso than people's day-to-day activities), they are social, and a fourth item (not included in the DIY article but I think applies to both), is that they tap into people's passion (you may not be passionate about calling strangers during dinnertime, but are passionate about the cause).

There's three important lessons for marketers in this:

1. To get interest from people to participate in your branding or marketing, you are going to have to make it interesting, hands-on, and social. Just putting a message out there, that doesn't have aspects these three things is going to be dropped quickly by target consumers.
2. To compel people (stronger than just interest in), you have to tap into their passion.
3. Finally, the conversion to action for both the campaign and a brand is a critical final step, that is often ignored

That final step of converting "potential customers" into current customers is what is going to make the difference between an interesting conversation with folks vs. having a business relationship with them.