Success gives So. Md. template

‘Buy Rockville' campaign boosts merchants there

Friday, Feb. 5, 2010

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by EMILY BARNES Bill Campbell of BalanceLogic talks to Darlene Breck, president of the Charles County Chamber of Commerce, left, and Tish Clem-McClanahan of Beacon Printing, as the "Choose Charles" committee meets Tuesday at Breck's Southern Maryland Business Center in Waldorf. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

A little more than a year ago, merchants in Rockville, the county seat of wealthy Montgomery County, decided they would have to band together to survive the recession. The resulting "Buy Rockville" campaign was successful enough to lure St. Mary's County officials to town to meet the campaign's architects and discover strategies they could take back home.

Bob Schaller, director of the county's Department of Economic and Community Development, said local business campaigns are "not new" but seem to be gaining momentum lately; he was impressed by what he heard in Rockville.

St. Mary's County is not the only one interested in fostering local commerce. The Charles County Chamber of Commerce began organizing its "Choose Charles" campaign late last year but is still getting it off the ground by distributing display cards to merchants to drive traffic to a new Web site, according to President Darlene Breck.

"They know it's in its infancy starting up here; they know how important it is, too," Breck said. "Right now, the chamber of commerce has the entire initiative" but hopes to bring the county commissioners and the Department and Economic Development and Tourism aboard.

Government collaboration is essential for success, according to Bill Campbell, chairman of the chamber's new marketing advisory group.

"I think it's critical in the success of this for the reason that leadership is ... usually from the top down, leadership by example. If we have our top officials in the county on board with this they're going to set the stage for other businesses to get on board," Campbell said.

Campbell is CEO of BalanceLogic in White Plains, which has created the "Choose Charles" Web site as a donation to the chamber. Other firms have printed promotional materials for distribution.

The chamber has also taken a page from schools' playbooks by organizing "spirit night" fundraisers with the help of local restaurants. An upcoming one will be held at a newly opened Foster's Grille location in Waldorf.

"Buy Rockville" began with an awareness campaign launched by businesses with the help of matching funds from the city council. The approximately $60,000 in total funding allowed the coalition to hire a public relations firm to spread the word with fliers and a Web site that listed local companies whether they contributed to the campaign or not. A "restaurant week" and other promotions helped draw consumers out.

"In fairly short order they were able to galvanize the business community and local government to put this together. The challenge now that they're finished with the first wave is how do they sustain it?" Schaller said.

The campaign started to convince locals to do their 2008 Christmas shopping in town, said Andrea Jolly, executive director of the Rockville Chamber of Commerce. While there are no statistics about the program's success, "anecdotal evidence" suggests it has been valuable, Jolly said, perhaps boosted by a sense of solidarity in the community.

Rockville is a "very community-oriented kind of place. Buying, doing shopping, eating in your own community helps build community. Also, businesses in Rockville give back to the local community, give money and volunteer for local nonprofits," she said. "We want these businesses to do well, give back to their own community. For Rockville residents, in this time of thinking about the environment it's great not to drive too far for things, to stay in your own community. We don't want people to go out of business. There's nothing worse than boarded-up buildings."

Buying local is not only about attracting consumers, but also requires businesses to support one another, Jolly said; a hotel switched its printing to a local firm and saved money. She thinks a similar campaign could be launched anywhere where there's a will.

"There is nothing complicated about it. It was simple. I think people can look at what we did, what parts they think would work in their own communities, and work with that. We're willing to share what we've learned; that makes it a little bit easier," she said.

Combining efforts allowed merchants to have a much bigger impact than they could have had on their own, said Eric Siegel, executive vice president of Cohen Companies, a real estate development company in Rockville.

"For a relatively small amount of money from each sponsor, they would be leveraging $60,000 of marketing services by a public relations firm as well as collateral material like advertisements in newspapers and so forth. It was a way for people to chip in in a cooperative fashion," Siegel said.

Government involvement is essential to the success of this type of initiative, according to Jeff Miller; Rockville merchants couldn't have achieved what they did without money from the Rockville City Council. It is not charity, however; a flourishing business culture is to everyone's benefit.

"The way we approached it, and I think the city would agree, we didn't view it as help from the city," said Miller, a business coach and a former president of the Rockville chamber. "Businesses were closing on a daily basis. We really felt it was the responsibility to do this, that ‘Buy Rockville' needed to be done not just for the local business community, but for the city government tax base and also for citizens, so Rockville continues to be a vibrant business place where people come to."

Joe Orlando, owner of Fenwick Street Used Books and Music in downtown Leonardtown and vice president of the Leonardtown Business Association, accompanied the officials to Rockville. He thinks a different culture will make a similar campaign more difficult here.

"There seems to be a kind of chain-hungry population out there. As soon as they hear The Olive Garden is opening up they say, ‘Oh wow, I can't wait until The Olive Garden opens up,' when we've got some great independent restaurants," Orlando said. "I understand the appeal of a chain restaurant — wherever you go you get the same quality — but that doesn't mean you can't get great quality at a local, independent restaurant. I'm a big proponent of buying locally ..."

Meanwhile, Calvert Memorial Hospital in Prince Frederick has acted on its own to promote local consumption with twin initiatives to include locally grown produce in its cafeteria meals and to organize a farmers market to open in spring.

The farmers market idea was explored last year, but too late in the season to get off the ground, according to Food Service Director Rick Haefner. The hope now is to recruit farmers to a new market supported by the hospital. It will be open once a week, but the time and location are still undetermined.

During the half of last year when local produce was available, the hospital got about a quarter of its fruits and vegetables from Maryland farmers.

"We did use a local produce vendor, but what we also did, which seemed to work a little better, was that we worked with our product vendor, Coastal, and told them that we wanted to buy local. It may not be local to Calvert County but it's local to Maryland. We were getting about 25 percent from Coastal in season. Now there's nothing; it's hard to grow produce in the snow," Haefner said.

Local food is more nutritious because it is fresher, and Haefner said patients were supportive of the program when it was advertised in the cafeteria last year. The hospital will repeat, and possibly expand, the program once local food becomes available again.

Local sourcing does not only benefit patients. Debra Dennis, director of environmental services, said, "I think that it, you know, basic economics, it's good for our community. People in our community get to sell their goods and wares."

While waiting for local crops to grow again, Southern Maryland consumers can peruse the "So. Maryland, So Good" series of guides about local agriculture at www.somarylandsogood.com. The guides, which include information about produce, horses and hiking, are produced by the Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission.

emitrano@somdnews.com

To learn more

For more information on Chooses Charles, call the Charles County Chamber of Commerce at 301-932-6500, e-mail info@charlescountychamber.org or go to www.charlescountychamber.org.