Marketing your town - why retailers are better than councils

We love Stamford. It’s the nearest town to RVHQ, we love the pubs, the shops, the restaurants, the hotels, the architecture. It’s a lovely town and you can see why it was named the best place to live in Britain, by The Sunday Times (though they didn’t mention the, ahem, rougher parts of town and flat-roofed pubs).

As well as some great independent shops and pubs (Paradise Found, Snow Designs and Interiors, The Fine Food Store, TheTobie Norris), the town has big name, but higher-end, chains like White Stuff, Fat Face, The White Company, Cook and The Cosy Club. All these are big draws to Stamford for people who live outside the town and they promote themselves well, with a touch of style befitting the general feel of the town.

This year, a group of business owners have got together to arrange two late night shopping events, with a prize draw on each night. It’s a great idea and the poster (designed independently) for it is prominent around town and on social media. It’s simple but stylish and gives a great feel of what the town is about.

The late night shopping poster - thumbs up

Also this year is the town council’s official Christmas festival (we may have mentioned this in earlier posts…). The poster for this event is, well, not exactly in keeping with the town’s image.

We’re hesitant to criticise the designer – we don’t know who did it and they may have had their hands tied – but is this really a classy, sophisticated poster for ‘the best place to live in Britain’?

The council's poster - we're not impressed

One local business owner told us they felt the festival was completely geared – and marketed – towards the wrong audience for the town’s retailers and that it did not benefit them in any way.

It’s just another example of why we feel the powers-that-be are out of touch with the way the town – and life in general has moved on. And it’s not just Stamford Town Council – the district council, South Kesteven, recently produced a video to attract investment into Stamford.  To us, it feels terribly dated, with a stuffy voiceover, 80s graphics, shaky camerawork and a general lack of flair and imagination. Again, we don’t know who filmed it, so we really don’t want to be ultra-harsh, but it’s not good when you compare it to the work of some local freelancer videographers who we’re sure would have made a much better job of it. Take a look at the work of Chris Rigby, or this video recently unveiled by Rutland’s best restaurant, The Olive Branch.

Maybe the poster was designed for free, maybe the video was done in-house. We understand that taxpayers' money has to be spent carefully (like councils have ever wasted our money…) but surely it’s better to invest in a quality product (and they’d probably be surprised at how reasonably priced most good quality freelance designers and videographers are) and give off a better, more modern, vibrant image of the town, than to do it on the cheap.

What do you think? Are your local councils the same? Can you find examples of councils getting it right when it comes to design and marketing? Comment below.

Stamford Town Council 2: The Reply

Well, we got a reply...

Dear Mr & Mrs Harvey, (Good start... we're not married and my surname is not Harvey)

RE: Complaint – Stamford Christmas Festival 2013

Your complaint received on 31 October 2013 was examined by a complaints panel on Tuesday 05 November and its findings are as follows:

{redacted}

On examining all the paperwork and associated correspondence relating to your complaint, no reference to the alleged free offer made by Alison Hawley Smith could be traced, other than the copy you forwarded from Alison Hawley Smith which was dated 31 October 2013.

Stamford Town Council has identified Alison Hawley Smith’s communication to Reloved Vintage of 13 December 2012 re-stating the responsibilities of all traders participating in the 2012 Christmas Festival with a reminder of the requirement to hold valid insurance.  As per the Terms & Conditions of the (signed) contract no refund should have been made; however it is evident that a full refund of £75 was made by bank transfer on 20 December 2012 by Alison Hawley Smith as an unauthorized ‘goodwill gesture’.  

The delay you experienced in obtaining a response is regrettable but was unavoidable and we wholeheartedly apologise for any inconvenience.  However, such matters must necessarily follow due process, which I am sure you can well appreciate.

Stamford Town Council does not accept any liability in this matter. However, the offer of a 50% discount on the cost of a stall at the 2013 Christmas Festival remains and Stamford Town Council will ensure that a stall is held available for you until 15th November latest should you wish to take up the offer.

I trust that you find the above answers the points raised.

Yours sincerely

Councillor Brian C. Sumner

Mayor of Stamford

Copy to: Cllr Mrs S Sandall, Chairman of Events Committee

So, they've basically said: "Even though you say you were offered a free stall, and the organiser says you were offered a free stall, we don't believe you were offered a free stall."

They also think that taking three weeks to reply to an email, or return a phone call is "unavoidable".

Ladies and gentlemen, Stamford Town Council, where common courtesy is an alien concept.

We have, of course, replied:

In accordance with the complaints procedure detailed at: http://www.stamfordtowncouncil.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2012-STC-Complaint-Procedure1.pdf 

we are asking you to re-examine our complaint and come to the only right decision, which is to honour the offer of a free stall. As this appeal process will no doubt take the full 20 days to be concluded, we suggest you make your offer applicable to the 2014 event.

We feel it is pretty clear that the weight of public opinion is on our side and that anyone of fair mind and sound judgement sees that the right, decent and proper action for you to take is to honour the offer of a free stall that was made to us by Ali Hawley-Smith.

We should not have had to go through all of this in order to get what was promised to us. We should not have had to email Ali Hawley-Smith ourselves to ask her for confirmation of the offer of a free stall. You should have done this the very moment, on 11 September 2013, that we asked you about the free stall.

The fact that you still refuse to budge on this and quote only the paperwork you have seen, suggests you think that both Ali and ourselves are lying.

Your heel-digging, back-covering and time-wasting stinks of stubbornness.

We accept your apology for your slow response, but strongly disagree that it was 'unavoidable'. It is simply common courtesy to return phone calls and reply to emails - even if just to keep us updated. We think the council needs to address this problem and make changes to the way it deals with communication to keep more in line with the 21st Century.

Also, my name is Thorpe, not Harvey, as has been abundantly clear throughout our unnecessarily long-winded correspondence.

Jack Thorpe and Laura Harvey

We would really, really, really appreciate your support. You can help us to make sure justice is done. On behalf of all small traders who have to deal with witless, feckless, self-serving councils, please email townhall@stamfordtowncouncil.gov.uk to show your support.


You can copy and paste the text below if you like:


We fully support Reloved Vintage's appeal against your ridiculous decision to not honour the offer of a free stall at the 2013 Christmas Market. We urge you to make the right decision and give Reloved Vintage a stall, free of charge, at the 2014 Stamford Christmas Market.

Stamford Town Council

LONG POST ALERT! Please bear with us and read this post – we want everyone to know disgracefully how we’ve been treated by Stamford Town Council.

This is a slightly amended version of an official complaint we have made to Stamford Town Council, after they sold our place at this year’s Christmas Market to someone else – a place we had been promised for free following the collapse of our stall last year, causing us to lose hundreds of pounds in stock and lost earnings.

This event was to be our biggest of the year in terms of raising our profile locally and in terms of sales. That has now been taken away from us, due to the council’s unprofessionalism and terrible customer service.

If you agree with that we have been unfairly treated and would like to support us, we’d really appreciate it if you shared this post or emailed townhall@stamfordtowncouncil.gov.uk to pledge your support.

Thanks,

Jack and Laura

----

We attended last year's Stamford Christmas Market. The stalls, which we believe to have been incorrectly secured and not Health and Safety-checked, blew down. We were lucky not to be injured. We lost hundreds of pounds worth of stock. We could no longer trade on the day.

We were, eventually, refunded and offered a free stall for the 2013 event as way of compensation. This offer was made, verbally, by the then event organiser, Alison Hawley-Smith.

On 11/9/13 we received an email from Patricia Stuart-Mogg, Stamford Town Clerk, inviting us to apply for a place at the 2013 market, now being organised by  Stamford Town Council.

We replied the very same day to say we had filled in the form, but wanted confirmation that Ali Hawley-Smith had told the council about our free stall.

After various emails and phone calls from us it took until 4/10/13 – 23 days! – for Patricia Stuart-Mogg to contact us again, and then it was to offer us only a half-price stall.

We rejected this offer because we were promised a free stall. If the council has enough evidence to offer us a 50% stall it surely has enough evidence to honour the free stall offer. A 50% offer is an insult. It suggests they believe us, but just don’t want to honour the offer. We asked for an explanation.

After many emails it took a further 12 days for Patricia Stuart-Mogg to reply, telling us the free stall offer would not be honoured and that Ali Hawley-Smith had “no authority” to have made the offer, despite being the organiser at the time and authorising a refund at the time.

We once more appealed this and had to chase Patricia Stuart-Mogg, Cllr Maxine Couch and Cllr Susan Sandall (members of the organising committee) to reply to our emails and phone calls , as no-one had emailed or telephoned us to let us know what was going on. By all accounts it appeared we were being ignored, as we did not hear back with an explanation as to why the process was taking so long.

In Cllr Couch’s defence, she did at least reply to our emails, but only in a factual manner and to inform us of the council meeting at which our appeal would be discussed.

Cllr Sandall did not reply to a single email.

Eventually, Patricia Stuart-Mogg phoned us on 30/10/13 (the first phone conversation we have had, despite our initial reply to her email being 49 days earlier) to tell us the council had agreed to not honour the offer of a free stall and that the 50% offer still stood, but that in the meantime the event had become fully booked.

We had asked, via email and on the phone to the town hall, if a place was being held for us while this discussion was ongoing. No-one had the decency to tell us that our place – which we had been promised for free – had been sold to someone else.

This is completely unacceptable and we would like the council to acknowledge this.

The behaviour of Patricia Stuart-Mogg in particular has been totally unhelpful and unprofessional and we are now left with the impression that Stamford Town Council is an aging, outdated, groaning bureaucracy, packed with cronies who have no grasp of customer service in the 21st century.

We are a growing business that one day hopes to trade full-time in Stamford Town Centre. We have developed partnerships with a number of local businesses and have always been supportive of the town and its events.

The way the council has batted us aside, wasted our time and all but accused us of making things up is a disgrace and you should all be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.

Stamford is a beautiful town that deserves a council that supports small, independent businesses, rather than trying to squeeze a few more pennies out of them.

If you want our business in the future, for many, many years to come, this is a very funny way of going about it.