Concept Marketing for Communities

Exceptional communities possessing a definitive sense of place, the cities and towns presented in this book have created or re-created a style, ambience, or character that transcends the ordinary and is used as the basis for community economic development. Adapting the idea of concept marketing, these communities have found a niche or specialty to create community recognition and serve as a basis for garnering external investment, tourism, and other revenue-generating events. This book examines the use of popular and corporate culture, retail establishments, historical tradition, and surrealism in community concept marketing and profiles examples of communities from a diverse array of contexts and geographical settings.

Bellows Falls, VT, for instance, a once-depressed former milltown has transformed itself to a vibrant community through an arts integrated development strategy, while Austin, MN, the home of Hormel Foods, has drawn on the town's corporate culture with the opening of a new SPAM Museum. Manchester, VT, taking a retail approach, has become a designer outlet mecca, and Walnut, IA, the state's Antique City. Cape May, NJ, has restored its historic properties and successfully marketed itself as a seaside resort, while Holland, MI, exemplifies the surreal approach, marketing itself as a Dutch town. Considering these and other uniquely marketed communities, this book examines the elements necessary for a successful concept marketing strategy to community economic development.

RHONDA PHILLIPS is Director of the Center for Building Better Communities and an Assistant Professor in the Urban and Regional Planning Department at the University of Florida.