How one town recognizes businesses that contribute to improving appearance of downtown
By Gregg McLachlan
I’ve written in the past about how downtowns can slide into a state of ugly appearances one bad storefront at a time. It begins with paint left to peel off, little to no effort on window displays, and tacky, cheap and flimsy banner ‘signs’ hammered into brick above a store door as a substitute for professional signage. The problems spiral when another new store arrives and thinks this is all acceptable and follows suit. Soon, the appearance of a downtown is a sad contrast in standards.
Every downtown has businesses that have invested to create a professional appearance. Everything from signage, to window displays, to lighting and storefront ‘landscaping’ is well thought out. But then there are the shops that look like fly-by-night operations not planning to invest for the long haul to contribute to the appearance of a downtown.
When the above happens the public perception of a downtown slowly erodes. Appearances matter. Revitalization goes nowhere when a downtown’s appearance as a whole looks to be in a state of disrepair and decay.
So how do you encourage businesses to contribute to making appearances count?
In Brantford, ON, the Downtown Brantford Business Improvement Area is a vibrant and growing destination. The BIA developed its Golden Broom awards to showcase businesses that are helping to create that success. The awards program runs July through October and recognizes one business or organization each month of the contest’s duration that has “excelled in its efforts to improve the appearance of Brantford’s Downtown Area.”
The Downtown Brantford Business Improvement Area launched the campaign in hopes of “raising the bar on the level of cleanliness and appeal of Downtown Brantford, and wishes to reward those entities that have made a significant contribution in improving the street-level environment,” it said in a release.
Mark down those three very important words: Raising the bar. That’s what it’s all about. Who are the businesses that are raising the bar in your downtown every day? They do exist. And they don’t deserve to toil in their efforts without public recognition.
“It is important that the community sees a clean downtown. This is an important step in continuing to showcase our vibrant downtown to our community,” added DBBIA chair Keri Korfmann.
The public (ie. shoppers!), tourists, businesses and downtown employees can easily nominate businesses by picking up ballots inside stores, going to the BIA website, using social media, or visiting the DBBIA office. In other words, the program’s marketing has a complete street-to-web-to-social integration that is a must today if your audience is people. (P.S. Very active social media accounts by the DBBIA help put this program — and everything else that the association does — very front and centre with the public.)
Each month a judging panel reviews nominations and takes into consideration the following factors:
Overall Business Appearance (Clean, litter free, graffiti free, signage quality, window displays, landscaping and flowers if applicable, and managing waste responsibly) and Improvements (Façade improvements including those supported by the Façades Grant Program, signage, historic preservation, and public space improvements).
Each month’s winners are also celebrated with congratulations on social media.
Why is Brantford’s Golden Broom awards program worth duplicating in your small town? Here are five simple reasons:
It celebrates business leadership: Too often, BIAs, board of trades, and chambers do year-end awards and that’s it. Being progressive means doing more to publicly showcase and publicly celebrate your members as leaders every day of the year, not just during one awards night once per year. P.S. By the way, those once-per-year awards nights are not public events. It’s time to start publicly recognizing businesses that are making an effort and put them into the spotlight by showing their leadership for helping with placemaking and revitalization. An ongoing and repetitive awards program like Brantford’s Golden Broom done on a regular basis is one more way that downtowns can improve perceptions in the minds of the public that the downtown truly is making an effort.
It shows the public that your downtown does care about appearances: First impressions matter. Ask any first-time tourist in your downtown! Imagine what full-time residents think. When a downtown starts to erode, the public starts to lose confidence that a turnaround is possible. Let’s stop leapfrogging ahead and using that tired Shop Local slogan and instead take a step back to think about what makes our downtowns vibrant places. It begins with street-level appeal. You have businesses who share that vision. Shout about them! If your downtown business association is using that all-too-familiar line we “…help beautify the downtown” as part of its mandate, then go beyond just words and show the sustained actions of members that help that cause.
It gives folks a way to show their love for your downtown: Humans are attracted to attractive things. Let them nominate and celebrate that love by sharing their enthusiasm for businesses that catch their eyes!
It’s simple: You don’t need six months of meetings to plan it. You don’t need consultant studies or more endless surveys that all say what everybody already knows. You don’t even need presentations to council. You can just start doing it. Now.
Businesses are in it together!: OK, yes, you have some downtown businesses that don’t put forth much effort. Fortunately and strategically, a program like Golden Broom awards puts the focus on the ones that are making an effort and how they are helping to make downtown an appealing destination. Sometimes the way to bring the lazy stores up to speed, is to show them how far they are behind. Peer pressure can work in a downtown too.
How is your downtown regularly and publicly celebrating shops that go that extra mile to create curb appeal? If you aren’t doing anything, Brantford’s Golden Broom program is a good place to learn. Check out the Golden Broom nomination form.
Any small-town downtown can duplicate this.
