Marketing style sideswipe

David Hill of Papamoa Unlimited.

Papamoa Unlimited co-ordinator David Hill took a sideswipe at Mainstreet Tauranga this week, saying the hands-on Papamoa model is far more efficient than the way Tauranga does business.

The Papamoa organisation's style of taking $25,000 from a commercial rate levy and ensuring all events are fully sponsored is far more efficient than contracting everything out for $250,000.

He's referring to Mainstreet Tauranga, which contracts out all event promotions and initiatives to Tuskany Marketing for $250,800, according to figures tabled in the monitoring report at this week's Monitoring Committee meeting.

'I think the business model of asking for a little bit of money and not relying on paying money and abdicating responsibility, and that business model works exceptionally well with town centre organisations I have been involved in now and in the past.”

David moved to Papamoa from Richmond, Nelson, where he says the decision to turn everything over to a marketing group didn't work out so well.

'What happened with the Nelson retailers, they brought on a marketing group and within a couple of years moved back to the retailers running the organisation because there was direct accountability and direct line of feedback. Did this work? Was there an increase in foot traffic, was there an increase in turnover?

'Our model is run by retailers, people with skin in the game and have direct responsibility for where their money is being spent, and that model tends to work exceptionally well.”

Tuskany Marketing director Sally Cooke says they are employed by the Mainstreet Board.

'They are the ones who set up the partnership with Tuskany that we report to every month,” says Sally. She adds that the advantage for Mainstreet is it gets a full team working on the Downtown Tauranga contract, who have got marketing, event management, strategic marketing and branding expertise and offer independent advice on how to market the city centre.

Tauranga Mainstreet board vice chair Anne Pankhurst says Mainstreet is not just a retailer organisation. Two thirds of the 725 members represent commercial or first floor business in the CBD, which is the commercial, civic, and cultural hub of the region.

'The Mainstreet board has had Tuskany as their management and marketing agency for two years now and are very happy with the results that we are achieving,” says Anne.

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