Last week I had an insightful and inspiring morning at the High Street Positives, Joining the Dots webinar, this time focusing on the people behind the high street.
A lot was covered, but there was a strong central theme. The high street challenge isn’t a lack of ideas. It’s getting the right people aligned well enough to act.
That came through in the discussion around heritage and modernisation, the role of landlords and investors, community-led regeneration, and the need for councils, businesses, BIDs and local people to work together rather than in isolation.
One comment in the chat summed it up particularly well: “We will not survive and flourish without collaboration.”
They nailed it.
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There are some brilliant examples already happening, from Dewsbury to Twickenham and beyond, but the common thread seems to be the same. Places move forward when people stop protecting their own patch and start thinking about the place as a whole.
And that, for me, is where brand and marketing have a role too. Not as the answer to every high street problem, clearly, but in helping create a stronger sense of place, a shared story and something that businesses, communities and visitors can actually connect with.
Because if you think about almost any successful place, whether that’s London, or areas within it like Chelsea, Camden or Hackney, or places like Padstow, Brighton, Hastings, Leeds, Whitby, Southwold, Tenby, Glasgow, Paris, New York or Bruges, they all have one thing in common.
A strong sense of place. A USP. Something that I would call a brand.
Not necessarily a logo or a strapline, but something distinctive and memorable that immediately paints a picture in your mind. It might be a landmark, an event, a delicacy, a craft, the architecture, the scenery or perhaps the culture.
And that matters because all the different people involved in shaping a high street will naturally have different priorities. A strong sense of place gives them something shared to work from, a common idea of what makes the place special, what is worth protecting and what they are collectively trying to build.
It doesn’t remove the differences, but it can help pull people in the same direction.
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Thanks to Laura Harris, Iain Nicholson and everyone involved. Plenty to think about, but even more importantly, plenty to act on.
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