HOLLAND (WHTC-AM/FM) — The City of Zeeland, which launched a playful “Feel the Zeel” campaign nearly a dozen years ago, produced a “Heal the Zeel” effort after the COVID-19 pandemic hit Michigan last spring.
With vaccines trickling into clinics across the state and some hope of the horizon of an overall recovery, from the virus and from the recent bumpy economy, city officials have partnered with two Zeeland-based businesses, David & Brook and Tiffany Kraker/Marc Creative., to boost downtown businesses as much as possible.
Work over the last several months resulted in a dedicated section on the city’s website, at cityofzeeland.com/508/Strength-Main, as special newspaper, set to be mailed to all Zeeland residents later this month (and already online), a commercial on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99BGdMwOiyg and a 10-day giveaway blitz, set for Feb. 2-10, that will only be accessible via Facebook or Instagram. The campaign includes some whimsy — temporary tattoos and stickers.
People who want to enter the contest can take a selfie with something they bought downtown or even one of the tattoos or stickers, and tag the city’s social media accounts (not Twitter, which is excluded from this campaign.)
“We want this be something that customers and community members can participate in,” Abby DeRoo, the city’s marketing director, told WHTC. (Listen to the full podcast). “We want them to read the stories and be touched by those. We want them to shop, show up, show us what they bought.”
She said as each person was interviewed for the broadsheet stories, she found that often downtown Zeeland is the place to go for everything from celebrating an engagement or happy milestone to finding comfort in familiar surroundings during life’s more-difficult times. That, she said, is what connects people to the shops along Zeeland’s Main Avenue, especially when those experiences span generations.
Whether the businesses are old, new or not necessarily included in the campaign, DeRoo said, each need community support to survive the financial effects of the pandemic.
“It’s important, if we want to maintain a traditional downtown, that we show up and support these businesses, even when it’s inconvenient, even if it might more expensive — but it might not be — going out of our way to support these businesses,” she said. “They’re fighting against the World Wide Web, every day, and big boxes (stores).”
She said it’s important for people to “change our habits and leverage our collective local spending power. It will have lasting effects.”
