Louisville mulls Independent Business Alliance - American Independent Business Alliance AMIBA

Local shops take a stand
'Weird' campaign supports independents

By Caroline Lynch
clynch@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

For Rob Auerbach's natural food market, Rainbow Blossom, the last two years have been anything but blooming.

After 27 years in business, the arrival of two major competitors since early 2003 — Wild Oats and Whole Foods — has sent sales spiraling downward.

"It has affected us pretty dramatically," Auerbach said. "We've let people go, sold off vehicles, drastically cut back on our advertising ... and health insurance benefits."

But will he go the way of Hawley-Cooke Booksellers, which sold to the Borders Books and Music chain? Nope. He's turned down a buyout offer and is helping ramp up a campaign to get Louisvillians shopping hometown.

Auerbach and others are following the lead of ear X-tacy owner John Timmons to spread the word to "keep Louisville weird."

The slogan is part of a public awareness campaign to support locally owned, independent businesses.

Ear X-tacy and others are selling T-shirts, sweat shirts and bumper stickers with the slogan. Timmons has also paid for bus advertisements and a billboard. In November, about 20 businesses held a scavenger hunt featuring the slogan that took participants to locally owned businesses, mainly along Bardstown Road and Frankfort Avenue.

About 45 companies now call themselves members of the loosely organized "keep Louisville weird" group, which has some official plans in the works.

"I felt like Louisville was in a rush to become the 16th largest city ... to be like everyone else," said Timmons, who moved to Louisville in the '70s. "To me, what made Louisville feel like home were the independent bookstores and the local restaurants that was what made it cool, and weird."

In addition to contributing to the uniqueness of the place, Timmons said independently owned businesses put more money back into the community.

But the slogan isn't unique to Louisville. In fact, the "keep (insert city name here) weird" slogan is becoming popular in several cities after starting about two years ago in Austin, Texas.

Others that have taken it on include Boulder, Colo.; Santa Cruz, Calif.; and Portland, Ore.

It started with Austin businessmen Steve Bercu, owner of BookPeople, and John Kunz, owner of Waterloo Records & Video.

In late 2002, the pair was battling city incentives for a development across the street that would contain a Borders. They ordered 5,000 "Keep Austin Weird" stickers.

"We've now given away 150,000," Bercu said.

Borders backed out of the deal, the city changed the incentive structure, and "Keep Austin Weird" became an Austin colloquialism.

While the campaign grew in Austin, the roots of a similar movement sprouted in Louisville. A few years ago, Timmons, Auerbach, and the owners of Quest Outdoors, Heine Brothers Coffee and Hawley-Cooke met to discuss raising awareness of what locally owned businesses bring the community.

They started with individual efforts, but those didn't go far enough.

Six months ago, Timmons put up the billboard. Clothing and other ads followed. So far, he's spent about $10,000 on the campaign, including hiring Leslie Stewart, an ear X-tacy's publicist, as program coordinator.

She has helped coordinate members, who, for now, are only required to post a sign in their stores, put a "keep Louisville weird" link on their Web sites and spread the word. Stewart said she's starting to get inquiries from businesses outside the core area, which is her goal.

Stewart also wants to make the movement official by starting a local chapter of the American Independent Business Alliance.

Alliance director Jennifer Rockne said her nonprofit works as a resource for chapters, and offers guidance and templates for promotional materials, such as a guide to locally owned businesses, which Stewart said Louisville's chapter may use.

The alliance has also commissioned studies of the impact of independent businesses on their communities, finding that independent businesses put back into the community three times as much of their revenues as do chain stores.

That's because they tend to use local providers, such as lawyers and accountants, and they give more back to area causes, the study said.

However, Terry Hill, vice president of communication for the International Franchise Association, said most franchises are run by local owners who also give back to their communities and spend money near home. He said franchises move into markets where there is room for them.

"Franchises wouldn't exist if customers didn't want the value and the products they provide," he said.

But some local owners joined the campaign because they fear franchises and chains will take away the city's uniqueness.

"What's the point of going to a different city if all they have is a Best Buy and an Applebee's and a Taco Bell?" said Todd Brashear, owner of Wild and Woolly Video. " If Main Street U.S.A. is the same in every city, what's the point?"

Though the campaign began around the opening of 4th Street Live, which is mostly chains and which some local bar owners say hurt their business, organizers say the two are only loosely related. Other factors, including Hawley-Cooke's sale to Borders and chain growth, started the initial talks.

Timmons and Stewart want all of Louisville's independent business owners to join the crowd.

Auerbach needs the campaign to catch on quickly. He's not suggesting people avoid chains altogether, but rather be aware of where they're spending their money and what that means.

"When Hawley-Cooke went out of business, people said, `Ahhhh, I'm so sorry I didn't go to Hawley-Cooke,'" he said. "People don't understand that they're voting with their dollar."

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