Jan 26, 2011

“Shift Happens” effort’s goal: Getting Tacomans to shop closer to homeBy Kathleen CooperTheNewsTribune.com

The goal is to get Tacomans to spend more of their money closer to home, but it’s the name that’s getting some attention.

Tacoma Shift Happens, an initiative by business alliance GoLocal, is an attempt to get people to shift 10 percent of their spending from national chains to a locally owned businesses. The campaign starts Monday with a showcase featuring 48 Tacoma businesses and a State of the City address from the mayor.

Does the name get in the way of that goal?

“We actually had an established business person here in Cambridge have this event one night last year called the Shift, or Shift Happens. I got more calls from people saying, ‘What the h-e-double toothpicks is this?’ ” Kelly Thompson Clark, chief executive of the Cambridge, Mass., Chamber of Commerce, said today. “I don’t know if it’s the best way unless there’s a larger marketing education campaign behind it.”

GoLocal founder and president Patricia Lecy-Davis said today that it’s “a pitch to create a philosophy shift.”

She came up with the slogan after seeing how other campaigns, including the one in Cambridge, developed. “I really push the envelope,” Lecy-Davis said. “I really wanted to bring something that was about Tacoma, instead of copying someone else’s plan.

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