Update: This version of the story corrects Greg Reynolds' title to executive director of the Pleasure Island Chamber of Commerce. The earlier version incorrectly stated that he is the president. Gail McCloskey is the chamber president.
"Buy. Eat. Stay. Play." That’s the motto of Pleasure Island’s newest business initiative, Island Local.
Founded by Steve and Juliet Wright, Shawdy Linquist and Jessica Keenan, Island Local is a marketing campaign that formed in April to “promote local participating Pleasure Island businesses,” according to the campaign’s founders.
The program is designed to help local businesses collaborate and bolster one another.
Katrina Rogers recently opened Island Massage and Spa on Pleasure Island and needed a way to bond with fellow small business owners. Her solution was Island Local.
“I'm a new business on the island, and I wanted to join in with the community and support each other,” Rogers said. “This gave me that opportunity.”
With strategies such as offering Island Local t-shirt discounts, the marketing team is working to gain momentum for the movement.
Strategic marketing is not unknown territory for the Wrights, who own Pleasure Island’s Sandpiper Marketing. Along with Linquist and Keenan, they also run the Thread, which is a no-fee networking group for Pleasure Island business owners.
While the Island Local campaign appears to be taking off, it is creating a fair number of waves on the small island, especially confusion between it and the Pleasure Island Chamber of Commerce.
“There is some initial confusion, but I think that's from their part, not ours,” chamber executive director Greg Reynolds said.
Reynolds said the majority of the confusion has come from the campaign’s motto, which is very similar to the chamber’s “Where to Eat. Where to Stay. Where to Play.” tagline.
“I had a lot of people ask initially if we were involved with each other because the catchphrases are so similar,” Reynolds said. “But we’re not.”
Reynolds went on to say that even though Island Local has many similarities with the chamber, the two entities are also very different.
According to Reynolds, these differences include daily discounts for chamber members instead of Friday specials, daily Facebook announcements as opposed to a monthly newsletter and non-profit versus for-profit organization.
“It’s not an apples-to-apples kind of situation,” Reynolds said. “We have some similarities, but we don’t view them as competition.”
Reynolds said the founders of Island Local, who recently joined the chamber, have met with chamber leaders and discussed how the two groups can coexist because their overall goals are the same.
“We see groups like this come and go, but we encourage them and hope that they do well,” Reynolds said. “For us, anything to keep people in the local economy is good.”
Calls to Steve Wright were not returned by press time.
