Re-branding the High Street

The Deloitte Consumer Review "Reinventing the role of the high street" just released states that "while many have proclaimed the ‘end of the high street’,  the high street will continue to be an important place where innovative, consumer-focused businesses will grow and thrive."  

BUT make no mistake the High Street is changing – and its changing reality will need to be announced with some skill to townsfolk across the UK.  What they have previously experienced will transform inexorably from the retail focussed day-time only space to an increasingly 24/7 environment, where health, education, leisure, and public service delivery will nestle alongside the downsized  commercial premises of retail.  A substantial change is coming to towns and cities across the UK – an unprecedented change for over five hundred years.

High streets have been for centuries, along with the market places which they have traditionally served and the hostelries which have interspersed them, the vibrant, beating heart of a town.  This transformation of public space will need to be well managed and those responsible for planning and commissioning need to be strategic in their response and sure footed in what will be a fluid environment full of  opportunity to those alert to new technologies and changing consumer needs and behaviours.

A crucial part of seeing growth rather than decline in the high street will be an innovative approach to building community and consumer commitment in the centre of our towns.  With the high street moving   ‘Beyond Retail’,  high streets will have to develop new strategies and new 'branding' methods to enhance social interaction, develop new narratives connecting community history with cultural  and commercial opportunity, whilst  thinking hard about how services old and new can be announced to and efficiently accessed by residents, visitors and an increasingly diverse local population.  There is an unprecedented opportunity to dust down forgotten treasures, establish some new narratives around community identities and build foot-fall beyond the traditional confines of fresh fruit and vegetables. 

This is where there is a wonderful opportunity for local councils, town centre managers and local businesses to employ the services of film makers and story tellers with dvd, apps, and pod casts.   This is what is so exciting about the work which we are part of at Ibixproductions assisting the imaginative repositioning of the high street and a town’s unique take on its history and future possibilities. Whether it be helping towns think through how they can develop commercial potential through the Arts, with festivals,  dance, music, history, sculpture, or increased public access to forgotten legacies, our work at Ibixproductions is never short of challenge but always full of a wonderful sense of community pride when the work is done and the people come.

The work of rebuilding the high street is a genuinely public task.   At IbixProductions we are privileged to be at the creative end of delivering the stuff of dreams and turning them into reality.  Our film making is steeped with local reality, talent and an appreciation of the rich legacy of the community in people, building and stories.  See some of the work which we have already undertaken in this area on www.ibixproductions.co.uk.  It is the imaginative space which is built for people to celebrate their high street and their town as a vital, dynamic place – which is every bit as important as the bricks and mortar but so often neglected.  It is the stories which we tell ourselves which encourage us to be  proud to call our town home, a place where we are delighted to spend our time and pleased to build enduring supportive relationships.  It is this space which is an essential component of a thriving town and a vibrant high street, and which is a real privilege to be part of building.