Local Authority Study

Hypothesis: Local authority marketing activity has evolved and increased since Mills' and Young's study of 1984 because economic restructuring and recession has compelled local authorities to compete amongst themselves to attract scarce inward investment and jobs to their areas.

This hypothesis has developed from the literature explored in Chapter 2 where it was stated that place marketing activity increases during periods of economic recession (Barke and Harrop, 1994). As Britain has suffered economic recession since the late 1980s, if Barke and Harrop's theory is correct, it therefore follows that place marketing activity will have increased.

4.3.1 Research Design

A survey of local authorities to determine:

Whether they have a marketing strategy. Types of marketing methods and media used. Types of groups included in the marketing process. Whether consultants are used and what is their role. Length o f time authorities have been marketing. Political make-up of local authorities.

Content analysis of one aspect of local authority marketing.

4.3.2 Methodology

Mills' and Young's 1984 study of place marketing activity involved a postal survey of all local authorities in England and Wales. There are two problems with their approach: firstly, the average response rate from a postal survey is 30 per cent, and may be lower from local authorities who are notoriously low responders (Howard and Sharp, 1983); secondly the final sample analysed by Mills and Young may not have been representative of different types of authorities as the results of the survey does not give characteristics of the local authorities who responded.

A method had to be devised which could overcome problems of both non-response and representativeness. Sampling has advantages over full census approaches in that it is cheaper and, where a representative sample is taken, results can be applied to the

total population (Graham, 1994). A sample of 30 taken from a population will generally conform to the normal distribution curve and can therefore be taken to be statistically significant. A sample of 10 per cent of English and Welsh local authorities (47) was chosen, stratified according to the relative numbers of London Boroughs, Metropolitan Districts, English and Welsh Counties and English and Welsh Districts in the total population. Authorities were selected using computer generated random numbers and four reserve authorities were chosen from each local authority category in order to allow for the possibility of non-response. The sample could have been stratified further into categorised areas such as resort, industrial or rural but this was felt unnecessary as the sample drawn resulted in all these types of authorities being represented (see Appendix B for full details).

The survey was conducted by telephone to overcome problems of non-response. A senior Economic Development Officer (EDO) was contacted and asked if s/he would answer six short questions about the authority's marketing approach. A questionnaire had been devised which would take no longer than five minutes to discuss including questions on marketing policy, the different marketing media used, the different types of organisations the authority might work with to promote their local area, the length of time the authority had been marketing, numbers of staff involved, whether consultants are used, and the political make-up of the authority (see questionnaire. Appendix B).

At the end of the interview a copy of the authority's marketing literature was asked for in order to perform a separate content analysis on a sample of packages. Content analysis consisted of an identification of both common and uncommon features in each brochure, evidence of any innovative or interesting approaches, which might make one local authority's brochure stand out from another, and representations of the working population, in particular of women and minority groups.

Further research was deemed necessary following the telephone surveys as a high percentage of local authorities were found to use consultants for various aspects of their marketing strategies. It was therefore decided to interview a large consultancy in order to discover:

• What sort of work is done by consultancies for local authorities? • How a marketing strategy is devised?

A semi-structured approach was considered the best method for this interview. The two consultants interviewed were given the aims of the interview prior to the meeting. Data gathered in this interview will be woven into the analysis given in Chapter 5 when discussing the role of consultants.

4.3.3 Evaluation o f M ethod

Telephone interviewing is a good method, especially when approaching organisations who are known to be non-responders. Information can be accessed immediately without the need to wait for postal replies. Few follow-up postal requests are necessary as data is gathered immediately. Piloting is also made easier as any ambiguity over the interpretation of questions can be corrected verbally and instantly. It was relatively simple to carry out this survey by telephone as EDOs were assured that the questions were very short. Once contact had been made, all EDOs agreed to answer questions: there were no rejections. Many EDOs also volunteered opinions and statements about how relevant they felt marketing was to their authority. This method is, however, relatively expensive as it required 65 long-distance telephone telephone calls of up to fifteen minutes long, during the peak charging period of the day.

The response rate of the telephone survey was excellent at 100 per cent of the officers contacted. Survey forms were then sent by post to eight EDOs who were difficult to make contact with. After follow-up, two EDOs did not return forms, therefore two reserve authorities were telephoned to make the sample up to the required number.

Content analysis was a useful exercise, both to compare with Mills' and Young's study and to assess the packages in terms of equal opportunities approaches. This type of approach cannot be taken as indicative of the sum total of marketing carried out by local authorities as many marketing approaches are used concurrently by local authorities as will be shown in the analysis. It is, however, the most accessible part of a marketing strategy which can be examined by a researcher: it would not be possible, for example, to examine a local authority's total marketing effort without spending time in each authority making observations and performing in-depth interviews with the EDO concerned.

The results of the local authority survey and content analysis of marketing brochures are given in Chapter 5.