Chamber Launches New Image Campaign For North Kingstown

The next year will be full of surprises for North Kingstown as a local marketing firm tackles the town’s image problem and vies for the attention of tourists and businesses.

While the campaign is just eight weeks off the ground, North Star Marketing’s April Williams unveiled the town’s new slogan at the ’s annual meeting on Thursday night – “North Kingstown: Full of Surprises.” She said the phrase would soon be on everyone’s lips.

Advertisements strategically placed on the Web and in stores around the state will soon remind out-of-towners about NK’s family-friendly beaches, its quaint Wickford Village and its industrial epicenter in Quonset. The goal, Williams said, is to harness the town’s natural features in order to attract tourism and new business to the area.

“Nothing would make me happier than to see North Kingstown recognized for the place it is,” said Williams as she described how the campaign would rely on the town’s characteristics to shift how tourists and businesses gauge NK’s climate.

In a recent Town Council meeting, the council approved a $5,000 survey of businesses that have worked with the town in an effort to make North Kingstown more business friendly. The yearlong effort to revitalize NK’s business environment and entice tourism has been a long time in the making, said the chamber’s director of the board, Toby Aaron.

“We’re excited and NK’s business community is definitely in need of this,” said Aaron about marketing campaign that Williams will be running alongside the chamber. “Something like this hasn’t been done in forever.”

Aaron said he trusts Williams’ innovative marketing ideas to breathe some life back into NK’s economy.

Williams, who calls herself North Star Marketing’s ‘visionary,’ started her Ten Rod Road-based public relations and marketing company more than 14 years ago. Since then, Williams and her small staff have established themselves as a firm to be reckoned with. Averaging a 30-percent return in a handful of targeted sales campaigns with companies like Cox Cable, it’s clear that her team can get people’s attention.

Believe it or not, the inspiration for NK’s image change was born in the bottom of William’s kitchen sink drain, underneath a most unappetizing pile of vegetable peels and pieces of soggy dog food, she said.

Williams, who loves to cook, but hates to clean said her husband always cleans her kitchen for her after dinner. Despite his hard work, Williams said her husband would always forget to clean out the kitchen sink drain, trapping a collection of food remnants in the bottom of the sink for her to find in the morning. This sink drain became a source of much contention and aggravation within the Williams’ household until one day when Williams said that drain caused her “a shift in perspective.”

Williams’ husband challenged her to see the disgusting sink drain as a symbol of all the hard work he put into making the rest of the kitchen as clean as possible and be thankful for the effort that went into filling the drain with all the disgusting bits of food.

Williams carried this life lesson with her into the professional world and she said she incorporates it into each creative campaign she has run since, leading to many imaginative marketing techniques that she said produce results.

North Star Marketing has helped the NK Chamber of Commerce with other pro bono marketing projects. The firm is currently promoting the chamber’s Heels and Wheels fundraiser at the town beach in May. The event kicks off with dinner and dancing on Friday, May 6 and continues through Saturday with a classic car show and family fun games.

As a lifelong resident and local business owner, Williams has a stake in the success if the campaign and she has the insider knowledge about the town to bring all of NK’s assets to light.

“I’m challenging you to look at your business and look at how you can do things differently,” said Williams. “To recreate ourselves and not to be afraid of change.”