Even as Bathurst Regional council counts the cost ($40,000 so far and rising) of its disastrous attempt at rebranding the city with a new logo and tagline, there are no guarantees the final product will ever repay the investment.

Expert consultants can carry out all the market research they like but there is always that undefined element of what exactly will capture the public’s attention and what won’t.

It is never a perfect science and good marketing can often just come down to a mix of planning, execution, timing and good luck.

And sometimes it can be a simple, quirky and cheap idea that succeeds where grander visions falter.

Just last week the small Central West town of Wellington became something of a social media phenomenon for a day when it hosted the inaugural Cob Loaf Festival.

Wellington has no particular affiliation with the cob loaf (or stuffed cob loaf, in this instance) and the festival name actually referred to an acronym for the Cameron Park on the Bell River (Cameron on Bell, COB) Festival.

But the online reaction was incredible. One Facebook post from the Wellington Times on the night of the festival last Thursday attracted more than 12,000 reactions, more than 30,000 comments and almost 5000 shares – numbers most marketing departments could only dream of.

So as Bathurst Regional Council prepares for its first Christmas Picnic in the Parade on Saturday – a response to last year’s criticism that council was not doing enough to help create a festival atmosphere in town – it appears Bathurst is staking its claim to become the state’s new rocky road capital.

Council has released its own Christmas rocky road recipe (complete with chopped red frogs and Maltesers) and invited people to bring along their own versions of the dessert to Saturday’s picnic.

The idea may never match the cob, bit it could just prove to be the single spark of genius that sets Bathurst’s Christmas party apart from other towns’ efforts and be the start of a new tradition.

Only time – and democracy of ideas that is social media – will tell. And even if the idea falls as flat as a Christmas pancakem it won’t have cost ratepayers $40,000 in the process.