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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

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Each month : an analysis from a Cities expert A compilation of all articles related to the Cities topic of the month

November 2012 - City Branding

Greg Clark, Moderator, MIPIM World Cities Blog.

This month’s blogs have covered city branding and identity building. We have seen some amazing examples

from Nordic cities, Glasgow, Vienna, Sydney, New London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Barcelona and

Aarhus. We have heard from Simon Cotterall about the importance of real brand execution, from David Adam

about city brand commercialisation, and from Juan Carlos Belloso on how image and identity must be fused

with authenticity.

Stimulating demand side interest in cities remains an important challenge for many cities, and so the

enthusiasm for brand strategies continued.

Cities increasingly compete in contested international markets for a wide range of beneficial assets,

opportunities, and investments that help the city to develop and generate opportunities and resources for

their citizens. Increasingly, cities are using thoughtful promotional brand strategies to better project their

advantages, and to foster a clear identity and reputation, that will help them win the competition for mobile

opportunities over time. These identities and reputations are much more than logos or strap lines, they

communicate a ‘whole story’ about the value added that the city can offer to mobile activities that have a

choice where they locate. The purpose of the brand is to provide an authentic and aspirational message about

the city.

Increasingly, city governments are investing in building the brand platform of their cities so that a consistent

set of messages, and style of messaging, can be used to reinforce the positive elements of the city’s offer. City

governments are also fostering partnerships with private companies and institutions within their city to jointly

invest in and communicate the same messages through a shared brand platform. The brand platform becomes

the property of the whole city, not just the city government, although the city government will often provide

leadership to the brand partnership. When done successfully this enables the city government to leverage

resources and investment from other parties into the brand platform thus enhancing its scope and reducing

the proportion of the costs paid by tax payers.

I think of cities as having 4 different realms in which brand and identity exist. These are:

i. The visitor brand ii. The citizen or resident brand

iii. The investor or business brand iv. The leader or innovator brand

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

Urban Intelligence by

Each month : an analysis from a Cities expert A compilation of all articles related to the Cities topic of the month

These different ideas about the brand story have to work together and have a means to support each other. It

is a significant leadership task to do that. It is also difficult to build these different aspects of brand together.

For example it is quite common for visitor brand to dominate and reduce the space in which other brands can

operate. It is also common to have brand stories that are not compatible across the different realms. This is

also problematic.

City branding efforts have emerged from less sophisticated forms of city marketing. The marketing of urban

places has been practiced, at least, since the nineteenth century, although cities have only tended to rely on

marketing methods in the latter decades of the twentieth century, when competition for inward investment,

tourism revenues and residents at various spatial scales has intensified. In particular, the rise of the so-called

‘entrepreneurial city’ allowed city marketing to become one of the defining features of urban governance from

the 1970s.

The shift from city marketing to city branding has largely taken place due to a growing recognition that image

formulation and communication play a key role in the city marketing mix. The manipulation of city images,

cultures and experiences has arguably become the most important part of the political armoury of urban

governors and their coalition partners in the entrepreneurial era. Since branding endows a product with a

specific and more distinctive identity, and that is, in many ways, what city marketing sought to do for cities, it

is only appropriate that city authorities have increasingly moved towards creating a recognisable city brand,

rather than a more generic city marketing mix.

The key difference between marketing and branding is that marketing uses consumer wishes and needs as its

guiding principle for the operations of an organisation, while in the case of branding, a chosen vision, mission

and identity play that role.i

When and why do city brands fail?

Bill Baker, President, Total Destination Management, has prepared a summary of the key reasons behind the

failure of city branding exercises. These are identified and make sober reading:

1. Insufficient understanding of branding: a branding partnership that has an understanding of brand

management, and the concepts and techniques needed for a brand strategy, has a much better chance of

defining its strongest positioning and brand elements. Briefings should be built into the planning phases

to ensure that stakeholders are well informed about the strategic nature of branding and its benefits.

Visitor Brand Investor/Business

Brand

Resident / Citizen

Brand

Innovator / Leader

Brand

Common Identity and Story

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

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Each month : an analysis from a Cities expert A compilation of all articles related to the Cities topic of the month

Central to this is an understanding that branding is much more than a new logo, slogan or advertising

campaign.

2. Lack of stakeholder buy-in: sustaining a brand once it is launched requires the broad adoption and correct

use of the brand by all stakeholders who have an influence over its most important points of contact with

customers. If the brand is only used through advertising and stationery, its impact will be limited. The

most effective approach is to build stakeholder buy-in from the earliest stages of the planning process

and then maintain regular communications with those stakeholders.

3. Failure to grasp the scope of branding: also referred to as ‘logo and tagline fixation’. Many communities

forget to ensure that they are able to orchestrate outstanding visitor experiences before they roll-out a

publicity and advertising campaign. This is vital, since branding is about delivering on a promise and is

based on differentiation, focus, and organisation. Supporting this idea is a statement by Paul O’Connor,

Executive Director, World Business Chicago, who has stated that:

‘the greatest piece of advice I can give to other cities is to accept taglines only as a last resort. A

tagline passes for branding, but it is not the same thing. Taglines are fragile, limited or too

broad. They do not represent who you really are. A brand is the DNA of a place, what it is made

of, what it passes from generation to generation. It is authentic and indicates what makes a

place different from others.’ ii

4. Focusing on short-term results: ‘heads in beds’ is vitally important to the viability of cities and their

tourism partners. However, setting brand objectives focusing on short-term traffic alone is unlikely to

support the long-term health of the city’s brand image. An over-emphasis on tactical and price driven

initiatives restricts the communication of the core brand messages which shape perceptions and

positioning - it takes time to build positive awareness, associations, name recognition and reputation.

5. Forgetting the customer’s view: insufficient customer focus and undue political influence and self-interest

will mean the brand is almost bound to fail. The preference by some political and opinion leaders to

adopt risk averse, parochial, inclusive, self-interest, or popular positions can run counter to the best

interests of a city trying to promote its competitive edge. The focus should be on distilling the single

strongest competitive advantage that will resonate with the external customer. Too many city branding

efforts fail because they are based on what locals like and how they see themselves, rather than on what

will be meaningful and valued by their external customers.

6. Not agreeing what is being branded: what are the spatial boundaries of branding? Is it just the downtown

or the entire city? Is it the overarching brand for all marketing efforts on behalf of the city? There is a

delicate balance in the geographical and political scope of a brand. If the brand tries to cover too wide an

area and address too many different audiences, it may become diluted. All stakeholders should be clear

from the outset about the parameters of the assignment, ensure the correct problems are being solved,

and be prepared to pay attention to the underlying issues.

7. Insufficient or irrelevant research: research, particularly consumer attitudinal research, will provide an

insightful view in determining perceptions and the strongest competitive positioning. Importantly, cities

need to understand how prospective customers view the city compared to competitor cities.

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

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Each month : an analysis from a Cities expert A compilation of all articles related to the Cities topic of the month

8. The ‘we have it all’ trap: cities should not try to be all things to all people. Claiming that a city ‘has it all’

may appease various local groups and avoid difficult positioning decisions, but will invariably lead to very

weak positioning. Failing to base the brand on its strongest and most distinctive benefits from the

customer’s perspective will result in a weak and irrelevant proposition. In support of this concept, CEOs

for Cities notes that target audiences need to be minimised in number and prioritised based on

importance.iii

9. Not following the strategy: when no-one has been given the responsibility to actively manage or protect

the brand, the effort can be patchy and will usually stray from the prescribed strategy and guidelines.

Successful brands are closely managed and protected, but responsibility for this is sometimes not well

defined. If the guidelines are not closely followed, the brand will be presented in an ad hoc and

inconsistent manner. A significant part of city branding is about change management and transitioning to

a more effective focus for leadership, messages, resources and behaviour.

10. The lure of ‘bright shiny objects’: advertising is important, but designing a brand with an over-emphasis

on an advertising theme is a recipe for failure. CEOs for Cities suggests that rather than spending limited

resources on an expensive advertising campaign, integrating grassroots tactics such as events, city tours

and PR success stories as ways to build awareness and word of mouth

11. Forgetting about the brand experience and the city’s ‘reality’: a city brand is a promise of the city’s

performance. It must be grounded in truth and reality; if the city does not live up to the promise, the

brand will be weak and unsustainable.

12. Unhelpful mindsets: cities which are prepared to ‘think outside the box’ are the most likely to develop

potent brand positioning and outcomes. Creating community-based brands is most effective when

participants have an open and collaborative attitude in contributing to the common good.

13. Brand fatigue: it is an old marketing truism that marketers get tired of marketing long before customers

do. Some organisations depart from their brand strategy a small step at a time because they get tired of

it, and over a year or so, become considerably off-strategy. An important key to successful place branding

is to maintain consistency in all creative executions and in delivering the brand experience. Branding is

long-term and cumulative. It is an ongoing organising and management principle that needs continued

focus to shape and deliver the brand over time.

14. Making brand planning a ‘DIY’ project and not engaging specialist skills: even though engaging

professionals means paying more, the overall results for the city’s reputation will more than pay for itself.

An outside agency or consultant can guide the city branding partnership through the difficult analysis and

decisions that may be overlooked by individuals without specialist skill and previous experience.

i. European Institute for Brand Management website (http://www.eurib.org/en/home.html)

ii. cited in ‘Branding Your City’ CEOs for Cities (March 2006) (http://www.globalchicago.org/reports/pdf/CEOsforCitiesBrandingYourCity2006.pdf)

iii. ibid

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

Urban Intelligence by

Each month : an analysis from a Cities expert A compilation of all articles related to the Cities topic of the month

Discover this month’s articles:

October 24, 2012

City Brand Success: Vienna – Page 13 In the year 2009 the Vienna Tourist Board carried out a relaunch in the wake of an extensive

survey and analysis of about 11,000 guests. This resulted in the development of an

advertising strategy that sets out to convince not only at a rational level using side-by-side

evidence, but also at an emotional level.

October 15, 2012

City Branding: The seven habits – Page 7 The Seven habits of highly effective cities: providing urban leaders with the magnet that

combines people and institutions together in a common identity and purpose.

October 30, 2012

Commercialisation of place brands – 16 Cities must build active marketing partnerships and go beyond extensive product lines in

order to better exploit the city brand.

October 23, 2012

Glasgow: Where more really means more – Page 11 Conference and major event organisers are increasingly choosing Glasgow as they discover

that it’s a great place to do business and a city which keeps its word…

October 31, 2012

City Branding in Nordics: A framework of success factors– Page 18 Analysing the success factors and road map of the city branding programs of Helsinki,

Stockholm, Copenhagen and Chicago.

November 5, 2012

Executing a City Brand Strategy – Page 21 The need for developing a city brand is understood, the difficulty lies in bringing that brand to

life in the most physical way possible.

November 5, 2012

Hong Kong: Asia’s World City – Page 23 ‘Asia’s world city’ slogan is defined by its core values: free, enterprising, excellence,

innovative and quality living.

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

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Each month : an analysis from a Cities expert A compilation of all articles related to the Cities topic of the month

November 6, 2012

Singapore: A City in a Garden – Page 25 Singapore will find global success by promoting Singaporean science, know how, firms,

services, and products, in addition to its strengths as a location and destination.

November 12, 2012

Sydney: Asia Pacific World City – Page 28 Sydney must leverage its inherent strengths as a visitor destination to build a broader business and knowledge offer.

November 9, 2012

New York City: The Big Green Apple? – Page 27

New York needs to continue to promote the city internationally as an ideal place for start-up

ventures, while ensuring that public policy continues to be pro-business.

November 12, 2012

Tokyo: Identity and Reputation and a Resilient Brand, but is Tokyo an

Open City? – Page 30 Tokyo intends to promote its brand to the world, “presenting the world with a vision of how cities should be.”

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

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Each month : an analysis from a Cities expert A compilation of all articles related to the Cities topic of the month

City Branding: The seven habits

The Seven habits of highly effective cities: providing urban leaders with the magnet that combines people and institutions together in a common identity and purpose. By Greg Clark

Image: Flickr-Ed Coyle Photography

This month series of blogs will cover city branding. There is now a global conversation on cities and branding that is worthwhile reviewing. We know that cities have reputations and identities that they want to protect and enhance, but does this mean that city branding will work? And is city branding a different activity from product or company branding? Building a lasting city identity and reputation is one of the profound, but often mysterious goals that city leaders face. If we can build a city identity that is attractive, powerful, commanding affection and wonder with a sense of belonging, confidence and trust, that identity will help us to solve many of the other challenges that cities face. A positive identity can give us the ‘benefit of the doubt’ when choices are made; it can maintain outside interest in our city even when we go through rough times and compel people to help us even without evidence of their own likely return. A positive identity also

makes investors and firms reluctant to leave us even when competition is fierce. A city identity helps people to embrace the soul of the city and to become a friend, not just a customer. Twenty five years ago we thought that cities needed brands largely in order to attract tourists. But now, in 2012 we realise that much more of the content of what makes up a city is mobile, and is contested through international competition. For example, these days it is not just tourists, but also students, researchers, innovators, investors, entrepreneurs, knowledge workers, institutions, sports and business events, film shoots, festivals, summits, technology facilities and a host of other activities that are mobile. Cities do compete to win or retain such activities. It is not enough for a city to have a brand that attracts tourists, cities must have an identity that reaches across different markets and customers and tell a unifying story about the value the city can add to the activity that is looking for a

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

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Each month : an analysis from a Cities expert A compilation of all articles related to the Cities topic of the month

home. We cannot tell one story to the students and another to the business people, for example, because the students may become business people, and the business people sometimes also study. We need an organising story across many markets, not just a sales campaign within one of them. Looking at the competition to host Olympics Games and World Cups is very instructive. Increasingly we hear that: ‘the city with the best technical bid was not the winner’. The untold rule is that the technical bid is only part of the process. The identity and story that the bidding cities present are also a major part of the communication. At the heart of this is always how effective the cities are in aligning their own identity with the identity of the event itself. The cities that win demonstrate and communicate shared values, aspirations, concerns, and priorities with the event organisers, not just through technical submissions, but also through personality. London won the Olympics for 2012 without the best technical bid. Barcelona did not make a strong case to be Capital Secretariat of the Mediterranean Union but was given the role anyway, despite a strong bid from Marseilles. Once Brazil bid for the FIFA 2014 World Cup, the others realised they could not win. Some places simply have such strong identities that they have a head start in competitions of this kind. Having a clear identity means that a city can align its identity with the identity of others and create a powerful sense of alliance, compatibility, and shared destiny. So, without a clear identity it is hard to win the contests for mobile activities. This does not just go for hosting global events. Exporting a city’s business products, attracting inter-governmental funding, and becoming the location for a film shoot or summit are also subject to the basic and primary law of relationship building, and the emotional communication that goes with it. A city identity can also be a collaboration mechanism for the many stakeholders in a city that

want to show what the city can do as well. Without a common city identity there is only the individual stories of each separate organisation or each individual, and this is too diffuse to communicate with confidence. Cities need one song even if they have many voices. So what do the successful cities do to find and to communicate their identity. What are the habits of success that make cities winners in the personality war that happens between cities, often unnoticed? Steven Covey’s wonderful book[i] taught us that here are always seven laws of success, and here they are: 1. Prioritise city identity and reputation Almost obviously, cities must prioritise this kind of thinking, and way of communicating and relating with the rest of the world. Deciding to build an identity and a reputation is an important step that moves cities away from simply providing services and infrastructures into the realm of ‘winning friends sand influencing people’. This is difficult to do because media, political opposition, and citizens are sometimes sceptical about the value of city identity. City mayors face ‘trial by headlines’ if they spend too much on a logo, a strap line, or hosting an expensive event. But prioritisation of this way of working also means doing things the right way and doing them well. It requires deep thinking, analysis, and wisdom. There are good ways and bad ways to do it and you must know the difference. The bad ways are an expensive waste. Singapore and Abu Dhabi have invested decisively in building globally appealing identities that have won them extensive popular interest and support, because their identities are based on deep self knowledge and a rigorous assessment of what the world wants now and will seek in the future. 2. Know our city deeply. The first task for a city leader is to know our city, to know ourselves. This means connecting past, present, and future and understanding the origins of the city, the journey it is on, the people who have made it, the decisions that were taken, the values and vision that led the city in the past, and the role

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

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the city has played, and can play, in the lives of the people who live here, or visit. The unique story of the city must be clear and be well told. Many cities have more than one story, cities have the ability to simultaneously be different things, they can offer great ‘alternatives’ in unique combinations. They can accept and integrate ambiguity. Consider Jerusalem or Istanbul. It is essential to be honest and robust, to see history fully, and to know precisely, the unique characteristics that our city has. We must celebrate the city in order to see what lies behind the history. We have to know and articulate the DNA of the city. Cape Town hosted the 2010 FIFAS World Cup along with other South African Cities. Despite a history of colonisation and racial strife, Cape Town emerged as a distinctive and diverse city with great spirit and purpose, and an extraordinarily diverse population and appeal, well placed to leap forwards in the next 20 years. 3. Know other cities very well Knowing ourselves also means knowing others very well, and being willing to be humble; to see that others are better than us in some respects and we have to learn. Unless we deeply understand the strengths of other, it is hard to see our weaknesses. City leaders often say that reading the many city rankings and indexes is partly about seeing how their city is doing compared to others, but also, importantly, it is about seeing which other cities are making progress and doing well, so that we can learn from them. Knowing and understanding the strengths of other cities is key, but it is also essential to know what mobile investors and talents want. What does the demand side really tell us? What do they need, how can we communicate our offer? For many cities, the failure to understand their offer from the informed perspective of understanding global demand is the big weakness: they cannot see themselves ‘from the outside in’ because they do not know what ‘the outside’ is thinking. Our Swiss Cities have learned a great deal about what makes a successful location for advanced industries by studying what others are doing. Look at the work that Basel has done to understand what

are the ingredients for successful pharmaceutical locations and we see an example of the science of understanding both the global demand, and the global best practice. 4. Build a family for the city A city is a dispersed network of different organisations that make up its governance and its stakeholders. The city government is one of these, but does not have a monopoly over resources or assets, and it must therefore be a good leader of the others. The city government must build a family of organisations where each have their own identity but are a part of the collective identity that is the family. This is not easy, key organisations and stakeholders are also part of other families (like global firms, national or regional governments, sectored institutions, etc). They have other loyalties too. They use different ‘surnames’ and cannot see themselves as members of the city’s family too easily. But they must be ‘adopted’ and this often means that the city must also become part of their other families too, making a contribution to success of that family into the bargain. Amsterdam and Berlin have built ‘partners clubs’ to manage their identity and brand. Amsterdam Partner and Berlin Partner own and manage the ‘I Amsterdam’ and ‘Be Berlin’ identities on behalf of a large family of followers. These organisations co-opt ‘partners’ into their city identity family and share resources with them. 5. Make the city’s promise personal Once a clear identity emerges and is crystallised, and we know what the outside world is looking for, it is essential to make it personal for people we want to attract, or retain, in the city. Institutions and companies and events are led by people. This means knowing what part the city cam play in their success or wellbeing and showing how effectively we can add value to them. Our city might be a place of opportunity, a melting pot, a junction box, or an open city with freedom of thought, or it might have deep entrepreneurial spirit, or a place of invention, a sanctuary or haven, a seat of learning. It may be many of these things. The city’s personality comes to life when we describe what it can offer to others in ways that are meaningful to them. How it

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

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Each month : an analysis from a Cities expert A compilation of all articles related to the Cities topic of the month

can be a friend to them? How can the city help them fulfil their potential or aspirations? Barcelona’s initiative ‘Do it in Barcelona!’ is not just a way to attract entrepreneurs, it is way to suggest that Barcelona provides a special platform for entrepreneurial success. 6. Renew the city and align the experience with the identity. The fabric of cities can get worn or depleted. People grow tired of tourists or the road and rail networks become over used, or the service goes bad. This is normal, and to be expected. But once we have city identity, we have also made a promise that our city will be the way we say it is. It is essential therefore to consistently upgrade, renew, and refresh the experience that people have of our city. Identity and reputation will help us get the extra good will we need for a while, but in the end the experience of city must be aligned with our story. We need the whole family to help us do that. We must therefore solve problems rigorously as they arise and get the point where we prevent problems from emerging because we know we are protecting our identity from corrosion or sabotage. Maintaining a good climate, having open access, and good infrastructure will all require consistent attention. We cannot just focus on promoting the assets; we must keep the climate good. When New York fixed its crime problem in the 1990s, it was renewing its identity as a great city for people and entrepreneurs, and it has not looked back since. 7. Build of the next generation of the city with integrity and consistency. Building a city identity is a long term game. The rewards come in the longer term but they build up over time. So city leaders must be recognised for the ‘lap they have run’ and not be encouraged to try to win the gold medal before the race is over. ‘Quick wins’ must never be taken at the expense of long term gains. Because a city identity builds up over time, it is a legacy that is given to the next generations, and city leaders should be judged, not by whether they got immediate return, but by whether the identity and reputation improved under their leadership. City leaders can rest assured

that their part in history is secure if they move the city forwards. Turin has had two great leaders since it fought back against the industrial crisis in the early 1990s. Both Valentino Castellani and Sergio Champiarino have built the city identity and renewed its offer, and those who follow will do the same. Turin is on a long term road to recovery that will take several business cycles to complete. So it is too with emerging cities. Sao Paulo can be the most important city in the Southern hemisphere, but it is not there yet, so patience will be required. Overall, we know that city identity can be an essential asset for city builders, and it is not possible to succeed if we ignore it. But getting there requires great skill and a willingness to work hard at it consistently. One big challenge that cities face comes from the dominant role of national governments. In the last century, Nation States offered an important identity for making choices between competing alternative locations for mobile activity. In this century, we know that cities and metropolitan regions offer the competitive platform that nations need, and yet some confusion between national identities and city identities abounds. Is Hong Kong a Chinese city or not? How English is London? Is Milan part of Italy or a reaction against it? Will Mumbai or Delhi be India’s great business city? These ambiguities have to be finessed so that National Governments can help to build and promote city identity, and reinforce the promise that they make, and the dividend they provide to the country as a whole. Aligning national and city identities is a key challenge for our next decade. A city identity is not enough to succeed on its own, but it is an essential ingredient. Cities must also have ambitious and capable citizens, good services, healthy governance, efficient infrastructure and resource management and a good climate for investment. These things have to be brought together with wise strategy and a strong base of support. Cities have to manage change, adjust to dynamic trends, and shape the future. But without city identity this is much harder to do, and the outcome is less effective. The key point is this, identity does not just sell our city, it is also critical to shaping and

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

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Each month : an analysis from a Cities expert A compilation of all articles related to the Cities topic of the month

building our city, providing for city leaders the magnet that can combine people and institutions together in a common identity and purpose. What we call city leadership is a more pressing imperative than most of us are willing to say. Only by narrating

the deep story of how the cities can be the leaders of the 21st Century, as they were in centuries past, can we discover their future role in leading nations and citizens to the next frontier.

Glasgow: Where more really means more

Conference and major event organisers are increasingly choosing Glasgow as they discover that it’s a great place to do business and a city which keeps its word… By Scott Taylor

Image: Flickr-Rupert Brun

We are entering a key period in Glasgow’s economic history; one where it is important to forge ahead during challenging times by building on the city’s many strengths and the opportunities that are coming our way. A real strength is the resilience of Glasgow’s tourism sector which continues to lead the city’s economic resurgence, thanks in part to our strategy of attracting a diverse portfolio of international conferences and major sporting and cultural

events. Glasgow entered the sporting limelight five years ago when we won the right to host the Commonwealth Games in 2014. And while the global focus is now turning towards those Games in the wake of London’s successful Olympics and Paralympics, as a city we are continuing to work hard at attracting more major events beyond 2014. This process really began two years ago when we became the first city in the UK to launch a formal Major Events Charter, which guarantees the

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

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Each month : an analysis from a Cities expert A compilation of all articles related to the Cities topic of the month

provision of support for organisers considering bringing major sporting and cultural events to Glasgow. We followed on from that earlier this year when we unveiled our specific Major Sports Events Strategy, which is aimed at positioning Glasgow as one of the world’s leading destinations for sport through to 2018 – reflecting our bid to host the 2018 Youth Olympic Games. Our ambitions were recognised at this year’s Sport Accord Convention in Quebec, Canada, when Glasgow was named one of the world’s top 10 sporting cities ahead of major destinations including Paris, Tokyo and Moscow. We also retained our position as the number one city in the world in terms of sports marketing and branding. As well as the 2014 Commonwealth Games, Glasgow will host the 2012 UCI Track Cycling World Cup in November; the 2013 IFNA World Youth Netball Championships; the 2013 UCI World Junior Track Cycling Championships; the 2015 IPC European Swimming Championships and the 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. It’s a virtuous circle. As a city, we have invested some £300 million in infrastructure for sporting facilities and we have developed a reputation for hosting major events, which then gives us the capacity to specifically, and deliberately, bid for some of the biggest events in the world, like the Youth Olympics. Alongside our packed schedule of sports events is an equally vibrant calendar of cultural events. The new Scottish Hydro Arena – or ‘The Hydro’ as it has become known – is currently being built as part of the Scottish Exhibition + Conference Centre (SECC) in Glasgow in partnership with AEG. With a total capacity of 13,000, this impressive venue will open next September and play host to around 140 events every year, from national and international music mega stars to global entertainment and sporting events –injecting approximately £131 million into the city’s economy. Moreover, it’s expected to be in the top five busiest indoor music arenas in the world, alongside such iconic venues as Madison Square Garden in New York and

London’s 02 Arena. When an artist lands in the UK they will come to The Hydro, and to Glasgow. As a UNESCO City of Music, Glasgow stages an average of 130 music events every week. We’re a very lively city, which is probably a result of our very youthful population. As well as acting as a magnet for young people, Glasgow’s five universities also drive forward the city’s reputation as a world-leading centre for academic excellence and quality research, particularly in the fields of medicine and life sciences –we’re currently building Europe’s largest hospital. It’s little wonder then that conventions are intrinsic to our events strategy. Business tourism secured over the past seven years has been worth more than £800 million to the city’s economy; generating three million conference delegate hotel room bookings – and we’re on target to achieve the £1 billion milestone in 2013. In the first seven months of the current financial year alone (April to October 10 2012), 324 new conferences have been won – securing around 425,000 hotel delegate room nights – which are worth £131 million. Looking ahead, we have confirmed conference business on our books through to 2021 and we’re bidding for new conventions business as far out as 2024. In winning this business, Glasgow has beaten off strong competition from San Francisco, Tokyo, Paris, Rome, Bucharest and Berlin. Today, conference delegates account for one in five hotel beds sold in Glasgow, underscoring the importance of conventions to the city and further strengthening our reputation both as the conference capital of Scotland and a major player within the international conventions market. One of the keys to this success is a clever approach to sponsorship. It can be difficult for our conference clients to raise sponsorship revenue around their events, particularly within the medical sector. So what we’ve done in Glasgow is come up with a series of sponsorship platforms for our clients, all based on opportunities we either create or leverage within the city. As a result, we recently generated a seven percent share of the

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

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sponsorship revenue for one of our major UK conference clients. At the Diabetes UK professional conference in Glasgow earlier this year, for example, sponsorship support was secured from a medical company through a bespoke conference iPhone app; a product which was initiated and developed by Glasgow City Marketing Bureau. We’ve found that you can make yourself quite a popular destination if you can create innovative revenue streams that previously did not exist for event organisers. As well as maximising revenues, Glasgow offers reduced cost. Global financial adviser Mercer’s 2012 Cost of Living Survey found that the city was one of the least expensive to visit, ranking 161st in the world. Unashamedly, Glasgow is a price fighter in Europe, and the cost of our accommodation, visitor attractions, restaurants, museums and galleries provide excellent value. The price points of our restaurants are geared towards a younger audience and with 40,000 covers you can dine extremely well for not a lot of money.

We’ve also learned how to negotiate with the hospitality industry for the benefit of conference and event organisers. We’re not here to make a profit out of organisers; they can be secure in the knowledge that their brand equity, their revenue streams and their client base are considered paramount. Glasgow recognises that by making the city an attractive place to do business then conference and event organisers will return. The Glasgow business model is based on service and loyalty – the city’s reputation is built on delivering on our promises! Scott Taylor is Chief Executive of Glasgow City Marketing Bureau (GCMB) – Glasgow’s official destination marketing organisation. As custodian of the Glasgow: Scotland with style brand, GCMB works to position and promote Glasgow across national and international markets as one of Europe’s most vibrant, dynamic and diverse cities in which to live, work, study, invest and visit. For more information, visit www.seeglasgow.com.

City Brand Success: Vienna

In the year 2009 the Vienna Tourist Board carried out a relaunch in the wake of an extensive survey and analysis of about 11,000 guests. This resulted in the development of an advertising strategy that sets out to convince not only at a rational level using side-by-side evidence, but also at an emotional level. By Norbert Kettner

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Each month : an analysis from a Cities expert A compilation of all articles related to the Cities topic of the month

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A framework without constraints Brand leadership is not a grassroots democratic process, but is based on the free / standing leg principle. The resulting activities are based on careful analysis of the facts. Once the basic guidelines have been developed, calculated and carefully controlled deviations from these guidelines offer a mature and self-confident access to the theme of brand leadership in accordance with the motto: you can break any rule as long as you know it. To this extent, Vienna does not view the resulting brand process as a constraint, but as a framework within the confines of which the occasional “transgression” is admissible. Without such transgressions, one rapidly ends up in an international branding no man’s land, depending on which branding philosophy (“guru”) the city places its faith in. We are all green, modern, creative and cool. So far, so mistakable. However, the uncoolest thing of all is to claim that one is green, modern, creative and cool. All this can be proved entirely by facts or the manner in which one does things. The observer’s emotions are then involuntarily aroused.

However, this presupposes a frank and critical attitude towards one’s own strengths and weaknesses. As a city, it does help to be the best in at least one area (and this applies to Vienna in many respects!). But a city and its marketers should at least be familiar with their weaknesses, too, and know how to deal with them. There is nothing more dreary than ill-considered clichés presented in a mistakable way – both for the general public and for oneself. Vienna’s standing leg: brand analysis Brand image can only be controlled to a limited extent, and is nothing more or less than a prejudice, ideally a positive one. If many people share the same prejudice about a thing – such as a destination, for instance – then we can already refer to a “brand”. However, as the individuals responsible for advertising for the destination Vienna, there are only very few instances in which we can control the factors leading to image building – and in point of fact this never works with a large metropolis. And this is a good thing, too, since it is precisely this uncontrollability that gives a city its charm.

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Each month : an analysis from a Cities expert A compilation of all articles related to the Cities topic of the month

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However what we can certainly do is to know the image of our destination and the concrete factors underlying it; in other words, the characteristics of the destination that produce a correspondingly positive resonance. The important thing is to focus on these in one’s communication. This is more productive than simply racking one’s brains over a new logo, putting out a new image brochure, or pumping financial resources into a new advertising campaign. In 2009, the Vienna Tourist Board conducted an extensive market analysis in order to establish what the destination brand Vienna stands for internationally, what its success factors are for tourism, and the concrete measures that should be taken to successfully position the destination Vienna. As part of a new marketing strategy, this international study did not involve looking at the question of “old, traditional Vienna” versus “new, modern Vienna”, but focused instead on understanding the destination in its entirety, interpreting it as a brand, and defining the most important elements of its identity. The results of this analysis provided the basis for Vienna’s worldwide tourism advertising line and for marketing activities designed to reflect the destination optimally in tune with the times. Vienna’s brand modules A total of 11,000 guests and potential guests in nine different countries were asked about their reasons for taking a Vienna vacation – in other words, about their positive prejudices. The result can be condensed into a total of five brand images (also referred to internally as brand modules):

Imperial heritage

Profusion of music and culture

Viennese “savoir vivre”

Functional efficiency

Balance of urban and green areas Vienna is a city with an impressive imperial heritage. Especially in the historic city centre, this is what characterizes the streetscape. There are several factors determining this image behind the first brand module: the brand drivers. For example, Schönbrunn Palace, the Ringstrasse boulevard and the Imperial Palace are

characteristics belonging to the “imperial Vienna” brand module. Vienna is also perceived as a world capital of music and culture. The underlying factors here include the variety of classical concerts, three opera houses, world-famous theatres, and the Vienna Boys’ Choir. However, the city of Vienna also stands for a unique “lifestyle”: the culture of enjoyment and Viennese “savoir vivre”. This image is underpinned above all by a unique and very special coffee-house culture, the city’s viniculture with its heuriger wine taverns, and by Viennese cuisine – from wiener schnitzel to Sachertorte and gugelhupf. Moreover Vienna is regarded as a very clean, safe, walkable, friendly and clearly arranged city – in other words, as a smoothly functioning city, which is an important factor in city travel for tourists the world over. And finally, Vienna has a very high proportion of parks and gardens – the fifth brand module. Parks, gardens, recreational areas such as the Danube Island and the Prater and the vineyards give the city a harmonious balance of urban and green areas. From marketing analysis to advertising concept: VIENNA – NOW OR NEVER! Thanks to our brand analysis, we also know both the factors that create a positive Vienna image, and the weighting of the individual modules and brand drivers. This makes the Vienna brand “manageable” – and hence we were able to clearly define the commission for our advertising agency, with the following result: the newly developed logo (the design of which evolved from the previous one, but stripped down and in a more modern style) and the “VIENNA” lettering together with the new claim and web address are placed inside a square, though the red typeface on a white background has been retained. As far as the claim is concerned, we came to the realization that the city’s manifold attractions and activities cannot be reduced to a single statement. This would inevitably be abstract and ineffective. Instead, with the new claim the basic strategic challenge is to transform Vienna from a “once in a lifetime” destination to a “now and forever” destination, condensed in a saying that is common in languages around the world and that every toddler learns is a call to action: “NOW OR NEVER!” In order to achieve greater

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differentiation and recognisability, we also developed a new imagery incorporating elements such as image detail, perspective, light, colouring, choice of theme, etc., which at the same time presents Vienna as a modern, cosmopolitan, international and living metropolis. The images show exciting perspectives with a modern photographic aesthetic that does not look artificial. The persuasion strategy We were clear about the development process for the Vienna brand: since each brand component and the communication goals formulated for it represents a claim that has not been verified, some persuasion is also needed. Proof is needed to persuade the public that our claims are true. Our strategy is designed to cause consumers to think they have come up with the desired ideas independently and of their own accord. A variety of different strategies are used to this end. Side-by-side evidence is one such persuasion strategy deployed in Vienna’s new advertising line. Consumers can form their own opinions based on an objective, observable comparison: they can compare their current situation with what is available in Vienna at the same time. Around the globe, people in everyday situations can see what

they could be experiencing in Vienna “at this very moment”. A comparison of these two situations is the structural element that is rounded out by the claim: “VIENNA – NOW OR NEVER!” It is therefore a comparison of moments: “At this very moment, you are missing…” The campaign incorporates a persuasion strategy built on facts. Because it is infinitely variable, the strategy behind it can be used and extended in many different ways. At this very moment, you can experience something more exciting in Vienna than you can at home: a visit to Schönbrunn Palace, to the Vienna State Opera or a festival, a glass of Viennese wine at a heuriger wine tavern, a slice of guglhupf at a coffee-house, etc. At b2b.wien.info/en/media/pictures, you can form an impression of the way in which Vienna advertises and attempts to persuade visitors to come here. I hope that you, too, will come to the conclusion that your (next) visit to Vienna had better be “NOW OR NEVER!” Further information: B2C website: www.wien.info B2B website: b2b.wien.info Vienna brand: b2b.wien.info/en/brand

Commercialisation of place brands

Cities must build active marketing partnerships and go beyond extensive product lines in order to better exploit the city brand. By David Adam

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

Image: Flickr-raketentim

Can a city brand make money and pay for itself? The commercialisation of place brands is in its infancy. If we look at the commercial sphere – where branding is at its most sophisticated – and compare a city to a product such as MindCandy’s Moshi Monsters or a famous personality like David Beckham, it is clear in both instances that both ‘brands’ stretch across multiple products and have a sprawling brand architecture which grows seemingly effortlessly into all that they touch.

Beckham’s is the exemplification of the modern-day branding strategy in that the brand came first and the commercialisation followed, forming brand partnerships with major labels such as Adidas and Pepsi as well as creating new independent products such as his own brand of men’s fragrance.

Anyone in the UK with young children will be familiar with Moshi Monsters – originally a digital pet based in an online world – and its extraordinary expansion into multiple product-lines. It’s usual for a brand like this to reach the school lunch-boxes and duvet covers, but the brand’s continued

expansion is almost like a franchise as it is now moving into previously independent toy lines such as ‘GoGos’, Top Trumps, and classics such as Monopoly. The extent of the franchise and the ease with it forms commercial partnerships demonstrates the true power of the brand.

But there are few places, cities or regions that have truly set out on a strategy to commercialise and exploit their brands and those that have are still in the early stages of their approach. New York has actively pursued an approach of commercialising its brand and brand logo, carefully taking an inventory of its assets – and where possible creating product lines such as NYPD and FDNY hats and sweatshirts. This has been much more difficult of course with the classic I ♥ NY symbol being owned by New York State. But maybe the city of New York’s greatest success is not in logo commercialisation but in the spirit and heart of New York being alive and seen in every film that is produced there. What bigger commercialisation success can be achieved by a city than to be portrayed in films such as the Spiderman franchise where an active marketing partnership exists?

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

London has made some forays into this area of product brand lines, with various product lines created by Visit London to try and exploit the natural desire of every tourist to prove they’ve visited a major world city. But in the area of commercial partnerships, surely the most effective method to gain visibility, by leasing the brand and letting the commercial partner undertake the marketing, London now has the architecture and approach in place. The marketing organization London & Partners was created specifically to build brand and commercial partnerships and has now put in place a series of brand ‘kite marks’ to work with tourism and business partners offering services to tourists or inward investors which enable them to exploit the power of the London brand and capture the benefits of ‘officialness’. London & Partners benefits as its inward investment or tourism promotion is undertaken directly by a partner.

London has not been able to develop this model as swiftly as Berlin, where Berlin and Partners has created a brand architecture which allows lead partners such as Siemens or even foreign-owned BAE Systems to co-brand in the “ich bin ein berliner’ campaign thereby showing the specialist sectors that the city can host and enabling the commercial partner to set themselves as the leader in that sector.

Commercial Partnerships of the Future On the matter of commercial partnerships however, cities are trailing. Not in comparison with each other, but failing to match the speed at which the private sector is exploiting city brands. Nowhere can this be seen more than in the case of Olympic Games. Cities are yet to truly win from this holy grail of a brand partnership in which the power of the Olympic Rings, the power of global brands and the power of the city brand come together. That’s why most commercial brands are willing to pay an ‘entry fee’ of $70m before even beginning to build advertising and product marketing campaigns to plaster the city and reach consumers.

Yes, cities have got wise and are creating extensive product lines which exploit the city brand and go towards paying for the Games – London will prove to have been extraordinarily successful in this strategy when the post-Games reckoning is complete – but no-one has yet been able to ensure that when THE greatest commercial circus arrives in town, they have created immediate economic benefit for the city – not just funding the Games but paying for city legacy projects – or have built long-term economic partnerships that will ensure lasting brand partnerships with mutual benefit. Imagine the multiple advantages for the city that might grow from a structured commercial brand system like Berlin’s. There is still time for Rio to be a trailblazer in this field.

City Branding in Nordics: A framework of success factors

Analysing the success factors and road map of the city branding programs of Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Chicago. By Dr. Seppo K. Rainisto

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

Image: Flickr- J. A. Alcaide

This framework is based on the analysis (2003) about inward investment marketing and city branding programs of the Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen metropolitan regions and Chicago (USA). In Finland the cities of Espoo, Salo and Sastamala and the network of 50 regional towns have carried out a city brand-road-map process (2008-2012) using this framework and having the author as an outside advisor.

Stockholm and Copenhagen had organised their city marketing according to the quite similar constructs. In Stockholm, there were two responsible organisations: Business Arena Stockholm (B.A.S.), as the official foreign inward investment agency for the Stockholm Region, and the Economic Development Agency of the City of Stockholm (S.N.K.). Copenhagen Capacity (CopCap) is the official foreign inward investment agency of the Greater Copenhagen Region. In Helsinki Greater Helsinki Promotion (GHP) coordinates the regional marketing (after Helsinki Region Marketing Ltd HRM). The organisations of place marketing are in the Chicago Region complex, and there was not a single organisation responsible for regional

marketing. World Business Chicago (WBC) as a public-private (non-profit) partnership had actively sought this status, with aggressive promotion for the region. CopCap, B.A.S. and GHP (HRM) are organised in a form of a private firm.

THE FRAMEWORK OF SUCCESS FACTORS

The study can be found online here!

The framework has three “dimensions” of success factors. The elements in the inner part (planning group, vision and strategic analysis, place identity and place image, public-private partnerships and leadership) represent the core building stones in place marketing practices. The elements on the sides of the “prism”, (political unity, global marketplace, local development and process coincidences), meet the challenges in the network and in the macroenvironment where the place marketing practices are performed. The new “how and ability” factors – strategic exploitation, organising capacity, presence of substance, measurement and follow up – bring additional strain to the challenges of place marketing. All these “how and ability” factors need to be present when practicing place marketing. In fact, all the success factors of the framework are connected and interacting with each other

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supporting the process of successful place marketing practices.

There must be enough organising capacity for the management of the strategic part of the process, as well as for the operational implementation of the programmes. Organising capacity comprises the capabilities of the management and the resources of the place suggesting that political unity is also needed to achieve the necessary organising capacity for the place.

Presence of substance is also linked to the organising capacity. Presence of substance is the “state of affairs” that has been reached by means of, for instance, organising capacity and the process of the systematic strategic analysis. Strategic exploitation of individual core issues in place marketing is essential. Without strategic thinking, the operative actions bring success only by accident – or good luck. Also, both the strategic work and the implementation on the operative levels are needed for success. The strategic work is the only demanding part of the place marketing challenge. Without measurement and follow-up, no place marketing programme is executed in an ideal way. “You get what you

measure” is also true in place marketing and branding.

Central in place branding is building the identity for the place, which is the active part of management in the process. Strategic alliances with other locations can decisively increase the joint-value of all the partners, who all could be in a win-win-situation. Professionalism comes along with the work, as a positive “process coincidence”, and an active effort is always better than putting one’s future in the hands of the keen place competition.

A NORDIC BRAND ROAD-MAP-MODEL

A city brand process is worked out in five phases. First, the place branding project needs to get organised. Then the planning group starts the research phase, when a SWOT-analysis is made in order to know how the place is perceived by the target groups. Based on these study results in the strategic phase, conclusions will be made, and the place identity built. After the strategic work, the implementation and action phase starts. This phase can typically last 5-10 years, and the follow-up and feed-back reporting steers the process simultaneously.

The phases and the process include:

1. Organising Phase: Managing Group/Action Group- Coordination, Financing, Overall-strategies, Public-Private Partnerships.

2. Research Phase: Strategic Analysis (SWOT): Homework of the place. Qualitative and Quantitative Studies.

3. Strategic Phase: Forming the Identity- Conclusions from the Research Findings: Target Markets. Core Idea. Value Promises. Forming the Strategic Plan: Constructure of the Offering. Segmenting. Positioning (Place Soul). Visualisation, Graphics, Slogans.

4. Implementation and Action: Phase Activity Programs. Time Tables. Budgets. Responsibilites. Coordination.

5. Follow-up, feed-back, reporting.

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The organising phase takes 1- 4 months, the research stage 3-5 months, the strategy phase 3-5 months, altogether about 7 – 13 months before starting the long implementation stage combined with systematic simultaneous reporting and follow-up. In the cities normally three half-day workshops with the stakeholders were organised: a kick-off seminar in the beginning of the process and before the research stage, a research work-shop when the study results were available and analysed in the middle of the branding process, and the closing seminar to publish the results. The residents and own people are “ambassadors” of the brand of the location, when they honestly accept the chosen identity elements and marketing message.

Place brand road map: content This new technique to create a brand road-map “in a nut-shell” was developed during the pilot cases with Finnish cities. The target is to present the brand strategy practically, with a power-point slide presentation. With some 20 slides it is possible to illustrate the most important brand issues in a convincing way. The titles and contents of this road-map presentation are the following:

What place? (Marketing language based definition)

Mission and vision

Values

Strategy supporting Peaks

Picture –vision 2020

Target groups

Umbrella-key messages

Story Implementation, follow-up, measurement

Enclosure materials (supporting the core presentation)

The brand road map can be used also distributed in paper copies and placed on the site web-pages of the city. The planning group coordinates the designing of the road-map during the sessions of the branding process. The picture-vision has proved to be very useful. The group prepares 9 pictures to illustrate how the place looks today, and another set of pictures illustrating the ideal identity of the place in 2020. Also, short marketing oriented texts “open up” the meaning of each picture.

Executing a City Brand Strategy

The need for developing a city brand is understood, the difficulty lies in bringing that brand to life in the most physical way possible. By Simon Cotterrell

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Image: Flickr-Amyeetx

More than ever, there’s a race between cities for financial and human capital. Businesses, students, tourists and employees increasingly have the freedom to choose where in the world they make their mark. If your city’s not on their map, you won’t get a look in. As a city’s profile becomes ever more important, ‘standing out’ by standing for something is becoming the essential objective for city leaders the world over.

But if the need for developing a city’s brand is understood, how to go about developing a city’s brand continues to be an area for debate. Mistakenly, many people believe that a city’s branding can be solved with little more than a new logo. Google “city positioning” and you’ll find a rogue’s gallery of trite, clichéd icons that attempt, and fail, to encapsulate all the little, intangible things that make a city great.

Don’t get us wrong, brand identity can be tremendously powerful – it’s hard to put a figure on the huge value of ‘I heart NY’ for example – but relying on this alone to deliver city differentiation is somewhat misguided. Identity serves to announce change but it does not deliver change itself.

Look to the commercial world and you’ll find great brands like Apple and Virgin who focus their brand building efforts on experiences. The minimalism of the iPod interface, the commitment of Virgin Atlantic to deliver ‘entertainment in the sky’ through every single touch point. Big or small, it’s the physical things that work hardest to deliver. If I tell you I’m funny you might believe me, if I make you laugh there’ll be no doubt about it.

So if you’ve taken the time to distil a single-minded city strategy, make sure your next steps serve to pour that strategy into every aspect of city life, not just to write it on the label.

By way of example, last year we were engaged by Aarhus, Denmark’s second city, to help them develop their city’s brand. As Greg will have no doubt discussed at some point in this blog, the need to create an idea for the city based on the collective truths of its residents was at the heart of our approach. We interviewed members of the municipality, the university, businesses and citizens alike to get a true flavour of what rational attributes and emotional values might set the city apart.

What came to the surface was a city that held innovation and collaboration at the top of its list of

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virtues. Now, at this point you’re probably thinking to yourselves that these qualities are hardly the most differentiating, and, if we’d stopped there and made a logo and a tagline about innovation and collaboration, you’d probably be right. But what we did instead was to explain to the city that if they were going to create something differentiating around these qualities, that they’d have to bring them to life in the most physical way possible.

So, as well as the visual identity and a snappy new tagline – “Aarhus. Danish for progress” – we spent the majority of our effort helping them establish a mechanism to activate their positioning. Our premise was simple: if you’re to be known as a hotbed of innovation through collaboration, you’d need to create a vehicle where newcomers, especially businesses, would be able to fast track their immersion into these skillsets. The big activation idea was what we called “the city wide innovation network”. This was effectively an on-boarding system for start-up businesses to give them access to the best of the city. Imagine arriving somewhere to be given accommodation, access to the municipality, access to the university, access to

staff, access to experts further up and down the supply chain – with a small army of highly intelligent and creative collaborators meeting you off the plane, suddenly intangible concepts like innovation and collaboration could become unmissable.

In the case of Aarhus, therefore, the role of brand communication was less to announce the brand to the outside world, and more to give confidence to the city’s citizens that they could deliver on their promise, a couple of examples of which we’ve included below.

Activating a brand idea, within a company, is a complex task that requires people from across the organisation to work together in new ways. Put such a task on the scale of a city and you’ve a different league of complexity. But with clarity of purpose, clear leadership, considered processes and, most of all, lots of exemplars of what you want people to do, it’s definitely not impossible. We live in an experience economy where the difference between doing what you say you’re going to do, and merely saying it, is what matters most.

Hong Kong: Asia’s world city

‘Asia’s world city’ slogan is defined by its core values: free, enterprising, excellence, innovative and quality living. By Greg Clark

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While the reunification of the former British colony with the Chinese mainland, in 1997, was seen by many at the time to be as a precursor to the end of the city as an international investment hub, the Hong Kong brand has played an integral part in the city’s dynamic and continued prosperity. According to ‘Location branding 2012’, published by Public Affairs Asia and Ogilvy PR in September 2012, Hong Kong has the second strongest brand in the Asia Pacific region. BrandHK was developed and launched in 2001, with a revitalisation of the brand, including the updating of its core values, attributes, brand platform and visual identity, taking place in 2010. The brand’s ‘Asia’s world city’ slogan is underpinned by its core values, developed through consultation with stakeholders and the public: free, enterprising, excellence, innovative and quality living. Hong Kong’s attributes are: cosmopolitan, secure, connected, diverse and dynamic. The two main objectives of BrandHK are to position Hong Kong in the international arena and for identity building purposes. Rather than having multiple brands, BrandHK has been

conceived as an umbrella brand and a brand platform through which the city’s brand can be communicated to all sectors. The tourism and business brands are seen merely as sub-brands. Brand leadership and custodian The rights to the use of BrandHK are owned by the Hong Kong Government, while it is supervised and managed by the Information Services Department, in particular the Brand Management Unit (BMU) of the External PR Division. There is also close cooperation between the BMU and Invest Hong Kong (IHK), Hong Kong Trade & Development Council (HKTDC), and the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB). The BMU works with its partners to ensure that BrandHK is communicated consistently across the globe. While anyone, whether from the public and private sector, can apply to use the brand, they must follow a strict set of guidelines set out and monitored by the BMU. Specific campaigns include the web platform, myhk2020.com, which was launched in 2008 as a means of allowing Hong Kong’s citizens

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to express their vision in text, photos, drawings and videos. In addition, the ‘Faces of Hong Kong’ campaign describes the lives of some of the city’s residents as a means of giving international visitors and businesses an insight into the ‘Asia’s world city.’ The next step The next step for BrandHK is to broaden the appeal of the city in wider markets and to address the needs and desires of the people of Hong Kong more explicitly. While investors and businesses have been given much focus, it is widely believed

that brand strategy should now more explicitly work towards attracting talent, students, and innovators, and garnering the support of locals by meeting their needs more fully. While the reconsolidation of BrandHK that took place in 2010 went someway to addressing these issues, such is the opportunity for Hong Kong in today’s global markets that it needs to solidify local support and engagement and to develop a story that is broader than economic opportunity and address liveability, sustainability, and cultural offers more emphatically.

Singapore: A City in a Garden

Singapore will find global success by promoting Singaporean science, know how, firms, services, and products, in addition to its strengths as a location and destination. By Greg Clark

Image: Flickr-AndyLeo@Photography

Singapore’s remarkable story, and journey to success from an impoverished colony in 1965, to a world leading city in 2012 offers a strong organising narrative for any brand strategy and presents many examples of how a successful place

can be the platform to contribute to success for business, people, investors, and communities. ‘Location branding 2012’, published by PublicAffairsAsia and Ogilvy PR in September 2012,

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recognises Singapore as the strongest brand in the Asia Pacific region. Singapore also finished 29th in the People section of the 2011 Anholt-GfK Roper City Brands Index, while it also has the distinction of being one of only five cities in the overall top 30 Index list that is outside of North America, Western Europe, and Australia. Singapore’s brand platform The city-state of Singapore is an important case. It exists as a city and a nation, projecting itself to the world as an Asian megacity, while also benefitting from many of the aspects associated with nationhood. Either way, it is a city-state which, with the assistance of strong branding, has catapulted itself from a Third World to a First World City in only 47 years. Brand Singapore has helped to attract the investments, business, trade, tourism and talented human resources that have made Singapore such a success. Singapore’s branding has Government led, more specifically by the Prime Minister’s Office. External marketing is undertaken by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), but the overarching Singapore brand message of the government is disseminated by a whole host of boards, state-owned companies and community associations. Singapore has employed a richly diverse set of initiatives to promote its brand over the last 30 years, including tourism campaigns, the hosting of major international events such as the Formula One Grand Prix, the opening of integrated resorts, and exporting expertise to other Asian countries such as China. “Uniquely Singapore” was a campaign designed as a means of demonstrating the “warm, enriching and unforgettable” nature of Singapore to the rest of the world. After five successful years, the campaign was replaced by “YourSingapore” in 2010, an all encompassing, visitor-centric, media campaign

which focuses on using the internet and extensive social media, as well as the more traditional TV and hosted advertising campaigns. The concept of the ‘Garden City’ has long been an intrinsic part of Singapore’s brand. Koh Buck Song, author of Brand Singapore, argues that the city-state, in recent years, has made the transition to a ‘City in a Garden’; a concept which ‘redefines the idea of an urban landscape in a natural setting while aligning with the global trend of growing environmental consciousness.’ At the government level, the city’s ‘Renaissance City Plan’ is also dedicated to creating a world-class cultural and entertainment district. More specifically, the most recent phase of the plan, RCP III (2008-2012), “seeks to develop distinctive arts and culture institutions and content, nurture a dynamic arts and culture ecosystem, and cultivate culture-loving audiences, supporters, patrons and partners.” The next step Singapore’s success at attracting international firms, investors and talent will continue. Its next step is to balance this with more attention on mobilising Singaporeans behind the next steps in its global success and to promote Singaporean science, know how, firms, services, and products, in addition to its strengths as a location and destination. Koh Buck Song, author of Brand Singapore, furthermore argues that the city-state should focus its attention on Singaporeans and how they perceive the Singapore brand. Song says that in order for the world’s image of Singapore to change, the reality has to change, arguing that the city-state needs to focus more on embedding Richard Florida’s three Ts, talent, technology and tolerance, while simultaneously working to clarify and distil its brand message.

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

New York City: The Big Green Apple?

New York needs to continue to promote the city internationally as an ideal place for start-up ventures, while ensuring that public policy continues to be pro-business. By Greg Clark

Image: Flickr -kaysha

New York City has one of the strongest brands of any world city. The city finished fourth in the 2011 Anholt-GfK Roper City Brands Index, which measures the image of 50 cities, based on Presence, Place, Pre-requisite, People, Pulse and Potential, based on interviews conducted with 5,105 participants. The city has successfully transformed its image over the last 35 years through a rebranding process which has its roots in Milton Glaser’s iconic “I Love New York” logo and campaign, forged in 1977. While the city’s brand has continued to strengthen over the last three decades, branding has ultimately represented not only an image makeover, but also a more business-friendly restructuring of political and economic relations in the city. Urban sociologist Dr. Miriam Greenberg asserts that, “branding transformed New York’s image from that of a gritty working-class city to one that is business and tourist-friendly.”

Investment attractiveness New York promotes its brand to potential investors through the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). The NYCEDC is New York’s economic development driver, charged with the mission of leveraging the city’s assets to drive growth, create jobs and to improve the quality of life for New Yorkers. The organisation uses its expertise to develop, advise, manage and invest to strengthen businesses and help neighbourhoods thrive. By developing a strong physical infrastructure, investing in its people, and creating a strong entrepreneurial and business environment, the city has made itself attractive to investors. Specific programmes such as World to NYC are designed to help global entrepreneurs and businesses leverage New York City’s resources and economic opportunities. The programme sees New

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

York host business delegations from cities around the world as a means of promoting trade and investment between New York City and the global economy. Tourism branding New York City’s primary means of communicating its tourism brand to the world is through the efforts of NYC & Company. The organisation conveys, “New York City’s energy, excitement and diversity to a global audience.” The organisation works tirelessly to promote the city through its award-winning website, nycgo.com, social-media channels, a mobile site and publications, such as the NYC Official Visitor Guide, NYC Official Travel Planner and NYC Official Meeting & Event Planner. These various media channels are used to disseminate information about events, offers and travel opportunities throughout the five boroughs.

The city hosts a wide range of events and programmes as a means of attracting both domestic and international visitors, including NYC Restaurant Week, Fashion’s Night Out, Get More NYC, Broadway Week, Off-Broadway Week, Comedy Week and Culture Spot. The work of NYC & Company saw New York welcome an estimated 50.5 million visitors in 2011, a 4% increase over 2010, while the Tourism industry supports over 320,000 jobs, generating $32 billion in direct spending across the City. The next step: liveability and economic diversification New York has already established itself as one of the world’s most attractive cities, both for tourists and

businesses, emphasised by New York City’s selection by President Obama as the only city to be represented on the country’s new 11-member national tourism board. In terms of tourism, New York must continue to make headway in non-English speaking markets. Plans are already afoot to develop visitor guides, available on nycgo.com, in seven different languages, targeted at eight different markets. In addition, the city is looking to push its brand further through an extensive social-media strategy, with additional international Facebook pages and translated visitor guides, to reach a total of 13 markets. The key change in the past 10 years has been the promotion of a new kind of urban liveability in New York. The PlaNYC document provides the framework for radically improving New York’s green credentials and human amenities. Projects like the High Line provide tangible and visible progress in promoting New York’s liveability and walkability. New York City is currently one of the most popular cities in the world for starting a business. Over the last four years, there has been a 40% spike in start-up financing in “Silicon Alley”; a larger increase than anywhere else in the U.S. A mixture of “luck”, with the financial collapse leading to a dearth of programmers looking for new opportunities, and intelligent public planning and policymaking have conspired to create an ideal start-up environment. New York needs to continue to build on this foundation, working to promote the city internationally as an ideal place for start-up ventures, while simultaneously ensuring that public policy continues to be pro-business.

Sydney: Asia Pacific World City

Sydney must leverage its inherent strengths as a visitor destination to build a broader

business and knowledge offer. By Greg Clark

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

Image: Flickr - Becky E

Sydney’s efforts to re-position itself as an Asia Pacific city have succeeded and it is ready to face the next step in building a business brand to rival its visitor destination identity. ‘Location branding 2012’, published by PublicAffairsAsia and Ogilvy PR in September 2012, sees Sydney as the third strongest brand in the Asia Pacific region. The report’s findings are based on the analysis of responses taken from 300 Asia Pacific communications experts, with over 3,000 years of collective professional experience between them. The report highlights the widely held belief that countries within Asia Pacific, in general, face a growing struggle to define their brand, but that Sydney is one of the few cities in the region that has successfully overcome this hurdle. The city has indeed been one of the world’s most dynamic performers in a wide range of international benchmarking indexes in recent years, although there is still much work to be done. The ‘Location branding 2012’ report focuses its research primarily on two aspects of location branding, namely investment attractiveness and desirability as a visitor destination for tourists.

Visitor brand The New South Wales (NSW) Government established Destination NSW (DNSW) as a statutory authority in July 2011 as a means of supporting the growth of the state’s tourism and events brand. The authority consolidated the activities of four previously separate organisations, Tourism NSW, Events NSW, the Homebush Motor Racing Authority and the Greater Sydney Partnership. DNSW is the body charged with devising and implementing strategies to grow NSW’s visitor economy, with a strong focus on driving tourism and acquiring and developing major sporting and cultural events for Sydney and regional NSW. The organisation is furthermore the primary investor in Business Events Sydney, which, amongst other activities, aims to attract more international conventions, corporate events and exhibitions for Sydney and regional NSW. DNSW’s strategy, which is still in the development process and is being coordinated by the Visitor Economy Taskforce, will receive in excess of $400 million of funding over the next four years in order to ensure its effective implementation.

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities and National Development

Investment attractiveness Founded in April 2011, New South Wales Trade & Investment is the driver of sustainable economic growth across the State of NSW, of which Sydney is the capital. The newly formed organisation is the brand custodian which promotes Sydney and NSW to the world as a location for doing business. NSW Trade & Investment do this by working with, and supporting, a wide variety of businesses and industries to advance investment, innovation, activity and improvements. The organisation acts as a unifying entity for the efforts of the key NSW Government economic development agencies, offices and authorities. The organisation’s first strategic plan (2012-2015), while complementing NSW 2021,“sets the overarching direction of the department for the next four years. It articulates our vision and values, defines our key results, the intended outcomes, and the strategies we will put in place to achieve those outcomes.”

The next step With nearly half of the world’s urban population now living in Asia Pacific, and a majority of the world’s megacities predicted to emerge in Asia over the next decade, the competition for investment and tourism continues to intensify. Given its small size and relatively remote position, Sydney must work hard to consolidate its business brand and communicate effectively with the world. Business operating environment, political stability and the built environment are the top three priorities for campaigns to attract business investment. Sydney’s cultural offering, the natural environment, hotel leisure facilities and transport are critical in successfully attracting tourists. Sydney’s task now is to leverage its inherent strengths as a visitor destination to build a broader business and knowledge offering in order to differentiate itself from other Asia Pacific, and World, cities, while promoting itself through a more diverse range of media-channels.

Tokyo: Identity and Reputation and a Resilient Brand, but is Tokyo an Open City?

Tokyo intends to promote its brand to the world, “presenting the world with a vision of how cities should be.” By Andrew Stevens and Greg Clark

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

Image: Flickr -Marufish

The Tokyo city brand is one of the least studied of all world city brands, although it is also one of the most embedded. Tokyo has been subjected to some of the most destructive natural and human-made disasters in recent years, including an earthquake, tsunami and a nuclear accident. The city’s brand, however, has proven to be extremely resilient. According to the 2011 Anholt-GfK Roper City Brands Index study, Tokyo’s brand has seen no significant erosion as a result of these phenomena, finishing 10th among the 50 cities measured in the Index. Regarding Tokyo’s place in the Index, Simon Anholt, City Brands Index founder, commented, “the stability of Tokyo’s brand image comes as no surprise, since the city consistently ranks impressively on welcoming people, amenities, cultural richness, education and business climate…the reputations of countries and cities are never affected by acts of god, only by acts of men.” Tokyo’s brand platform Tokyo’s brand is promoted externally, and projected globally, by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, through its Governor, formerly Shintaro Ishihara. The Governor, who was in power

from 1999 until October 2012, issued a 10 year plan in 2006, “Tokyo’s Big Change”, which has the intention of improving and enhancing the city by 2016, the year in which they intended to host the Olympic Games. Although their bid for the Games was ultimately unsuccessful, these improvements are still going ahead as planned, with some having being accelerated. In the Plan, the Governor highlights Tokyo’s intention to become globally known as a “beautiful and safe city.” More specifically, the plan highlights goals such as: negating certain aspects of post-war urban development through the increased use of waterfront and greenery, achieving a global reputation for sustainability and disaster management, Tokyo becoming the ‘cultural hub of Asia’ and ‘attracting people from around the world.’ The plan was formulated by the Headquarters of the Governor and approved by the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly. Tourism Promotion, City Promotion and Sister Cities relations, as well as the Asian Network of Major Cities 21, are all overseen by various sections of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, while the Tokyo International Anime Fair and

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Urban Intelligence n°9 – November 2012 Cities Branding

Tokyo Marathon are also managed by publicly owned enterprises. In addition to “Tokyo’s Big Change”, and in response to the challenges facing the city in the light of the impact of the tsunami and earthquake, Tokyo Vision 2020 has been developed as a means of transforming the city, as part of the city’s bid for the 2020 Olympic Games. It is through achieving the following eight specific goals that Tokyo intends to promote its brand to the world, “presenting the world with a vision of how cities should be”: Achieve a sophisticated disaster-resistant city and demonstrate Tokyo’s safety to the world, create a low-carbon society with a highly efficient, independent and distributed energy system, restore Tokyo to a beautiful city surrounded by water and greenery, connect land, air, and sea to raise Tokyo’s international competitiveness, put Tokyo on a new track to growth by raising industrial power and the allure of the city, build and show the world an urban model for a society with a low birth-rate and aging population, raise globally competent individuals by

creating a society where anyone can strive for high goals, and create a society where everyone can enjoy sports and provide children with dreams. The next step One of Tokyo’s major brand weaknesses is the perception of its cleanliness; the city ranks in the bottom half of all measured nations in the 2011 Anholt-GfK Roper City Brands Index. Is Tokyo an open city? There are many aspects of the cosmopolitan society in Tokyo but the perception of closed institutions and the city’s reputation for isolationism is an oft cited factor for Tokyo failing to compete with other cities on a regional, as well as global level. Tokyo recognises both of these weaknesses and is in the process of addressing them, but whether or not they can be overcome and Tokyo can begin to compete with the likes of London, Paris and New York remains to be seen. Source: Developed with material from www.citymayors.com

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Discover more articles on Cities and Infrastructures go to

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Read the previous Urban Intelligence issues:

March 2012 – Cities and sport events April 2012 – Urban investment and the new cycle May 2012 – Planning the re-development of the world’s megacities June 2012 – Asian Cities and the global growth map July 2012 – Retail and cities: a new opportunity? August 2012 – Investment in Cities September 2012 – Urban demographics and Cities October 2012 – Cities urbanization, and national urban policy Next issue … December 2012 - City innovations and key events from 2012

Contacts Any questions on Urban Intelligence? Want to advertise in Urban Intelligence? Please contact [email protected]

Credits Contributors: Greg Clark Johannah Cantwell Jean-Marc André Acknowledgement: Urban Intelligence wishes to thank the contributors for their kind participation Design: Emilie Leblanc

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