1. business and industrial
2. advertising and marketing
3. marketing

Poznan BestPlace
Summit
Place Marketing
Manifesto
Interview
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Juan Carlos Belloso
Martin Boisen
Joao R. Freire
Raquel Goulart
Robert Govers
Björn P. Jacobsen
Mihalis Kavaratzis
Manolis Psarros
Stefan Roesch
Gildo Seisdedos
Sebastian Zenker
Case study
• The New Barcelona Brand Strategy
— Juan Carlos Belloso
• Cascais Brand Architecture
— Joao R. Freire
• Country Brand Colombia
— Raquel Goulart
• City of Peace and Justice
— Robert Govers
• Australia’s New World City?
— Andrea Insch
• X-Boarder Place Branding
— Björn P. Jacobsen
• »This is Athens«
— Manolis Psarros
• »Britain is GREAT«
— Stefan Roesch
• Oman National Spatial Strategy
— Gildo Seisdedos
• Hamburg Metropolitan Brand
— Sebastian Zenker
Poznań Best Place Summit
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE
-------Poland
In September 2014
the experts from the Best Place European Place Marketing Institute
met in Poznań to discuss the
current challenges of place
marketing and to pave the way for
progress in this area. Although
place marketing is a relatively
well-established academic and
practical discipline, it seems to have
reached a hiatus and, in our opinion
it needs new ideas and energy to
move it forward.
POZNAŃ BEST PLACE SUMMIT
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Meanwhile, various experiences
have demonstrated there is a need
for systematization of the concept,
and above all for presenting its
usefulness and defining the
challenges, together with setting
directions for further research and
analyses in the realm of place
marketing.
POZNAŃ BEST PLACE SUMMIT
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Best Place
EUROPEAN PLACE
MARKETING INSTITUTE
-------Poland
The Best Place - European Place Marketing Institute, as an interdisciplinary
society of experts working actively for the development of places, took the
opportunity to initiate and boost an intense discussion about the current state
of place marketing and branding, both in theory and practice. The synergy of
knowledge, practical experience and skills of Best Place and the invited experts
have resulted in the publication we present here.
The experts have drawn up the ‘Place Marketing Manifesto’, which includes the
Definition and Aims of Place Marketing and Place Branding, Elements and
Process of Place Marketing, Contribution to Place Development, Skills Necessary
for Effective Place Marketing and The Major Challenges and Research Agenda
for Place Marketing.
The participants of the Poznań Best Place Summit also present here interesting
case studies on particular places, as well as share their opinions in interviews.
We hope you find this report useful and inspiring.
Best Place Institute Board of Directors
• Adam Mikołajczyk
• Magdalena Florek
• Jarosław Górski
POZNAŃ BEST PLACE SUMMIT
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Place Marketing
Manifesto
POLAND
----------Best Place
European Place Marketing Institute
Place Marketing Manifesto
Place marketing is extensively used by local authorities
across the world because it contributes significantly to local
development. It is, however, used in several different forms
and under several different names, something that leads to
confusion. It is essential to clarify the concept and provide
clear guidance for its implementation. A notable shift in
contemporary practice and theory is the shift towards place
branding. For effective implementation it is necessary to
distinguish between the key concepts of place marketing
and place branding.
Definition and aims of Place Marketing
Place Marketing is the scientific discipline and field of practice responsible for developing and implementing a managerial process that assists places achieve their objectives by
adopting a market-oriented philosophy, particularly:
•
by using marketing research methods to analyse the
competitive environment and identify the needs,
wants and preferences of stakeholders and selected
target markets,
•
by building and delivering benefits to fulfil these
needs, wants and preferences,
•
by creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for the place stakeholders, target markets and its community at large,
PLACE MARKETING MANIFESTO
•
by efficiently co-ordinating the use of marketing tools
that stimulate exchange relations and enhance the
experience of the place’s stakeholders.
Place marketing as managerial process is initiated by local units
and engages local leaders, local stakeholders and the local community. The overall objective of place marketing is the welfare and satisfaction of the place’s residents and, to that
end, it embraces both economic gains and social aims. As
such it is also a social process that requires participation of
local residents and stakeholders at every stage of its implementation: analytical, strategic, participatory, monitoring.
Place marketing needs, therefore, to integrate all place
stakeholders. In order to achieve this general objective, particular goals related to stakeholders and target markets are
defined.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Definition and aims of Place Branding
Place branding is a process that enhances the image and
reputation of the place by developing a comprehensive
place brand identity based on the realities and features of
the place and its marketing offerings. The aim of place
branding is to differentiate the place experience provided to
the place’s target groups and to build its competitiveness in
an economic and social context. It consists of a set of tools
and actions that consistently communicate this place brand
identity and includes the processes of designing, governance and modification of brand over time.
The overall aim of place branding is to contribute to the sustainable development of the place by engaging stakeholders in a common effort to enhance a differentiated reputa-
tion that will attract target audiences and to create a sense
of community that will improve quality of life. Particularly
important is the ability of place branding to contribute to
building trust, preference and connection through authentic stories, signature innovations, and inspiring experiences
with a place.
A place brand is a combination of meanings, values, functional and emotional benefits and symbols that distinguish
the place’s offering from competitors’ offerings and is created through relations with place target groups and social
interactions. Effective place brands have a well-defined and
well thought out value proposition composed by different
functional, emotional and self-expressive benefits.
Elements and process of Place Marketing
Several varied elements comprise a Place Marketing programme depending on specific place conditions and particular local contexts. Most commonly the main elements include
image management activities, governance and coordination
systems, awareness raising activities, stakeholders’ analysis
and engagement techniques, promotional and advertising
tools, public and media relations management and more.
PLACE MARKETING MANIFESTO
These are combined within the Place Marketing process,
which includes the following essential stages:
a.
Analysis of internal and external environment;
b. Definition of strategic vision and positioning;
c.
Strategy development;
d. Implementation of actions;
e. Monitoring and measurement.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Contribution to place development
Place marketing and place branding contribute to the economic and social development of the place by providing a
strategic link between the current realities of the place and
the desired vision for the future. They provide a common
vision for place stakeholders to join efforts in enhancing the
place’s reputation and maintain the place’s relevance for the
target audiences of residents, visitors and investors over
time. Therefore, they are both strategically linked to place
making and provide guidance for place development,
fostering differentiation, continuity and relevance. Place
marketing develops and uses a set of practical tools and
incorporates planning and executing a series of projects
that contribute to the place’s strategic aims.
Place marketing contributes to several areas of a place’s
development potential including tourism development,
investment attraction, resident attraction, increase of civic
pride and community feeling, enhancement of the place’s
image and reputation, increase of political influence, promotion of local products, event organisation.
Specialities necessary for effective Place
Marketing
Place marketing and place branding are multi- and crossdisciplinary fields of activity that incorporate knowledge
and experience from several relevant disciplines including
marketing, planning, geography, urbanism, graphic design,
PLACE MARKETING MANIFESTO
cultural planning, architecture, economics, tourism planning and development, sustainable development, advertising and media, sociology, anthropology, public administration, design, media & communications.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
The major challenges in place marketing
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Politics – the place marketing process very often
relates directly to politicians’ decisions and election
cycle. There is a strong need to educate politicians and
place managers what place marketing and branding
stand for and to help them understand the importance
of putting the place brand strategy at the highest level
and not simply as a responsibility of the communications department. This will turn place marketing into a
true governance tool. Similarly, the challenge is to help
stakeholders understand the complexity and interdisciplinarity of the domain and to balance between
political and private management approaches.
Measurement – it is essential to develop tools for the
measurement of the effectiveness, efficiency and
impact of place marketing and branding actions.
Concept clarity – a vital need is to understand the
long-term character of a place brand that demands
defining a common vision, setting up long term objectives and achieving clarity about the concept (do’s and
don’ts). The success of Place Marketing programmes
relies on having a long term strategy for the place
instead of one-time events, such as a seasonal campaign.
PLACE MARKETING MANIFESTO
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Implementation and coordination – it is of crucial
importance to maintain momentum and visionary
leadership in order to sustain stakeholder involvement.
There is a need for a brand manager to orchestrate the
project from its inception to avoid fragmented
decision-making and implementation.
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Social process – the fundamental role of the residents
must be understood and place marketing should be
approached as a social process that engages the local
population and leads to brand ownership rather than
the currently dominant top-down approaches that
lead to limited community involvement and disengagement of locals.
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Low status – it is necessary to improve the status of
place marketing as an academic discipline, gaining
more credibility on professional and scientific grounds.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Setting the directions for research and analyses in the realm of place marketing in Europe
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Defining and measuring place marketing effectiveness
and efficiency. There is a need to examine direct effects
(sales/economic impact) and indirect effects
(image/reputation/media impact) and clarify which
part of the place marketing programme causes these
effects (i.e. marketing versus branding effects). As such,
there is a need to define relevant indicators to monitor
marketing impact on a place.
Relations to other domains. What are relations with
areas such as place management, employer branding,
social media etc.?
Multiple stakeholder management. How can place
marketing strategies and programmes cater simultaneously for the needs and interests of tourism vs. economic development vs. residents?
PLACE MARKETING MANIFESTO
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Cluster marketing and competition. How can place
marketing programmes lead to effective branding and
positioning of a cluster? What is the intensity of interplace competition and what are the opportunities for
inter-place cooperation? Does place co-branding
work?
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Multiple case-studies. There is a need for research that
extends beyond a single case analysis and provides
wider, general lessons for place marketing.
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Place brand identity. How can authenticity/uniqueness
be maintained in a globalized world where all places
strive to be creative, smart, sustainable, innovative, etc.
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The effects of the virtual world. How can place images
and reputations benefit from virtual presence that
influences perceptions and place-related decisions?
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Juan Carlos Belloso
FUTUREPLACES
------Spain
Why did you decide to choose place
marketing as your interest?
Getting involved with Place Branding and Place Marketing
was a great opportunity for me to put all my knowledge and
experience in the corporate, institutional and place strategy,
branding and promotion fields to the service of places and
their economic and social development. My main area of
specialization is Place Branding from a strategic and a holistic point of view, understanding Place Branding and Place
Management as a combination of making innovative, inspiring and engaging place design and content combined with
the use of creative strategic communications, marketing
and promotion strategies and tools that effectively creates a
strong and positive reputation (brand) for places. I believe
that this field is not only an exciting professional specialization to be involved in but also a great way to contribute to
the development of territories in the benefit of its citizens.
As a passionate for places, people and travel, it also provides
you the opportunity to visit many fantastic places around
the world.
What was the most difficult project you
had to deal with in your career?
I have been working for many years for the City of Barcelona in many different aspects and areas, from the organization of the Barcelona’92 Summer Olympic Games to City
Brand Strategy and Communications to the development of
the Strategic Metropolitan Plans to economic, sports and
cultural projects and strategies. I believe my greatest
achievement has been to contribute to make Barcelona one
of the most admired and strongest global city brands. However, having also worked as consultant to many other large
and small regions and cities I also believe I have contributed
to put in place Place Branding and Marketing strategies that
have helped those places to be more competitive.
How would you explain to the layman
what place marketing is about?
For me, a Place Brand is the image, perceptions or associations that people have of a certain place (being country,
region, city, destination).
Branding a place is a about building and managing the
image / reputation of a place so that it helps the place in its
efforts and objectives with regards to attracting and retain-
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BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
ing citizens, talent, professionals, companies, investors,
events, clients for its products and services, etc. This done
by all the place stakeholders jointly setting a future vision
for the place and defining the desired positioning and image
and then designing and implementing consistently over time
the right set of strategies, actions, policies, investments and
communications in line with this desired vision and image.
Place Marketing / Promotion would be promoting and selling the place and its unique features to the different targets.
It is common that all this concepts are used indistinctly and
many times confusion is created.
According to your observations, which
city, region or country is the most
effective when it comes to marketing or
which has the strongest brand. Why?
In my opinion, some of the strongest city brands are of
course New York City, London, Paris, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Vienna, Rome, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Munich or
Berlin, just to name a few. All these places provide innovative experiences to their citizens and visitors have inspiring
design and public spaces and are vibrant and alive, with a
dynamic and strong cultural offer all year round. They are
also cities that are in permanent transformation and that
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are always able to surprise you, inviting you to visit them
again and again. And they offer opportunities to every one.
They are also places that tell emotional, compelling and
engaging stories about themselves. The same with many
countries like the US, Canada, Australia, France, New Zealand, India, etc. or regions such as Tuscany, Patagonia, or
Scandinavia for example, all places that are able to generate a positive image and interest and offer attractive and
unique experiences to residents and visitors.
Based on your knowledge how would you
evaluate the condition of place marketing
in central-eastern Europe?
Place Branding and Marketing differ in each place and
regions depending on the specific characteristics of the
place. I believe there is an increasing interest in the Place
Branding and Marketing fields all over Central and Eastern
Europe and that many countries, regions and cities are
developing some interesting initiatives in this field. Although
they may lag behind more consolidated places in western
Europe in terms of knowledge, experience and capabilities
in the Place Marketing field they face the main challenges as
other established place brands do regarding understanding
what Place Branding and Marketing is, how to manage a
place brand (image) and how to engage and coordinate all
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
the different place stakeholders in the task of promoting
and managing the place and its reputation. Initiatives such
as the ones promoted by Best Place – European Place Marketing Institute definitely are helping to develop this discipline in Central and Eastern Europe.
Consumers love commercial brands, do
you think place brands may have the
same important meaning as today have
brands of cars, clothes or electronics?
Although places are much more complex entities that companies or products and branding a place is a much more
difficult task since there are many different stakeholders
and elements that have to be managed and understood, I
believe places can and, in fact, generate the same emotional
links and passions to people as corporate and consumer
brands. Places tell compelling stories and provide unique
and meaningful experiences to people, being citizens, visitors, investors and so on, the same as products do. And
these places are not just brands in strict sense but they also
represent a specific lifestyle and become cultural brands.
This is the reason why places such as New York, London,
Barcelona, Berlin, etc. keep attracting a growing number of
people that want to live, visit, study or work in these places.
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BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Martin Boisen
UNIVERSITY OF
GRONINGEN
-----------Netherland
Why did you decide to choose place
marketing as your interest?
It just happened somehow. I studied urban and regional
planning at the University of Copenhagen, became involved
with urban renewal programs and citizen participation and
started realizing that good places to live was much more
than the urban form or the urban economy. One thing let to
the other, and through a focus on metropolitan governance
and planning I ended up writing a number of papers on this
issue, which immediately led to a lot of attention. From that
attention I realized that I’d touched a topic with a lot of resonance in society and I decided to focus my attention on this
topic. That was in 2005, almost ten years ago.
What is your biggest achievement you
had to deal with in your career?
In terms of my biggest achievement, I think that other
people should be the judge of that. I honestly wouldn’t
know. There are a lot of projects that I’m proud of, but they
all involve a lot of different people. This discipline is a team
effort if there ever was one.
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The most difficult project I had to deal with in my career was
in a middle-sized city to the North of Amsterdam in the
Netherlands. It remained impossible to get the city council
to agree to the focal points of the strategy, and a number of
politicians used the project as a means of fighting a war. In
the end, the project was terminated and a lot of stakeholders disappointed and demotivated. A shame. To this day,
that city struggles with this topic.
How would you explain what place
marketing and place branding is about to
a layman?
I would start by explaining that we tend to focus on the built
environment, housing, offices, infrastructure and architecture when we aspire to create better places for their inhabitants and users. Then I would suggest that although these
things remain important - safety, ambition, motivation,
pleasure and pride are just as important. A sense of belonging and a sense of place connect the built environment with
meanings and stories that belong to the sociological and
psychological realms. We’ve learned a lot from how marketing and branding has been attributed to products and services, and we’re trying to translate these frameworks to
help create better places for inhabitants, entrepreneurs and
visitors - for all the users of a city.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
According to your observations, which
city, region or country is the most
effective when it comes to marketing and
which has the strongest brand and why?
“Being effective" is about achieving the right results. “Efficiency” is about achieving the set goals using optimal
resources and within a given time-frame.
To my mind, it is impossible to deem a specific city the most
effective in terms of marketing - so I’m not going to try.
However, in terms of ‘efficiency’, I think that we can rule out
a lot of the traditional ‘best practice’ cities like Glasgow and
Barcelona. Smaller places, cooperating with each other or
organizing themselves around a larger, well-known city tend to be able to achieve a larger return-on-investment
than the big cities. In terms of ‘efficiency’ of marketing, I generally think that smaller cities have a larger potential.
Based on your knowledge, how would you
evaluate the condition of place marketing
and place branding in central-eastern
Europe?
I see many cities still in the process of emerging from the
Cold War period. Cities aspiring to position themselves, and
assume their rightful place amongst Europe's other cities. A
lot of effort is being made, but it tend to lack sophistication
and isn’t exactly state-of-the-art. I've seen many t-shirts and
promotional videos, as if place marketing and branding was
similar to the way we promote energy drinks. The focus on
campaigns and advertisement can easily be explained - this
kind of effort is highly visible and it's relatively easy to
approach. However, in most cases it's a waste of time, money
and stakeholder-involvement. Some cities are catching up
fast though, realizing that its possible to learn from the mistakes made in other cities, instead of imitating them.
Talking about a “strong” generic brand, I think that London
has the strongest city brand on the planet. But other cities
have stronger brands when we narrow the focus. The notion
of “strong” should not be seen outside of a specific context.
After all, having a strong brand is not always a positive thing.
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BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Consumers love commercial brands, do
you think place brands may have the
same important meaning as the brands of
cars, clothes or electronics has today?
Definitely. In fact, the way I see place brands they already
have. I would even argue that the emotional attachment to
places is much stronger than to commercial products or
services. In my understanding, every place is a brand, and
people identify themselves and each other with places.
That’s also why I work with place marketing and place
branding: for the love of place. But if you truly love a place,
you also realize that it's not going to be enough to print that
on a t-shirt. Actions speak louder than words.
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BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Joao R. Freire
IPAM – MARKETING
SCHOOL
--------Portugal
Why did you decide to choose place
marketing as your interest?
My background is in economics but my interest is in marketing. There’s no topic more challenging or complex than
marketing or branding a place. My preference is working on
destination branding projects and developing brands within
a tourism context. Tourism is the biggest industry in the
world and it has been researched from many different
angles - sociology, psychology, anthropology, geography,
etc. It is also an industry which witnesses the success of
modern societies. Tourism only exists because people have
spare money and time to spend.
What was the most difficult project you
had to deal with in your career?
My most challenging project was Cascais, a municipality
close to Lisbon, Portugal. There were many different stakeholders who all had different sets of needs and motivations.
At the time, Cascais Municipality owned several municipality
companies, each with its own board of directors and own
communication department. Each individual company liked
to communicate with the market; however, there were no
rules concerning this communication. So the different municipality companies, with its different names and distinct
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objectives, were promoting themselves instead of the municipality. There was a lot of waste in the communication
and Cascais, which is both the name of the municipality and
a village, was not getting any recognition. An additional
challenge was that within the municipality there were
strong local brands, such as Estoril, which is a very old and
prestigious destination brand. The challenge was to develop
a model accommodating all the different organizations and
stakeholders while improving Cascais’s communication
with its internal and external audience. The solution was the
development of a new brand architecture for Cascais.
How would you explain to the layman
what place marketing is about?
I would have to start with a definition for Place Branding and
then go to the definition of Place Marketing.
A Place Brand is about defining who we are and what benefits we can provide to the market.
Place marketing is about building and delivering those benefits in an efficient way to our selected target markets.
Place Branding is an exercise of identifying, organizing and
coordinating marketing variables in order to deliver benefits
that are relevant to the target markets. Marketing variables
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
are all of those that have relevance and impact on the internal
or external customer.
Place brands should have a well-defined and well thought
out value proposition composed of different functional, emotional and self-expressive benefits. The benefits that compose the value proposition should take into account motivations for consumption. Potential consumers will choose a
place that better satisfies their needs. It is therefore the task
of the brand management team to come up with a positioning statement, with a clear defined marketing strategy,
including market segmentation and a communication plan
for the internal and external audiences of the place brand.
This also implies that we should clearly define the objectives
of the place. Attract investors, attract tourists or attract
students? What type of investment? What type of tourists?
Are we able to attract all these segments? How can we
develop a strategy that is compatible with the selected target
segments? Are the investors relevant to develop the infrastructures for tourists? Or at the investors relevant for the
creation of jobs which will attract new workers and students?
Of course, most important is asking why invest in marketing
and branding? Investments should be done to improve the
lives of the brand owners, i.e., the residents living in that particular place.
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According to your observations, which
city, region or country is the most
effective when it comes to marketing or
which has the strongest brand. Why?
It’s a very difficult question since there are many different
places around the world that have effective marketing strategies and a strong brand. One that comes to mind is Australia.
It’s quite far from Europe and the USA yet it is still one of on
the top tourism earners. Australia is an interesting mix
between the sophistication of Sidney and the roughness and
the challenging nature of the rest of the territory. The fact
that the country does not have many residents, does not have
a long history, and is quite far from Europe and the USA yet
continues to be a place that people are willing to travel to and
to spend money on speaks highly for the country’s brand.
Based on your knowledge, how would you
evaluate the condition of place marketing
and place branding in central-eastern
Europe?
My impression is that central-eastern Europe is dedicating a
great deal of attention and resources to the study and implementation of projects in place marketing. There’s definitely a
high interest in the field. It is a quite interesting and a smart
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
thing to do. I would risk saying that central-eastern Europe is
a huge area that still enjoys a low level of awareness as compared to Western Europe. Its territory covers about half of the
continent and is competing with countries such as UK, France,
Spain and Italy. That is tough competition. So, yes, those locations should invest in Place Marketing and develop their
brands in order to compete in the European market.
Consumers love commercial brands, do
you think place brands may have the
same important meaning as today have
brands of cars, clothes or electronics?
Yes, definitely. People consume places much in the same way
they consume service or product brands. Within a tourism
context, the models for choosing a destination for traveling
are similar to the ones of choosing a product or service.
People usually have limited time to study all available options.
Nonetheless decisions about where to travel for vacations are
typically regarded as high risk. It involves a huge investment
of limited time and money. So consumers will want to reduce
risks and will evaluate places much in the same way they do
it for services and products. Moreover certain destinations
have a social meaning, much in the same way product brand
have. So consumers might choose a place for vacationing in
part because of its social meaning.
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However, it is much more complex branding a place then
branding a product or a service. For example one of challenges associated with place-branding is ownership. Products or service brands normally belong to an organisation,
which manages them in a specific manner in order to fulfil
certain objectives. Furthermore, those branded products,
services, or concepts are protected by legal mechanisms that
give exclusive ownership to the organisations. While a product or service has clear ownership, a place does not. A place is
composed of a number of different and independent organisations. There are the local and state agencies that have concrete planning objectives. There is also a plethora of organisations, which are privately owned, and pursue their own individual objectives. Adding to this complexity it cannot be
forgotten that the people living in each particular place have
the freedom to act as they wish. This is in contrast with
organisations where brand managers have direct control over
their employees, recruiting only the ones that share the same
values as the brand.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Raquel Goulart
Sztejnberg
SARAVAH_CITY ID
------Brazil
Why did you decide to choose place
marketing as your interest?
I have been working with marketing, design, communications, and consumption projects for more than 15 years and
since 2005 I am focused on developing branding strategies,
both in Brazil and abroad. While researching about mobility
trends and places positioning themselves as slow territories in
2010, I started investigating possible applications of traditional
branding tools to place brands. Over the past four years I have
been approaching the public and private spheres in talks,
seminars and classes to disseminate the discipline, promote a
wider exchange of ideas – coming mainly from Europe, where
the field is more mature – and integrate place branding with
different areas such as creative economy and design.
In October 2014 I organized the first international seminar of
Place Branding in Brazil, bringing specialists from Rio de
Janeiro and from abroad (Poland, The Netherlands, Colombia, Italy and UK) to present and discuss different point of
views and experiences of planning, branding, marketing and
managing places. This event was followed by a closed workshop with representatives of local and regional government
and by an open talk during Rio Design Week on November
2014, attracting people, institutions and the press.
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Despite the fact that those events and other initiatives
certainly have broadened the interest of specific audiences, in
Brazil the fields of Place Branding / Marketing are still under
construction, both in consultancy side and in academy: definition of concepts, understanding of possible applications, a
clear identification of challenges, common goals, and future
research. There are plenty opportunities to develop the discipline while consolidating the idea of building and managing
strategically a place (in its various dimensions), engaging as
much stakeholders as possible with a shared and long term
vision. It is a special moment to build knowledge by involving
different kinds of managers, students, teachers, influencers,
university and civil society in general to explore models that
may fit into local dynamics and into a plural culture.
What is your biggest achievement/what
was the most difficult project you had to
deal with in your career?
One of the most challenging projects was the creation of a
brand strategy for Maracana, the iconic football stadium
located in Rio de Janeiro. Considered by sports lovers “a
second house”, the stadium remained closed during four
years for works of infrastructure and modernization. Reopened in 2013, it needed to re-communicate with its publics
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
and position itself as a place where the experience of following a game still had the same energy, collective vibration and
emotion, but now in a more safe, technological, comfortable
and complete environment for the whole family. When
market researches were ready (both qualitative and quantitative), it was clear that the stadium was seen with distrust by
its main fans, the football supporters, being considered an
elitist place, cold, “made for whites”, “an European arena” and
not the popular venue called by many as a true temple.
The brand strategy and tools (brand voice, brand experience,
brand identity, brand management) were designed to reinforce the new rational benefits while promoting mainly a fundamental emotional reconnection with the stakeholders,
consolidating the untouched soul of the stadium. All cultural
aspects – local/national identity, nostalgia for the old times,
pride, heritage, leisure consumption, involved symbolism and
relational traits – were considered fundamental parts of the
strategic puzzle to position the Maracana in the world and
reposition it in local people’s heart. During internal workshops
for different types of teams (IT, Public Relations, managers,
guards, tour guides, service providers, and partners in general), we have been working as curators of all content delivered by the stadium, online and offline, giving clear guidelines
for every communication, including less known aspects such
as sustainability and corporate uses. The official launch of the
branding project is foreseen to early 2015.
INTERVIEW
How would you explain to the layman
what place marketing is about?
It is about building identity and sense of belonging. About
being important to people while inspiring people to be part
of a shared vision for the place. It is about using common
values and cultural codes able to make the place more
authentic and desirable: a place where people want to be, to
live, to work, to share experiences, to invest, to visit, to raise
children, to be part of. It is about developing mutual commitment and transforming territories from geographical
spaces into places full of stories.
According to your observations, which
city, region or country is the most
effective when it comes to marketing or
which has the strongest brand and why?
The UK has a very strong brand and the campaign "GREAT"
has been reinforcing it. It is simple, straight to the point, multiple and easily / globally understood. But, beyond its verbal
adherence, it is to me a good case of strong marketing built to
promote different aspects of the country that have a particular character and a special value to the world.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Colombia is also a benchmark in my opinion, especially for
Latin American developing countries. In less than two years
after the rebranding campaign was launched, the country
was able not only to change perceptions about its image and
reputation, but also achieved significant results in various
areas as a consequence of a clear commitment of the government and civil society. These results – from increasing
national pride to new trade agreements, education, culture or
tourism, just to mention a few – were also linked to a series of
internal investments that were already repositioning Colombia in the regional and global scenery. The consistency of the
brand is reinforced daily, confirming that the country is not
just a promise, and delivers clear evidences that it is a strong
player: "a country solution", as the brand strategy announces.
Based on your knowledge, how would you
evaluate the condition of place marketing
and place branding in central-eastern
Europe?
Maybe a bit shy – please note that this is a non-European perspective and means that some places are still unknown or
misperceived for many potential consumers / entrepreneurs
/ visitors / brand ambassadors. I believe that some identities
still need to invest in visibility. I like to show unknown aspects
of central-eastern European countries in my classes and talks
and there is a clear gap. People are always positively surprised
INTERVIEW
by their cultural, natural, technological, economical and / or
architectonic attractions. But stereotypes are still very strong
when defining a mental image and a specific reputation of a
place located in central-eastern Europe. Sometimes the
difference between countries’ offers and personalities is not
clear as well. I also believe that some places have become
quickly hubs of tourism (let’ consider the example of Prague
and Budapest) while others have the same potential but do
not fully take advantage of. On the other hand, tourism is the
first “mental link” that people try to find when asked about
central-eastern European countries. The blank sheets must
be filled because there is still so much originality, creativity
and magnetism to be communicated, with no need to adopt
the “me too” strategy in comparison to other western European countries.
Consumers love commercial brands, do
you think place brands may have the
same important meaning as today have
brands of cars, clothes or electronics?
Definitely. But it may vary according to the place and to the ability it has to communicate itself and develop significant relationships over time. Maybe the biggest challenges in this process
are: 1) to avoid placelessness and 2) to acknowledge the fact
that a brand will never be everything to everybody, so choices
must be made when defining a positioning or reviewing it.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Robert Govers
PLACE BRANDING AND
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY JOURNAL
-----------Belgium
Why did you decide to choose place
branding as your interest?
Since my graduate studies I have been interested in the way
that people perceive places and how cities, regions and
countries create image. Reputation management for places
has been around for a while, but over the last decade or so,
it has been popularized by referring to place branding. However, the practice of place branding often leaves to be
desired and hence it deserves continued attention.
What is your biggest achievement/what
was the most difficult project you had to
deal with in your career?
Proper place branding projects are always demanding,
because they require consensus among many stakeholders
and touch on essential questions about identity, long term
direction and investments. What I am proud of most is the
extensive research work I’ve done on “Brand Dubai”, which
is published in our 2009 book on Place Branding (Palgrave
Macmillan).
INTERVIEW
How would you explain to the layman
what place branding is about?
The common assumption that place image can be studied,
managed and designed in the same way as commercial
brands is a mistake. Places do not sufficiently resemble
commercial products for this to work. Place images are
comparatively complex, interlinked, political, and contested.
By their nature, place images cannot be enforced or controlled by a management team. To be dealt with at all effectively, place images require a different, dedicated multidisciplinary approach. Simon Anholt’s Competitive Identity
is such a conceptual paradigm specifically dealing with
places as “brands”.
In summary, the Competitive Identity approach aims to:
•
Increase international engagement and awareness
•
Enhance reputation
•
Provide renewed sense of purpose and direction
amongst citizens and public servants
•
Increase coordination and cost-effective partnerships
between state agencies and public and private sectors
•
Devise the systems, strategies and structures to put
places firmly and permanently in control of their own
international image.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
It does this by:
• Appreciating that the reputations and images of places
can and should incorporate the sense of place.
• Formulating shared purpose and values based on the
regional identity and an aspirational strategic vision.
• Operationalising such a vision into a strategy that influences (and sometimes outright determines) policies, partnerships and symbolic actions that will enable the region
to project an unbroken stream of dramatic evidence that
will deliver the desired and deserved reputation.
• Emphasising that such a strategy will facilitate marketing
at the product level, i.e. for exports, tourism, investment
promotion, attracting talented new residents, cultural
diplomacy and political influence (Anholt’s Hexagon), by
providing strategic guidance and synergy.
• Understanding the current image and reputation of the
city, region or country and how it can be influenced by
improving the way a place interacts with the outside
world at the points of the hexagon (i.e., reckoning with
perceived image).
• Understanding and influencing the way in which such a
programme of action sways the mainstream and social
media agenda and therefore affects the way in which a
place is being talked about (i.e., reckoning with projected
image).
INTERVIEW
According to your observations, which
city, region or country is the most
effective when it comes to marketing or
which has the strongest brand. Why?
This is obviously the United States of America. It consistently ranks highest on the Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands
Index. The reason is that it has consistently and for a long
time branded itself as the Land of Freedom and Opportunity; not through logos, slogans or advertising campaigns,
but through its international relations, business conduct,
investments, culture and exports.
Consumers love commercial brands, do
you think place brands may have the
same important meaning as today have
brands of cars, clothes or electronics?
If we’re talking about the link between name and symbol
(e.g. flag) and perceptions in peoples’ minds then yes and
this has always been the case. The problem is that place
branding doesn’t work in the same way as commercial
branding; meaning that it is not so much about design and
marketing communication, but about policy and reality.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Björn P. Jacobsen
LUEBECK BUSINESS
DEVELOPMENT CORP.
---------Germany
Why did you decide to choose place
marketing as your interest?
My professional background is in economic development,
specifically in inward investment promotion. Competition
for investments and jobs among places is fierce. The infrastructure properties - roads, communication links, availability of workforce - are more or less the same among competing places. Place branding can make the difference in
reaching the decision for an investment at a certain place.
That's is what attracted me first.
However, place branding requires substantial resources and
therefore needs to show its efficiency. Here comes my controlling background into the game. So, I'm particularly interested in establishing the efficiency of place branding efforts.
What was the most difficult project you
had to deal with in your career?
Well, my biggest challenge was (and is) to convince my
stakeholders that place branding is not about creating a
new logo, inventing a new slogan or simply participating in
an exhibition distributing glossy brochures. Place branding
is about positively changing the perception of the target
group and align this perception with the reality of the place.
INTERVIEW
How would you explain to the layman
what place marketing is about?
It is about creating a favourable perception of the place
attributes and - most importantly - delivering on this place
brand promise.
According to your observations, which
city, region or country is the most
effective when it comes to marketing or
which has the strongest brand. Why?
There are so many cities, regions and countries branding
themselves today that it is difficult to pick one favourite.
Looking at countries I like the Liechtenstein approach - very
clear, straight to the point. In terms of regions Südtirol (Alto
Adige) is my favourite - not because it is very well made, but
because it is very consistent and implemented with a longterm commitment. I think that is what most place brands
need: a sustainable approach. In terms of cities I like Aaalborg in Denmark - again a clear approach incorporating
many facets of the place. But this is very subjective.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Based on your knowledge how would you
evaluate the condition of place marketing
in central-eastern Europe?
Let me argue from my background in economic development. I believe CEE is now where Western Europe probably
was ten years ago. The "simple" arguments in inward investment promotion like cheap labour, cheap land, low taxes,
high subsidies do not work any longer. Places need to differentiate - and here comes place branding into the game. So I
believe the more progressive CEE cities, regions and countries have realized this and act accordingly.
Consumers love commercial brands, do
you think place brands may have the
same important meaning as today have
brands of cars, clothes or electronics?
Yes - and even more. Place brands are about the perception
(or image) of foreigners - but most importantly it is about
the identity of a place. How do the inhabitants feel and communicate about the place. Think about demographic
change, the battle for the talented people and all that - and
you will easily recognize the importance of place brands.
INTERVIEW
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Mihalis Kavaratzis
UNIVERSITY OF
LEICESTER
-----------Great Britain
Why did you decide to choose place
marketing as your interest?
I chose place marketing as my main field of research
because of my desire to apply marketing knowledge for the
purpose of place development and making cities better
places to live. I wanted to see the extent to which marketing
principles and techniques would be useful for purposes that
seemed to me much worthier that making rich companies
richer! The focus on place branding came later when I
developed an understanding that the place brand is what
provides guidance for strategy development and is what all
marketing activities aim at establishing and supporting.
What is your biggest achievement you
had to deal with in your career?
that the place brand is not about devising a new logo and a
catchy tagline but depends on much wider strategic and
inspirational input. This is quite tough because it usually
means that local authorities do not call me back for a
second meeting to talk to them about strategy but prefer to
call someone that can sell them a nice slogan…
How would you explain to the layman
what place marketing is about?
For me marketing is about improving the relationship
between a marketing offering and its audiences. It helps
bring the producer of something closer to the people who
use it. In this sense, place marketing is about improving the
relationship between a place (i.e. the site of peoples’ lives,
work or leisure) and the people who are related to that
place, influence its fate and in any way feel attached to it (i.e.
the place’s stakeholders).
I like to think that the biggest achievement is yet to come! As
an academic researcher, I have had the luck to publish articles that were well accepted and particularly a City Brand
Communication Model that is frequently cited. I guess the
main difficulty (which can also be seen as a very interesting
and pleasant challenge) is trying to get across the message
INTERVIEW
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
According to your observations, which
city, region or country is the most
effective when it comes to marketing or
which has the strongest brand. Why?
The strongest place brands are the cities that everybody
knows and wants to visit: New York, Paris, London etc… Of
course this has not been the result of conscious branding
efforts but a long-term development of the reputation of
these places. There are several places that have succeeded
in partial or short-term marketing projects and goals but, in
my view, a single case of overall successful holistic marketing strategy has yet to emerge…
Consumers love commercial brands, do
you think place brands may have the
same important meaning as today have
brands of cars, clothes or electronics?
Consumers can only love in the same way destination
brands, which are directly related to consumption and can
have the same significance for the way in which people like
to construct and project their own identity through their
consumption practices. Place brands are more profound
than that – they actually operate at a much deeper level –
and I don’t think that they can be used for this function in
the same way.
Based on your knowledge how would you
evaluate the condition of place marketing
in central-eastern Europe?
Place marketing in CEE suffers from the same illnesses as
Western Europe or other parts of the world, and particularly
the misunderstanding of the significance of promotion at
the expense of real product development. I don’t think that
CEE countries should be looking for good examples anywhere else but they should be focusing on developing a
locally-informed marketing activity considering the political,
economic and policy-related realities of their region.
INTERVIEW
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Manolis Psarros
TOPOSOPHY
--------Greece
Why did you decide to choose place
marketing as your interest?
Academic background along with professional experience
in tourism planning and development helped me understand how important is to plan for a tourism destination’s
future by looking at the whole place. In order to be part of
the place-making process, place branding for tourism purposes requires a holistic perspective on various issues such
as industry conditions, public policies & legal frameworks,
the potential of partners and the local community to engage
and reveal the unique elements of each place, and the
forms to reach new audiences and markets through online
and offline channels.
What was the most difficult project you
had to deal with in your career?
Every single project has its own challenges and difficulties. I
have no doubt that strengthening the brand of Athens and
bringing back actual results via integrated destination management & marketing efforts has been probably the most
difficult project that I have been involved with. In this case,
the key challenge was that the uncertainty associated with
the different phases of the project was fuelled by the availability of a limited budget along with the effects of social
INTERVIEW
turmoil & political uncertainty. Building up a commonly
acceptable regional marketing partnership framework for
the municipal authorities of Helsinki Region was also challenging in many different terms.
What I definitely take away from these two projects and the
rest of professional experience is that providing consulting
advise in various countries with different cultures & operational frameworks, from Mexico to Siberia, and being able to
come up with appropriate strategies, tailor-made solutions
and practical recommendations is always a tough goal to
achieve and at the same time the most interesting and
intriguing part of our job.
How would you explain to the layman
what place marketing is about?
Place marketing is about ensuring that the brand message
and the story of an area are strategically and methodically
delivered to the right audiences through the appropriate
channels, to successfully reach set targets and compete for
a place in target visitors’ hearts. For that to happen, while
marketing priorities might change over time, the brand
must be true and enduring.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
According to your observations, which
city, region or country is the most
effective when it comes to marketing or
which has the strongest brand. Why?
In considering the international character of challenges
associated with place marketing, we should be more concerned with learning from brands which achieve to attract
the interest of markets under different conditions, over
time, rather than trying to identify the strongest brand at a
certain period of time. I would think that it is equally interesting, though in different ways to monitor the recent
efforts of brands in Eastern Europe to establish themselves
at the same time that brands in Western Europe endeavor
to reinvent their messages.
Based on your knowledge, how would you
evaluate the condition of place marketing
and place branding in central-eastern
Europe?
subject to delays due to the inheritance of centralized planning, but of course there are encouraging examples, which
demonstrate progress in building up place marketing
expertise.
Consumers love commercial brands, do
you think place brands may have the
same important meaning as today have
brands of cars, clothes or electronics?
They won’t and they shouldn’t. Although both types of
brands appear to transmit their values and meaning to consumers, it is essential to distinguish commercial from place
brands, because the latter emerge and evolve under the
influence of numerous and quite often heterogeneous
factors and interest groups that cannot be controlled or
manipulated in a certain way.
Similarly to the case of south-eastern Europe, the brands of
cities, regions or countries in central-eastern Europe have
not yet sufficiently adapted to the contemporary requirements of place marketing. Their path to maturity has been
INTERVIEW
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Stefan Roesch
FILM TOURISM
------Germany
Why did you decide to choose place
marketing/branding as your interest?
My special focus in terms of place marketing is (fictional)
film-based destination marketing. Having a background in
Tourism Geography, I decided to write my PhD thesis on film
tourism. This was back in 2003 when I heard about tourists
literally spending thousands of dollars to travel all the way to
New Zealand because they wanted to visit locations from The
Lord of the Rings. I was captivated by this and the fascination
for the deeply interconnected relationship between film and
tourism has never left me.
How would you explain to the layman
what place marketing is about?
According to your observations, which
city, region or country is the most
effective when it comes to marketing or
which has the strongest brand and why?
In my opinion, the most effective country branding both in
terms of sustainability as well as in terms of its inherent
emotional component would be Tourism New Zealand’s
branding strategy “100 % PURE NEW ZEALAND”. Introduced
in 1999, this brand quickly established itself the world over,
much to the envy of its many competitors. I think that the
key to its success is the powerful combination between
peoples associations with the country and its promise of
clean and green tourism experiences which I believe in
most cases is indeed delivered.
The term place marketing stands for the process of branding and subsequently selling a country, state, region or city
as an asset to specific target groups, such as tourists or new
residents in order to increase business.
Based on your knowledge, how would you
evaluate the condition of place marketing
and place branding in central-eastern
Europe?
Fictional film productions (both movies and TV productions)
are an ideal vehicle to market places because they are not
perceived as sales instruments. In addition, they reach a
wide audience and communicate place-specific attributes
via an emotional story.
Given the recent history of Eastern Europe I believe that
there is room to improve and professionalize the way places
are promoted. For instance, many cities or regions in Western Europe have long since installed specialized place marketers. I am not so sure if that’s the case in Eastern Europe.
INTERVIEW
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Consumers love commercial brands, do
you think place brands may have the
same important meaning as today have
brands of cars, clothes or electronics?
The first thing that comes to my mind are the (in)famous
Hard Rock Café t-shirts which were immensely popular in
the 1990s so yes, I do think that destinations have become a
lifestyle commodity similar to other products. Barcelona
would be a great example of this. For younger travelers, it’s
seen as a very hip place. Going to Barcelona – or Berlin and
many such other places – is like buying the newest iPhone:
You are part of the club.
INTERVIEW
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Gildo Seisdedos
IE BUSINESS SCHOOL
-----------Spain
Why did you decide to choose place
branding as your interest?
I had been working on sales and marketing in the corporate
world and I found that applying sales and marketing technique for places was a need and that there was a huge gap,
big opportunity as places are key for almost everything and
they have been traditionally forgotten by policy makers,
practitioners and academia.
At the same time, places are all different and it is not only
about business as in corporate marketing and branding:
social aspects are key and politics is always there!
What is your biggest achievement/what
was the most difficult project you had to
deal with in your career?
How would you explain to the layman
what place branding is about?
Places compete to attract and retain talent, tourists and
investments and that is a pivotal issue. To succeed you need
to use the right tools and place marketing is the label for all
these tools.
According to your observations, which
city, region or country is the most
effective when it comes to marketing or
which has the strongest brand. Why?
I am really fan of “second tier” places. When you are not in
the center, when you are part of the periphery taken
demand into the center of your competitive strategy as a
place becomes critical.
It is always the last one ;-)
Especially true in this case: Oman National Spatial Strategy
is in size and complexity one of the most complex cases I
have been dealing with. The good (and/or bad) thing about
place branding is that it is hard to know what it is really an
achievement.
INTERVIEW
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Based on your knowledge, how would you
evaluate the condition of place marketing
and place branding in central-eastern
Europe?
I feel that awareness on places in this region is lower than in
other parts of Europe so there is a gap that should be filled.
Low awareness is a golden opportunity to be the first to get a
space and a meaning into the minds of potential customers.
Consumers love commercial brands, do
you think place brands may have the
same important meaning as today have
brands of cars, clothes or electronics?
I would say they will have very soon more relevance than
corporate brands. On one hand, it already exists a strong link
between place brands and commercial brands – the “made
in” or “made by” label is the core of many top commercial
brands. On the other hand, brands are more important in
economic and social aspects so it makes sense their brands
to be at the same level.
INTERVIEW
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Sebastian Zenker
COPENHAGEN
BUSINESS SCHOOL
-----------Germany
Why did you decide to choose place
branding as your interest?
My focus is on city and regional branding and brand management. I love to be challenged and what could be more
challenging as managing such a complex brand like a city or
regional one? Especially the management of different
stakeholders in this regards and participatory approaches
are my interest of research.
What is your biggest achievement/what
was the most difficult project you had to
deal with in your career?
In my academic career – my PhD defense. Place marketing
and branding is a small niche in academia and with a very
though committee from general product branding experts
selling this story wasn’t by no mean easy…
In practice I would say the Fehmarnbelt inter-regional
branding project. We were doing a feasibility study and had
to include many different stakeholders from different countries. The biggest challenge is most of the time to explain to
the customer what place branding cannot and that the content ‘what should be branded’ is more important (and has
top priority) than to start to brand everything right away.
INTERVIEW
How would you explain to the layman
what place branding is about?
Place marketing is an organizational function and a set of
processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value
to place customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. Its aim is “to maximize the efficient social and economic functioning of the area concerned, in accordance
with whatever wider goals have been established”
(Ashworth and Voogd, 1990, p. 11). Important to notice is the
dual character of marketing: it is a management strategy as
well as operational tools like communication. A special role
has branding in this regards, which focus strongly on the
brand knowledge (i.e., awareness and image) of place customers.
According to your observations, which
city, region or country is the most
effective when it comes to marketing or
which has the strongest brand. Why?
The city of Hamburg is a very good example for a successful
and very professional branded and managed place. Especially, the structure of the Hamburg Marketing GmbH (HMG)
is quite advanced in comparison with other place branding
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
organizations. From former 17 different units within the city
which all worked on marketing the city, there is now one
holding with sub-companies responsible for different target
markets (tourism, economic development, conventions and
exhibitions). Additionally, they defined target markets, clear
goals, and managed to a certain degree to incorporate most
of the important stakeholders. Content wise, they have a
clear defined brand with eleven brand building blocks
(themes) which build the framework of all official brand
communication. Currently, they work on success measurement tools to further professionalize their marketing and
branding strategy.
Consumers love commercial brands, do
you think place brands may have the
same important meaning as today have
brands of cars, clothes or electronics?
Even more! What are the first questions if you meet someone? It is the name, the profession and the place the person
comes from. Places build a strong part of our identity and
thus are more important than fashion or luxury brands.
Don’t we tell everybody about the places we went? The trips
we are planning? Place brands are the most important
brands of our life.
Based on your knowledge, how would you
evaluate the condition of place marketing
and place branding in central-eastern
Europe?
In general we are living in interesting times for branding
places. City governments more and more adopt business
strategies and are open for using marketing and branding
approaches. Nowadays even smaller places start to brand
themselves. Unfortunately, many of them still solely focus on
logos and slogans and surprisingly/alarming few of them
have a clear communication goal, defined target markets
and fitting brand content to talk about.
INTERVIEW
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
GERMANY/HAMBURG
-----------------Sebastian Zenker
Hamburg
Metropolitan
Brand
Photo: www.mediaserver.hamburg.de / M. Lebowsky, bcsMedia
BACKGROUND:
Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany with 1.8 million inhabitants
(metropolitan region including Hamburg: 4.3 million). The city area comprises
755 km2, including 75 km2 of harbor (the second-largest European harbor).
Hamburg calls itself the green metropolis of Europe with 4,700 hectares of
wooded area (16.8% of the city area). Hamburg is also a city at the waterfront,
with 8% of the city area covered with water drawn from three rivers and
some smaller canals. The city additionally enjoys a healthy tourism industry,
with over 8.95 million overnight stays in 2010. Hamburg attracts important
economic powers by playing host to several of the top 500 German
companies’ headquarters. Combined with international trade, Hamburg’s
gross domestic product in 2009 was 85.76 billion Euro. Furthermore, with a
foreigner’s population percentage of 13.5 percent, the city features an
international touch: nearly 100 different consulates reside in the city, as do a
high percentage of second-generation foreigners. Last, but not least, the city
is a student’s town, with 20 different universities and about 75,000 students.
Before founding the Hamburg Marketing GmbH (HMG), 17 different units in the
city worked on marketing the place. Starting in 2004 and finishing this process
in 2010, Hamburg managed to build a holding structure with Hamburg
Tourismus GmbH (HHT), Hamburg Convention Bureau (HCB) and Hamburg
Business Development Corporation (GmbH) as target group specific
subsidiaries. Collaboration between the four holding subsidiaries is based on
close links at organizational, thematic and staffing levels. The Hamburg
Marketing Holding employs about 180 people that take care of marketing
Hamburg and its metropolitan area.
CASE STUDY
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
AIMS:
The objective is to strengthen unified communication and
cooperation among municipal stakeholders, competent
authorities and the Metropolitan Region, and to sustainably
sharpen HMG’s international focus.
STRATEGY/ACTIONS/TOOLS:
The success template of the Hamburg brand describes those
realities that for private individuals and companies from Germany and abroad offer the strongest leverage for the Hamburg brand. This is the product of a brand survey commissioned by Hamburg Marketing GmbH from Brandmeyer
Markenberatung. Ten specific brand building blocks
(themes) were elaborated. Behind them stand concrete
facts about the metropolis that have left a lasting impression
on city customers and which they associate with Hamburg.
TIME FRAMES:
Started in 2002, the Hamburg brand was developed with
the help of two brand surveys in 2004 and 2009. The
organizational building process was finished in 2010 – with
adding another target groups specific subsidiary (Hamburg
Convention Bureau) in 2012.
EFFECTS AND FURTHER IMPLICATIONS:
With the clear connected structure, stakeholders within the city
government (e.g., tourism and the economic development
department) were forced to work together closely and very
productively. Unfortunately, another important player in this
regards (city development) is not yet connected close enough.
Figure 1: HMG structure
(source: http://marketing.hamburg.de/One-holding-four-subsidiarie.1795.0.html?&L=1)
CASE STUDY
BUDGET:
not public
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Australia’s
New World City?
AUSTRALIA/BRISBANE
-------------Andrea Insch
Photo: © Brisbane Marketing / Dominika Lis / G20 Australia
BACKGROUND:
For over thirty years, Brisbane has struggled to transform its established image as a ‘big
country town’. Facing serious competition from Sydney and Melbourne, Brisbane
Marketing (BM), a subsidiary of the Brisbane City Council (BCC), was formed in October
2000 and focused on developing the city’s tourism and convention markets. However,
the development of a brand position for the city was underwhelming and research
indicated that Brisbane’s image in the Sydney market was 15-20 years out of date.
Despite its lack of progress to create an attractive position to attract tourists, BM, in
association with Brisbane’s three universities (University of Queensland, QUT and Griffith
University), launched a number of campaigns to promote Brisbane’s “liveability” and its
lower living costs as compared to Sydney and Melbourne. These initiatives formed the
platform for Brisbane’s position as the fastest growing centre for international education
between 2005 and 2009.
CASE STUDY
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
AIMS:
The launch of Brisbane’s Australia's New World City’ branding
strategy in May 2009, aimed to reposition the city as a vibrant,
new age city, targeting international investors, conference
organisers and students. This was Brisbane’s bold attempt to
become a business hub in the Asia-Pacific and a global city.
STRATEGY:
The design of a brand repositioning strategy began in November
2007 and continued for about 18 months. Development of the
new brand involved a year of consultation with 600 business and
industry stakeholders as well as the work of two market research
companies and a major advertising firm. The city’s brand repositioning targeted multiple audiences – investors, migrants, visitors
and students. In particular, the campaign sought to attract businesses to invest and migrate to the city through exposing influential decision makers to Brisbane through high profile events.
Alongside this core initiative, Brisbane Marketing developed campaigns to boost international student numbers, attract investment, major events, conventions, exports and international and
domestic tourists. A website was created as an online portal for
the city - http://www.choosebrisbane.com. Awareness of the
new brand position was raised through a domestic marketing
campaign in November 2009.
Separate campaigns have been implemented for international and
domestic tourists under VisitBrisbane and international students
CASE STUDY
under StudyBrisbane. Initiatives designed to grow and retain the
international student market include an annual Brisbane Welcomes International Students event, the Brisbane International
Student Ambassador Program, and the Brisbane Airport Welcome
program. The team at Brisbane Marketing work closely with the
city's education providers, education agents and all three levels of
government (City, State and Federal) to sustain this sector – the
city’s largest export market. In particular, the city is targeting
students from China, South Korea, India and the Middle East.
As well as the obvious promotional messages and advertising
that is supporting the campaign, Brisbane’s inner city has been
the site of several major urban renewal projects and cultural
initiatives, allied to the city’s brand repositioning. These initiatives
are designed to capture an increasing share of major events, conventions and conferences and included the redevelopment of the
historic Exhibition Showgrounds to include the Royal International Convention Centre. A moratorium on infrastructure
charges was introduced by the BCC to encourage the construction of new four and five star hotels.
With a clear focus on economic development, Brisbane’s Mayor
Graham Quirk took a lead role as the face of Brisbane, promoting
it as a business hub in the Asia-pacific. BM is also seeking to leverage Brisbane’s role as host of the G20 meetings in November 2014
to raise awareness of the city and target Asian investors, students
and conference organisers. The latest campaign is part of a three
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year plan to lure investors from Hong Kong and various regions of
China. As part of the $700,000 integrated marketing campaign,
billboards feature US president Obama as well as Asian executives
carrying the slogan "Australia's New World City" and the "Choose
Brisbane" tagline.
TIME FRAMES:
The rebranding campaign is seen as a long-term brand
position for the city. Following its inital launch in 2009, it has
become the driver of the BCC’s Economic Development
Plan 2012-2031, to frame the city’s economic development
over the next decade.
Source:
brisbanemarketing.com.au
CASE STUDY
EFFECTS AND FURTHER IMPLICATIONS:
Despite its intentions, there is little evidence that Brisbane’s
‘New World’ rebranding strategy has refocused its
regionally-dependent economy and extended its global
connectedness. For instance, the attraction of multinational
firms to Brisbane has been limited, with just a handful of
major Australian companies headquartered in the city. Instead, Brisbane’s economic vibrancy is increasingly dependent on the tertiary education export sector. Attempts to
reposition Brisbane’s brand as a global city, targeting external audiences demonstrates the inherent vulnerabilities of
increasing dependency on global sources of financial and
human capital, without a competitive and diversified city
economy.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
BUDGET:
The reported cost of the initial campaign launch was over $1
million (2009), with $2.7 million budgeted over the following three years (2010-2012).
See also: Brisbane City Council. (2012). Brisbane Economic Development Plan 20122031. Retrieved 15/07/2014, 2013; COAG. (2014). International Students Strategy for
Australia. Canberra: Council of Australian Government (COAG); Herde, C. (2013, 5
July). Brisbane Marketing's ambitious plans for economic growth, Courier Mail, p. 79;
Marzano, G., Laws, E., & Scott, N. (2009). The River City?: Conflicts in the Development of a Tourism Destination Brand for Brisbane. In B. Prideauz & M. Cooper (Eds.),
River Tourism (pp. 239-256): CABI; Urban Renewal Brisbane. (2012). The making of
a New World City, 1991-2012. Brisbane: Brisbane City Council.
Source:
studybrisbane.com.au
CASE STUDY
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DENMARK/GERMANY
Sjælland/Lübeck-Ostholstein-Plön
-----------------Björn P. Jacobsen
X-Border Place
Branding
BACKGROUND:
By the year 2021 an 18 km fixed link will connect North Germany and South-West
Denmark. This is one of the largest traffic infrastructure projects in Germany and
Denmark, if not in Europe, and raises high expectations in the context of the economic
development within the regions on both sides of the fixed link as well as in the wider
metropolitan areas of Copenhagen and Hamburg.
Photo: Wirtschaftsförderung Lübeck GmbH © Antje Rautenberg
Experience with comparable infrastructure projects (such as: Channel Tunnel, Öresund
Bridge) has shown that such traffic infrastructure projects have the potential to initiate
and/or strengthen a positive economic development in the adjacent regions. However,
such positive economic development can only be materialized if the directly effected
regions take early and sustainable actions. Such actions must accompany the
infrastructural development with appropriate regional development instruments. Place
branding when properly planned and implemented has proven to be such an instrument,
which can contribute to a positive (inter-)regional economic development by positioning
the region towards investors and talented workforce.
In comparison to other areas in the Baltic Sea Region, the geography covered by the “Belt
Region” suffers from a low visibility among potential investors, talented people as well as
public stakeholders. The mere fact that the fixed link will be built might have the
potential for changing the inherent structure as well as the identity and image of the
region.
CASE STUDY
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AIMS:
The aim to investigate the possibility for a x-border place
branding approach. Based on the feasibility an activity plan
had to be developed and put into action.
STRATEGY/ACTIONS/TOOLS:
A review of best practice for transnational and interregional
application of branding to places, with the purpose of getting inspiration/learning from different approaches to place
branding. The examples of best practice were researched
Europe-wide. Three relevant examples of successful and
comparable transnational or interregional application of
place branding are presented with a detailed and practiceoriented presentation of how these examples can be
utilised in place branding the “Belt Region”.
An inventory of existing local/sub-regional place branding
projects within or partly within the geography in question
(“Belt Region”) as well as any umbrella place branding projects or place branding projects in the vicinity was conducted. An assessment of whether they could be integrated, whether they are contradictory or an umbrella is
present is presented. This includes the place branding strategies of Hamburg and Copenhagen.
Photo: Wirtschaftsförderung Lübeck GmbH © Antje Rautenberg
CASE STUDY
An analysis and presentation of relevant target groups both internal (within the region) and external (outside the
region) - to be realistically addressed by place branding the
“Belt Region”. The overall target group has been defined as
investors and talent/workforce - which means enterprises
located in the region as well as domestic and foreign investors (MNE’s & SME’s). The analysis includes:
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•
•
•
•
•
•
(socio-economic) structure/characteristic of target groups
target group priorities
key players / decision makers within the target group
target groups’ needs, wants and insights
functional and emotional brand drivers
extended stakeholder groups to be addressed
An analysis and presentation of the inside (“identity”) and outside (“image”) perception of the “Belt Region” among the
target groups identified in point 3 as opposed to the identity
and image of the three best practice cases identified in point 1.
Based on the activity plan, a realistic budget has been
set-up and presented. The budget includes all direct costs
(financial resources) as well as all necessary personnel
resources to implement, steer and control the place brand
for the “Belt Region” over a 5-year period.
An analysis of whether the existing structures and collaborations between the organisations are suitable for imple-
An analysis and presentation of which “place products”
should be branded. It is important to identify and select a
relevant “specialization” for the “Belt Region” - to find unique
qualities that will set the “Belt Region” apart from others.
Based on these analyses a recommendation for the strategic approach to build a place brand for the “Belt Region” was
presented.
Based on the strategic approach approved, a detailed
5-year practice-oriented activity plan has been developed
and presented. The activity plan outlines all necessary and
alternatively all desirable activities in order to create a sustainable place brand for the target group defined.
Photo: Wirtschaftsförderung Lübeck GmbH © Antje Rautenberg
CASE STUDY
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menting the activity plan. The presentations include the
ideal organisational set-up for implementing the activity
versus the current set-up. Based on this analysis the
requirements for adjusting the organisational set-up
including milestones on how to achieve this set-up are presented. The recommendations also addresses the aspect of
how to govern an interregional place brand when brand
ownership is diffuse
To audit and control the place branding activities relevant
success criteria have been identified and described. Such
success criteria should be relevant and measureable.
TIME FRAMES:
The project had a timeframe of 24 months; the feasibility
study and activity plan were created over a 12 months
period.
EFFECTS AND FURTHER IMPLICATIONS:
Based on the feasibility study and activity plan regional
stakeholders have a clear vision of what can be achieved,
which resources are required and which actions need to be
taken. Based on this information, the implementation is
currently planned.
BUDGET:
€ 150.000
CASE STUDY
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»This Is
Athens«
GREECE/ATHENS
---------------Manolis Psarros
BACKGROUND:
The “This Is Athens” is an integrated destination marketing campaign that was launched in
2012 by the City of Athens and the Athens Development and Destination Management
Agency in partnership with the integrated destination marketing agency of Toposophy
(former About-Tourism). In a time of austerity for the whole country, the Municipal
Authority sought to reinforce positive perceptions of Athens as a tourism destination by
allocating limited resources to innovative and highly efficient marketing activities. In fact,
equal attention was given to B2B and B2C sectors, insofar as the low budget was used to
produce immediate results as a response to social and political pressure as well as to align
the scope or new initiatives with the growing movement of urban activism at the local level.
Photo: © Breathtaking Athens
As a result, the city’s authorities have achieved within less than three years to complete
successfully a series of influential projects, which have all been part of the “This Is
Athens” campaign and have helped Athens to attract more tourism business and reach
new audiences and markets. Crucially, the substance created by the campaign has also
encouraged the city’s authorities to get involved in planning and implementation of
additional projects in the next EU funding period.
CASE STUDY
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AIMS:
Due to financial circumstances and the challenges accumulated during the escalation of the crisis, the campaign’s
initial aim in 2012 was to enhance the strategic positioning
of Athens in key target markets and develop in a more systematic manner the city’s presence as a tourism destination
across offline and online channels.
STRATEGY/ACTIONS/TOOLS:
For the destination management organization of Athens,
the “This Is Athens” campaign was a great opportunity to
build further on social media and local people engagement
efforts that had begun in 2010, when the city’s and the
entire country’s image was put to test due to intense but
short-lived public unrest incidents. As part of a comprehensive plan for the enhancement of the local tourism sector,
the campaign was based on the work of the Athens Development and Destination Management Agency and Toposophy on the design and implementation of the following projects:
• In the case of “This is MY Athens (B2C/C2C), we have
built on the enthusiasm of volunteer Athenians to set up
a greeter program, designed to give to visitors the
insider’s edge of Athens. The program is available for
free, with Athens Locals using their time and personal
knowledge of different parts of the city to provide a
unique experience to all foreign visitors.
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• In the case of “Travel Trade Athens” (B2B), we delivered
successfully twice in 2013 and 2014 a full day event with
hundreds of tourism professionals including numerous
twelve minute pre-scheduled appointments, open networking sessions to promote or discover unique local
products and experience, and special tours to explore the
most contemporary offerings of the Greek capital city.
• In the case of “TBEX Europe 2014” (B2C/Media), we managed to bring to Athens and host one of the most
sought-after and in demand events of the global tourism
community, which gathers bloggers, travel writers, content creators / contributors, agents and professionals of
the tourism industry with intense activity in social media,
from around the world.
• In the case of “This Is Athens Destination Specialist Program” (B2B/Media), we have paved the way for the creation of a broad international network of dedicated tour
operators accredited as experts on Athens through an
online and on-site familiarization program and annual
prize winning competitions.
Crucially, there have been two additional add-ons that have
extended the scope of the “This Is Athens”. First, the campaign integrated in terms of communication messages the
four main projects with other long-term initiatives of the
Athens Development and Destination Management Agency
(e.g. the operation of info points). Second, the campaign has
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become the precursor for a series of other projects, which
the Athens Development and Destination Management
Agency along with Toposophy have already put an track and
aim to complete by the end of 2015 (e.g. the establishment
of a destination intelligence system, the development of
light-scale tourism infrastructure, etc.).
EFFECTS AND FURTHER IMPLICATIONS:
By the end of 2014, the City of Athens and the Athens Development and Destination Management Agency had seen
their efforts contributing to the steady resurgence of local
tourism traffic and producing tangible results in marketing
the capital city of Greece across B2B and B2C channels:
• In the first ten months of 2014, international tourist arrivals at the Athens International Airport have increased by
almost 30% compared to the same period in 2013.
• The same airport has recorded more than 3 million international tourist arrivals in the first ten months of 2014,
while the total number of international visitors throughout 2013 was 2.6 million.
• Hotel overnights in the wider area of Athens from 2012 to
2013 (Region of Attica) also increased by 12%.
• More than 400 Athens Locals have offered tours to
foreign visitors for free under the auspices of ‘This is MY
Athens’.
• The 2nd Travel Trade Athens that took place in April 2014
improved its targets compared to the first event that
CASE STUDY
took place in 2013, with 85 foreign professionals from 22
countries and approximately 170 Greek tourism businesses, which participated in more than 2000 meetings.
• 850 travel bloggers, writers, content creators, photographers, and cinematographers from 53 countries participated in TBEX Europe 2014. In terms of social media coverage, only on Twitter and the official hashtags
#tbexathens and #thisisathens from the 20th to the
27th of October alone had a reach of more than 11.7 million unique users and aggregated more than 68,086,915
impressions through 14,500 mentions by more than
3,400 different users.
Source:
thisisathens.org
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Country Brand
Colombia
COLOMBIA
---------------Raquel Goulart
Sztejnberg
BACKGROUND:
Colombia is the 3rd largest economy in Latin America and has been forecasted with the
highest growth rates of the region. Nevertheless, during a long period of time the country
had a bad reputation, mainly associated to drug traffic, corruption and internal terrorism,
which deeply affected its image inside the region and internationally, as well as its
capacity to attract tourists, talents and investments. Previously, the brand of the National
Federation of Coffee Producers was the only one that represented the country for 30
years.
Photo: © Marca Colombia/Oscar Garces
In order to become visible on the world map with new lenses, presenting unique assets
with credibility, the country needed to reposition itself and to define a strong brand
essence, along with a long term plan embracing different aspects of the country’s
personality and experience. The project involved Place Branding, Place Marketing and
Place Management.
CASE STUDY
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AIMS:
Designed by the Government, the main challenge of
Colombia’s rebranding project was to build a positive perception about the country. The strategy and campaign were
launched in December 2012, followed by numerous initiatives to ensure relevance and consistency in different points
of contact, both internally and externally.
STRATEGY/ACTIONS/TOOLS:
The political efforts to change the image of the nation have
started in September 2011, when the country adopted the
slogan ‘Colombia is Passion’, as the first phase to promote it
internationally, but without expressive results in terms of
competitiveness and distinctiveness. At the end of 2012, a
more consistent brand initiative was launched, focusing on
the capacity of the country to deliver the answers that the
world was looking for.
Colombia Country Brand, also known as Marca Pais Colombia, in Spanish, was a joint effort between the National Government and the private sector. The main campaign has
presented not only the brand essence, positioning and a
new identity but also the team involved on the construction
of Brand Colombia: Government, creative agencies and
other key partners, as well as a brand manager, a crucial
figure engaged to be the guardian of the brand’s promise
and expressions – visual, verbal and associative ones.
Being in Latin America (with all the positive and negative
associations in regards to the region), and aiming to improve
the way the country was perceived by the world, there was
a clear focus on transforming the existing paradigms and
the stereotypes that have labeled Colombia abroad through
daily actions, reinforcing facts and aspects that would give
concrete evidences of change in different spheres.
One of the main strong points about this project is that the
brand strategy was not the first step that helped Colombia to
improve perceptions inside and outside it. In previous years,
the nation was already presenting remarkable accomplishments in terms of security, socioeconomic development,
foreign investment, trade agreements and tourism.
The official video: http://vimeo.com/49426896
CASE STUDY
Public spending in health and education have positioned
Colombia 15 places ahead in the regional ranking. A new
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frame for investors was designed: workforce availability, offer
in highly productive sectors, development of high-capacity
ports, implementation of free trade zones, tax exemptions for
some sectors and a competitive business environment.
GIP has been kept in an average of 4,7% in the last 13 years.
Colombia’s economy has been growing more than
expected: the 2nd fastest growing country in the world
(according to Brand Colombia website www.colombia.co)
and the 1st in Latin America.
The brand essence, ‘Mega-diversity’, highlights all of
Colombia’s strengths in terms of culture, nature, tourism
and internationalization opportunities, among others. This
plurality was also considered during the creative process to
design a new identity and a flexible and modern brand
system, named “creative geometry”. The figures represent
the geographical regions of the country, reinforcing the
brand message. These are graphic expressions of the brand
that serve to highlight a specific topic or fact, such as the
great biodiversity of birds present in Colombia, or celebrations around the country.
The meaning of the colors:
• Blue: national water resources;
• Yellow: variety of climates, lands and minerals;
• Green: biodiversity, landscapes and the great variety of
green that can be found in local nature;
• Violet: the variety in Colombian flowers; especially
orchids, which are one of its most important symbols;
• Red: Colombia warm and talented people who live from
their passions.
Figure 1. Colombia growing rates (source: colombia.co)
CASE STUDY
The signature "CO" was adopted by the ISO code that helps
identifying Colombia internationally since 1974. It is supposed to be as intuitive as "UK" and "USA". According to
Daniel Reyes, Chief Communications Officer of Brand
Colombia, the brand identity was designed to last 10 years.
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“The answer is Colombia”. The positioning declared that
Colombia is a country solution (leveraged by the excelling
capacity to solve problems and overcome obstacles): for
tourists looking for new experiences, for investor looking for
new opportunities and new business partners, etc. In terms
of longevity, this positioning may change in less than 10 years.
Figure 2. Colombia brand applications (source: colombia.co)
Other positive meanings for the acronym “CO” have helped
building the new signature: union, joint participation, company and cooperation.
Although ‘Mega-diversity’ is not exactly a very distinctive
and unique brand essence – it could easily have been taken
by other countries with the same plurality – it was not the
only brand tool to define the country’s personality and
experience. Colombia has also defined a vigorous statement
CASE STUDY
A portal site was created to give information about the
brand, the country and a variety of aspects around the
brand strategy such as business, nature, travel and events.
Social media has been allowing Colombia to deliver a coherent message and an integral virtual image of the country.
Networks activation (Facebook, Twitter and Google+) have
completed the digital approach, by giving Colombians and
people interested in Colombia the opportunity to post,
interact, advocate, download, research and know about the
country, its talents and its answers.
A consistent sponsorship campaign was created for culture
and sports worldwide to enhance the strength of the new
brand, as did the project “100 Colombians”, aiming to show
successful nationals abroad. In order to amplify the message without impacting the original budget, Brand Colombia
has engaged allies and co-branding partners who used the
sentence “We are part of the answer” (“Somos parte de la
respuesta”, in Spanish) in their own promotional campaigns,
using the logo in change of visibility.
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Figure 3. Co-branding campaign for Colombia
TIME FRAMES:
Launched in Dec. 2012, the project evolved in different types of
initiatives involving new institutional partners (co-branding with
a variety of trade and corporate brands) and individual ambassadors, called “allies” – usually famous people who wanted to promote the brand spontaneously by using the country logo on
different applications.
CASE STUDY
EFFECTS AND FURTHER IMPLICATIONS:
• Higher levels of internal pride, patriotic spirit and spontaneous engagement to promote the country brand.
• Increased consumption, general growth, inequality
reduction.
• Key cities positioning: Medellin (named as the world’s
most innovative city due to its use of infrastructure),
Cartagena (tourism) Bogotá (mobility), building international recognition, awareness and even benchmarking
for other countries.
• Colombian Coffee is the first one to have its origin
acknowledged and protected in Switzerland.
• 4M international visitors are expected by December 2014.
• 13 free trade agreements.
• 17 infrastructure projects – such as Cartagena’s Harbor,
Bogota’s Metro and the Oil Pipeline Bicentenary – are part of
the list of 100 most important initiatives in Latin America.
• Qualified as the second most attractive country to invest
in of Latin America for the upcoming three years. Likewise, it is considered the fifth country in the world – and
first in Latin America – in terms of investor protection.
BUDGET:
The amount of marketing investments: US$ 3.8M in 2013
and US$ 5M in 2014, being 80% directed to advertising in
foreign markets. As a comparison, Ecuador has invested
US$ 16M for its first year of country brand promotion.
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SPAIN/BARCELONA
-------------------Juan Carlos Belloso
The New
Barcelona Brand
Strategy
BACKGROUND:
Over the last 20 years, Barcelona has successfully positioned itself as a one of the most
admired cities and a city of reference among the top cities around the world, associated
with aspects such as creativity, culture, sport, gastronomy and for having a high quality of
life, and has also become one of the main tourist destinations in Europe, with more and
7.5 million tourists in 2013, as well as a city of reference in the field of organization and
holding of corporate, scientific, cultural and sporting events and congresses.
Today, Barcelona is a modern, advanced, cosmopolitan, open, creative and inspiring city
boasting a high quality of life.
However, the city was still not globally recognized as a city associated with businesses,
services, innovation, knowledge and entrepreneurship, as the different research
conducted in 2010 showed and, therefore, Barcelona needed to strengthen its position in
this area.
And Barcelona has the opportunity, the potential and the capabilities to position itself as
a global city, able to compete at the highest level with other global cities.
Photo: Barcelona City Council
On November 2010 a new Strategic Metropolitan Plan of Barcelona – Vision 2020, was
presented, as the result of the joint work of over 650 experts in different fields who
collaborated for more than a year to create and shape a projection for the future.
The vision of the Strategic Metropolitan Plan for Barcelona for 2020 consisted of
consolidating the AMB (Metropolitan Area of Barcelona), with its model of quality social
cohesion and integration, as one of the most attractive and influential European regions
for innovative global talent.
CASE STUDY
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AIMS:
Coinciding with the arrival of a new municipal government
and governing party to the city in 2011 and following the
work done by the Strategic Metropolitan Plan and on the
basis of the different learnings and conclusions from different research on the perceptions of Barcelona, the aim of the
new city government and from the main city public and
private stakeholders was to create and implement a new
city development and city brand strategy to help position
Barcelona as one of the most attractive and influential
European regions for innovative global talent and as the
best setting for economic and business growth.
STRATEGY/ACTIONS/TOOLS:
With tis objective in mind, different initiatives and actions
have been put in place both from the public and the private
sectors:
Advancing, inspiring, cosmopolitan, open, modern,
creative, innovative, vibrant, diverse, human.
Source: Future Places
CASE STUDY
Public Sector new economic development strategy:
‘Barcelona Growth’
The priority of the City Council of Barcelona was to fight
against the crisis. For this reason the new Municipal Government decided to start working in an urgent way in search of
answers to the main questions in the current economic
context: how to create employment, how to promote
investment and funding, how to attract talent, or to help
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With this aim in mind, the City Council called the main economic agents of the city so as to invite them to work jointly
in the search of specific measures that would allow to local
economy to be reactivated. In this way, the ‘Barcelona
Growth’ programme was born - an initiative promoted by
the City Council that brought together public and private
representatives from various fields. From the work of ‘Barcelona Growth’ initiative 30 main economic measures were identified and put in place. Among
this measures promote the Barcelona Brand and transform
the ‘Mobile World Capital’ initiative into an economic powerhouse for different sectors, acting as a new catalyser for
economic and social transformation for the city.
It was also decided to position Barcelona as the leading city
in the world on the area of ‘Smart Cities’ and the smart use
of technologies for the benefit of its citizens.
Private sector involvement (Barcelona Global)
Following the Strategic Metropolitan Plan – Vision 2010 and,
in order to help to implement the main strategies and
actions identified in the strategic plan, a new private initiative called ‘Barcelona Global’ was created. Barcelona Global
is a private, independent and non-profit association that has
been set up as a citizen's platform of ideas and action, made
up by people and companies who care about Barcelona and
its future. The association's mission is to actively contribute
to making Barcelona one of the most attractive cities in the
world to attract and develop talent and economic activity.
Barcelona Global develops executive projects related to the
competitiveness of Barcelona. These projects look to:
• Strengthen the Barcelona brand associating it to sectors
and activities with higher added value and quality.
Source: Barcelona City Council
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• Facilitate the attraction, retention and landing process of
foreign investment and talent in Barcelona.
• Bring together innovative talent and business decision
centres and institutions.
• Encourage dialogue between sectors and across different
groups as a way of detecting development opportunities.
• Collaborate with other institutions, organizations and public
authorities on various types of projects and initiatives.
One of the main ideas and strategies under the action of
Barcelona Global is how to make Barcelona a truly ‘business
friendly city’ as well as how promote and position Barcelona
through its main economic sectors.
A new Barcelona brand strategy
The City Council of Barcelona decided in 2011 to start a new
project whose main objective was to review and develop a
new brand strategy for the city.The project included the
identification and confirmation of the main brand attributes
and the unique and different values of the city, the definition of the brand vision and new brand positioning and the
development of a new brand story and value proposition, as
well as the identification of the main available tools to
strengthen and build the new brand positioning, including
the identification of the main economic sectors on which to
focus the efforts of the brand building strategy.
The project also contemplated the definition of a new model
of brand management model through the establishment of
a separate agency with the participation and involvement of
the main actors of the city, public and private.
A new positioning statement was developed for the city
following a deep strategic analysis and a process of consultation among different key stakeholders:
Barcelona Main Brand Attributes and Values
Advancing
Inspiring
Entrepreneur
Creative
Attractive
Vibrant
Open
Human
Comitted
Source: Future Places
CASE STUDY
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A new city brand communication strategy
After the new brand positioning was defined, a new city
brand communications strategy was put in place in 2013
under the idea or ‘motto’ ‘Barcelona Inspira’ (Barcelona
Inspires).
The objective of the new communication strategy is to help to
visualize, communicate and value all the city assets and the
different initiatives that the city is developing in order to position
itself as a place for business and one of the most attractive cities
in the world to attract and develop talent and economic activity.
TIME FRAMES:
Although the city already started to work in transforming
and position itself as a city of innovation and knowledge back
in the 90’s, with the conversion of the old industrial district of
Poblenou, the former “Catalan Manchester”, in the new 22@
Innovation District, it has not been until the development of
the Strategic Metropolitan Plan Vision 2020 in 2010 that Barcelona has started to work in an integrated and strategic way
to position itself as one of the most attractive and influential
European regions for innovative global talent.
It is clear that repositioning Barcelona not only as a great
place to live, study and visit but also as a the ideal place for
business and economic activity will take time and a lot of
effort and determination and that this positioning will not
Source: Barcelona City Council
CASE STUDY
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be easy to achieve, specially in a context of increased competition among places around the globe. However, the city
has a clear vision and is currently putting in place the right
strategies, actions and tools.
EFFECTS AND FURTHER IMPLICATIONS:
Although it is very early to measure the impact of the new
economic and branding development strategy of the city, it
seems that some results have already been achieved:
• Barcelona is consolidating its position as one of the leading cities
in the area of ‘Smart Cities’ and ‘Mobile Technologies’ (in line with
the objective of positioning itself as the Mobile World Capital).
• The city was awarded with the title of ‘European Capital of
Innovation’ by the European Union in 2014 and is ranked
the 4th Smart City in Europe and the 10th in the world.
• The city has also been ranked as the 4th city in Europe in
Scientific publications and the 10th in the world, the 1st
city in southern Europe in economic development and
the 1st European city in quality of life for workers.
• Also, according to a recent international survey done by
the City of Barcelona in 2013, Barcelona is being perceived as one of the most creative cities in the world.
BUDGET:
As an integrated new city economic development and city
brand strategy it is difficult to calculate what the total
budget is involved. Although a significant amount of investment is done in city brand promotion and communications,
the most important investment is done by all public and
private stakeholders in their day to day strategies, initiatives,
actions and communications that contribute to the positioning and projection of he city as one of the most attractive and influential European regions for innovative global
talent and economic activity.
However, we all know that changing the image of a place or
building a new positioning takes time, as some recent
research shows, and requires the constant and consistent
effort of the different city stakeholders over time.
CASE STUDY
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NETHERLANDS/THE HAGUE
--------------Robert Govers
City of Peace
and Justice
CASE STUDY
Photo: www.thehaguepeacejustice.com / © Steven Scholten
BACKGROUND:
The Dutch city of Den Haag (The Hague) has formulated a brand strategy focused on being
the “international city of peace and justice”. Being host to the International Criminal Court,
Peace Palace and many international public, private and non-governmental organizations,
the city has built itself a global reputation in this respect. The Hague applies Anholt’s
Competitive Identity approach to city branding. This includes creating substance, which is
the activity that allows places to execute their brand strategy. This may be in the form of
new economic, legal, political, social, cultural and/or educational activity. It is the actual
innovations, structures, legislation, reforms, investments, institutions and policies that will
bring about the desired progress. In addition, Competitive Identity requires symbolic actions,
which are a particular species of substance that have an intrinsic communicative power.
They might be innovations, structures, legislation, reforms, investments, institutions or
policies that are especially suggestive, remarkable, memorable, picturesque, newsworthy,
topical, poetic, touching, surprising or dramatic. Most importantly, they are symbolic of the
strategy. They are, at the same time, a component of the destination’s story and the means
of telling it. For The Hague, substance, such as the 2012 launch of the first international
financial tribunal and hosting the 2014 Global Nuclear Summit, and symbolic actions such as
the organization of the 2009 conference on the future of Afghanistan, have strengthened
this reputation. However, the internal branding was never as strong as the down-to-earth
Hagenaren (people from The Hague) generally questioned what was in it for them.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
AIMS:
Therefore the city of The Hague came up with a new symbolic
action in 2010. The Hague War Child City was a large scale project
that intended to engage and enthuse the city’s stakeholders, residents and the Dutch in general, to work towards an on-brand
common cause to collect money for War Child and enlarge peoples’ involvement in the positioning of the core values of the city
as “International City of Peace and Justice".
STRATEGY:
The Hague War Child City won the 2010 City Marketing Innovation
award. The Dutch Network for Citymarketing felt that the city of
The Hague needed to be rewarded for their conceptual innovation
linking a relevant international charity involved in the fight for
peace and justice with the city brand, its tourism product and
event calendar. In so doing it facilitated an accessible, pragmatic,
yet socially responsible and resident friendly brand implementation. The Jury also noted that the city makes clever use of
co-branding with a strong, positive and relevant brand. It created a
platform for the people of the city of The Hague to ‘live the brand’.
However, because of its internal focus and objectives, the tourism
potential of this symbolic action received little acknowledgement.
This led to limited integration of the initiative into the tourism product development and information delivery; insufficient embedding
of content in other channels or among stakeholders and hence a
complete failure towards socialization of the initiative; i.e. even
CASE STUDY
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though a fully functional interactive social media website was
set-up, it never saw any activity. It clearly illustrates how a mismatch
of branding and marketing can lead to missed opportunities.
TIME FRAMES:
One year
EFFECTS AND FURTHER IMPLICATIONS:
Nevertheless , the objectives were met by collecting close to
€600,000 in donations as well as significant local free publicity. Coordinated by the municipality, the project was supported by the 'Stad voor Stap naar vrede (Step/City by Step
towards Peace)' campaign including a fully interactive website and six celebrity residents of The Hague being active as
War Child City Ambassadors for a year. This also allowed for
the enhancement of the city’s event calendar and hence its
tourism product.
BUDGET:
Roughly half a million Euros
Also see: Hulleman, B-A.B.F. and Govers, R. (2010), ‘The Hague, International City of
Peace and Justice: A Relational Network Brand’, in: Dinnie, K. (ed.), City Branding:
Theory and Cases, Basingstoke, Hampshire (UK): Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 150-156.
CASE STUDY
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Oman National
Spatial Strategy
OMAN
---------------Gildo Seisdedos
INTRODUCTION:
The Sultanate of Oman has gone through a spectacular process of transformation and
nation building since the early 1970s (the “Renaissance”). In this very short period of time,
it has achieved a remarkable improvement of its social and economic conditions.
However, the country is now confronted with a number of complex challenges which
require the careful attention of leaders and planners. These include the depletion of oil
and gas reserves, the scarcity of water, the need to diversify the economy and the
employment and human resources development of Omani nationals. These challenges
need multifaceted and profound changes in planning approaches and interventions.
Photo: Wikimedia / Hendrik Dacquin / www.flickr.com/photos/loufi/3321513
The leaders of the country are addressing these issues in various ways. One of the
responses has been the idea of creating a National Spatial Strategy, which aims to address
the spatial dimension of challenges that have accumulated over the last decades mainly as
a result of the tremendous pace of growth. The motivation behind the creation of the Oman
National Spatial Strategy is to react in a systematic way
• to problems caused by the spatially highly imbalanced development;
• to conflicting land uses problems due to improper allocation of land for development
activities.
On an operative level, the implementation goals of ONSS as a project can be identified as:
• creating a framework of land use strategy that will ensure a sustainable
socio-economic development at national and regional levels;
• implementing the proposed strategy in the light of the broad goals of the national long
term development strategy – Oman Vision 2020;
• improving the information basis of spatial planning and developing a data
management strategy to secure good quality information and transparency of decision
making.
CASE STUDY
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ONSS AS A PLACE STRATEGY:
ONSS will:
• set out a common vision for development on the national
and regional levels;
• identify likely changes and prepare for them;
• unction as a guideline and framework for all regional and
sectoral strategies (e.g. 5 year economic plans) and
• establish the mechanisms by means of an institutional and
legal planning framework and capacity building to ensure
that the strategy is implemented and kept up to date.
ONSS builds the framework for a long term process of
implementation with a time horizon of about 30 years.
ONSS has looked at the key trends and drivers of change in
Oman and their implications for the ONSS. These trends and
drivers were identified from meetings and workshops with
Omani stakeholders, supported by an extensive literature
review. Collectively, they are seen as the major forces shaping
the future development of Oman, and are thus specifically
taken into account in the methodological approach to the ONSS.
The trends and drivers were classified by origin as being
either internal (to Oman) or external, the key difference
being that external drivers cannot be influenced directly by
Oman, whilst internal drivers are forces that can be influenced more easily because they are domestic in origin.
CASE STUDY
Each of these drivers has been taken into account by the
ONSS at both the Regional and National Levels. Indeed, it is
axiomatic that a National Spatial Strategy must deal with
each of these crucial issues in ways that enable (a) a land
use framework for the future development of Oman to be
produced that (b) satisfies their potential competing
demands and (c) are resolved by way of policies for implementation based on the goals of Oman Vision 2020 (2040).
This is so that the ultimate purpose of the Strategy (realising
sustainable and balanced development in all respects –
social, economic, environmental, cultural and governmental
– through the optimum use of human and natural
resources) is achieved.
STRATEGIC SPATIAL PLANNING IN ONSS
The method of long-term strategic planning provides an
integrated vision for the future, based on an overall evaluation of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It
looks into a broad spectrum of issues such as socioeconomic trends, developing human potentials, optimum
use and development of (public) land, the balanced growth
of regions and so on.
Strategic spatial planning is a method which does not create
static products but concentrates on processes, which are
characterised by inter-sectoral coordination and financial
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
feasibility. The output is not simply a plan for land use, but a
set of interrelated strategies for physical, infrastructural,
economic, social, environmental and institutional development, which is shared by a large number of stakeholders.
Strategic spatial planning is not a single concept or procedure,
but a method for collectively re-imagining the possible future
of particular places and translating these into concrete priorities and action programmes. It is about framing the dynamics
of change by shaping the decisions of all the agents whose
activities constitute and carry these dynamics… thus, it is also
about institutional design and mobilization.
The plan-making process for ONSS is a multi-stakeholder
process, where relevant individuals from all sectors come
together to negotiate and engineer a coherent long-term
vision, made tangible with priorities, goals and indicators for
the purpose of implementation and monitoring.
BALANCING REGULATORY APPROACH WITH
DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH
Two main spatial planning approaches were relevant for
creating the strategy.
The regulatory approach to spatial planning is about creating tools and measures to control spatial practices and ways
to reduce their negative effects on space. It contains fewer
strategic aspects.
CASE STUDY
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
capacity of people to respond in creative ways to problems,
challenges and potentials in their local and social contexts.
While regulatory spatial planning aims to create products,
such as land-use plans, master plans, zoning laws, land-use
management and other regulatory measures, the developmental approach aims to create processes that involve
long-term, cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder interactions aiming toward strategy-building that focuses on
development of places, potentials and people.
The main guiding idea is to establish ways to create an
adequate balance, spatially and temporally, between the
two above-mentioned approaches in strategy development. In the planning context it can be defined as the
balance between a ‘development-led planning’ and a
‘development control planning’.
The developmental approach has a more pronounced strategic approach and is about how to create conditions that will
pro-actively enable positive economic, socio-cultural, environmental and institutional development. Of particular
importance is social innovation (one of the six Agendas of the
Research Council of Oman), which is about developing the
CASE STUDY
PHASES AND OUTPUTS:
ONSS starts with the identification of data needs and data
collection. To begin with, strategies, visions and strategic
priorities are formulated according to sectoral and integrative assessments of the collected data.
The evaluation of collected data serves as the basis for the
identification of data and information (scopes) needed for
the RSS (Regional Spatial Strategies), which are tendered
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during Phase 2. The RSS are conducted by sub-contractors
and supervised by the ONSS team during Phase 3. Main outputs of Phase 3 are the Regional Spatial Strategy Options.
Finally, in Phase 4, the regional strategies are integrated
from the regional to the national level. This will form the
basis for the final assessment, adjustment and synchronisation of the strategies and visions, which have been preformulated in Phase 1. The Oman National Spatial Strategy
Report is the result of the four phase’s process and the final
major deliverable of the project.
•
•
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF ONSS
The main goals and objectives of the strategy are:
• Provision of a solid framework for land use strategy that
will ensure sustainable socio-economic development at
the national and regional level and the proposal of specific policies conducive to the implementation of the proposed strategy (with main emphasis on Vision 2020).
• Improvement of the planning system and structuring of
the planning and the associated decision making process.
• For the improvement of the planning process transparency and good quality information are key principles,
therefore the availability of a data management strategy
is essential.
• The ONSS shall be formulated in accordance with principles of sustainable spatial development, so it strives to
CASE STUDY
•
•
•
•
•
•
reconcile social and economic demand on land use with
the ecological function of the land:
• Economic efficiency and global competition
• Optimum utilization of land and natural resources
• Diversification of economy
• Improvement of the standard of living
• Reduced disparities between regions
• Securing of spatial environmental quality and diversity
• Identification of infrastructure needs
Fostering geographical balance through equitable distribution of development programmes.
Facilitating the development of enterprises with utilization
and consideration of the underlying investment patterns.
Optimization of land allocation.
Balance of urban growth and promotion of rural development.
Improvement of social services and infrastructure.
Increase in participation of national workforce in economic activities (via employment opportunities, education system, training facilities etc.).
Achieve public-private partnerships.
Achieve integration between planning activities and policies.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
GREAT BRITAIN
--------------Stefan Roesch
»Britain is
GREAT«
BACKGROUND:
The “Britain is GREAT” campaign is part of the UK government’s current place marketing
strategy. It aims to promote Great Britain on an international level as a place to do
business, visit or study and was launched in 2011 just one year ahead of the London
Olympic Games. The campaign is still going strong, entering its fourth season.
THIS
IS
GREAT
CASE STUDY
Photo:
BRITAIN
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
AIMS:
The campaign’s initial aim was to create an additional £1
billion for businesses and attract four million additional visitors to the country over the course of four years.
• Encourage prior visitors to return.
• Provide a series of opportunities and incentives to visit
Britain now, working in partnership with the private
sector.
STRATEGY/ACTIONS/TOOLS:
The campaign has been rolled out all over the world. Nevertheless, it focuses on ten key markets which are:
China/Hong Kong, India, USA, Korea, Indonesia, Brazil,
Mexico, Russia, Turkey and Emerging Europe. The implemented promotional tools consist of a combination of press,
posters, television, radio, digital channels, cinema, PR and
partnerships. In addition UK celebrities act as ambassadors
to further enhance the Britain is GREAT message. The key
themes are entrepreneurship, knowledge, creativity,
culture, environmental protection, music, heritage, countryside, sport, innovation, shopping and literature.
The concrete objectives over the first four years were to
attract an additional 4.6 million visitors, resulting in total
spending of £2.3 billion, the creation of 57,000 new jobs and
the generation of £460 million in tax revenues.
VisitBritain, the country’s national tourism organization, was
initially given £100 million in order to carry out extensive
promotional activites in overseas markets on the back of
the campaign.
The aims of VisitBritain’s part of the campaign are the
following:
• Build awareness of Great Britain’s attractiveness as a tourism
destination amongst those who have not yet visited Britain.
CASE STUDY
EFFECTS AND FURTHER IMPLICATIONS:
By March 2013, VisitBritain had achieved the following
targets (see www.visitbritain.org): • 1.92 million visitors from overseas – 25% ahead of March
2013 target
• At least £0.96 billion visitor spend – 25% ahead of March
2013 target
• 24,000 new job opportunities – 25% ahead of March 2013
target
• £6.9 billion in PR coverage - 600% of four-year target
• Partner support for their activities worth £26 million in
cash and in kind – 50% of four-year target
• VisitBritain modelling estimates that the GREAT image
campaign has potentially generated a return of £200.25
million and 422,000 visits to Britain, indicating a return
on investment (ROI) of 8:1.
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
• 72% of the audience in target cities recall seeing the
GREAT campaign.
• 23 % of those who recall the campaign plan to visit in the
next year as opposed to 11% of those who do not recall
the campaign.
• Analysis of the first year of GREAT Britain activity has
revealed that it has potentially delivered an additional
422,000 visits from the target cities.
• This potential return from visits means the tourism component of the GREAT campaign has achieved a return on
investment of 8:1.
• Across all of the survey cities, people strongly agreed that
the promotional work made them want to visit places
outside of London. Due to the success of the campaign, in December 2013, the
Government allocated an additional £90 million to
VisitBritain’s marketing budget for the period of 2014 to 2016.
CASE STUDY
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
PORTUGAL/CASCAIS
-----------------Joao Freire
Cascais Brand
Architecture
BACKGROUND:
The present case introduces the challenges faced by Cascais Municipality when developing a
strategy for its brand. It highlights the complexity and the political decisions that are involved
when dealing with place branding. It also exposes one of the most important aspects when
dealing with a place branding which is to have a clearly set up brand architecture.
The Cascais municipality is located 30 minutes from Lisbon, has 180,000 inhabitants, covers 97
km2 and it is divided in 6 civil parishes: Alcabideche, Carcavelos, Cascais, Estoril, Parede, S.
Domingos de Rana. Cascais Municipality got its name from the town of Cascais. Due to the
proximity to Lisbon, the town of Cascais was always seen as a strategic post in the defense of
Lisbon and therefore has a fortress. Cascais until the 20th century was a fishing town, while the
rest of the municipality was mostly linked to agriculture. Carcavelos, for example, was famous
for its wine.
Photo: Cascais Tourism Office / © María F. Carballo
Nonetheless, its role as a fishing and agriculture municipality started to change in the late 19th
century with the increased development of tourism. In the late 19th century, the Portuguese
royal family started coming to Cascais to spend time at the beach and for sailing. With the royal
family came the court and Lisbon high society. The town of Cascais started suffering a mutation.
New summer houses were built to cater to these new important visitors and there was an
investment in infrastructure, such as electrical power. In fact, Cascais was one of the first towns
in Portugal to have electrical lights.
After the proclamation of the republic in 1910 and the exile of the royal family to the UK, the town
of Cascais suffered a decline. Nonetheless, this did not mean the decline of the tourism industry in
the municipality of Cascais. Twenty years later an important investment was made in Monte de
Estoril, Estoril that helped the Cascais municipality maintain its path of becoming a major tourism
destination.
CASE STUDY
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
ESTORIL:
The tourism complex in Monte de Estoril was the first of its
kind built in Portugal, and is therefore considered to be the
cradle of the tourism industry in Portugal. The new tourism
complex started its development in the 1930’s and followed
the same set of values as Monaco. It had a Casino, a luxury
hotel, a golf course, tennis courts and holiday houses for the
Portuguese elite. It also had a train connecting Estoril to
Lisbon.
The success of the project had an impact on the entire
region since it attracted other investors, which opened
more hotels, built more houses and other tourism infrastructure, such as restaurants, bars, shops, and art galleries.
What initially started as a tourism complex in Monte Estoril
quickly spilled over to the rest of the Estoril territory.
The Estoril brand always had major advertising support
from the Casino of Estoril. The Casino is the biggest in
Europe, and by law, part of its profits has to be used to promote tourism in Portugal. In the past the requirement was
that the money would be used to promote tourism in the
Estoril region, which until the 1960’s was the main tourism
region of Portugal. Therefore, the region always had a
strong budget to promote its brand in the international
markets. An organization, Turismo do Estoril, was set up to
manage and invest the promotional money from the Casino.
CASE STUDY
The development of Estoril impacted the entire region and
not only the Cascais municipality. Other neighboring municipalities such as Sintra felt the impact of the tourism development in Estoril. Sintra municipality, which includes the town
of Sintra, always attracted visitors and tourists. Due to its
micro-climate Sintra is surrounded by a forest and is cool
during the summer. For this reason, Sintra was an attractive
destination, especially in the summer, for kings and the court,
which made it a rich heritage site. Today Sintra is a UNESCO
town. Also relatively close to Estoril is located the monastery
of Mafra. This is an impressive construction that was built in
the 18th Century, and is another important tourism site.
Because of its rich heritage some sites of the Sintra and
Mafra municipalities were included in the Estoril offer. It was
always considered that those places would enrich the experience of the tourists staying in Estoril. Due to the area it
covers, which is much bigger than the Estoril parish it was
decided in the 1950’s that the region should be named Estoril Coast (figure 1).
ESTORIL COAST:
The Estoril Coast brand was defined as a tourism region that
incorporated the sites from Cascais, Oeiras, Sintra and Mafra
municipalities. The Casino canalized the resources to the
organization Estoril Coast to promote the region. But by
setting the brand as Estoril Coast it meant that Cascais municipality, which included the town of Cascais, was under the
BEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
Estoril Coast brand, just like the other municipalities. So Cascais, in fact, was being represented by its town and not by its
municipality yet its relevancy was at the same level as Estoril.
Figure 1
These changes had a direct impact in the Estoril Coast
brand. Estoril Coast brand was included in the Lisbon and
Vale do Tejo brand and was no longer financed by the Portugal Tourism board. In fact, the reorganization meant that the
money from the Casino went to the Portugal Tourism board
and not directly to the Estoril Coast organization.
That meant that the promotional resources for the Estoril
Coast brand started coming from the municipalities that
were incorporated in the brand: Cascais, Oeiras, Sintra and
Mafra. But since 90% of the tourism receipts are from the
municipality of Cascais the other municipalities were
unwilling to support the Estoril Coast brand, the promotional costs started being mainly supported by the Cascais
municipality.
This was an acceptable status until the reorganization and
redefinition of the Portugal tourism regions. In 2008 the
organization of the tourism destinations in Portugal
changed. The government decided that Portugal should be
organized and divided in seven tourism regions: Lisboa e
Vale do Tejo, Centro, Porto e Norte, Alentejo, Algarve, Açores
and Madeira. Only these tourism regions would be supported by the government with either direct money transferred to the regions or indirectly by having the Portugal
Tourism board promoting the regions internationally.
CASE STUDY
With lack of support from the Casino, the Portugal tourism
board and other municipalities, the Cascais municipality
started questioning the merits and the return of investment
of the Estoril Coast brand.
Cascais as a municipality needed to have a promotional
strategy. The municipality had to invest money in its brand
to capture investment and new residents, for example. But
the mayor’s office also needed and wanted to promote the
Cascais as a municipality for self-promotion which is essential in politics. In that case, it meant that the Cascais MuniciBEST PLACE INSTITUTE © 2015
pality needed to invest in its brand but should it continue
investing in Estoril Coast brand?
To solve the problem of having two brands that need promotional support the Cascais Municipality had to review its
brand architecture.
SOLUTION:
The new brand architecture should take into account the
investment made in the Estoril brand from past years, but it
should also find a solution that supported the needs of the
municipality of Cascais brand.
To design the Cascais municipality brand architecture it was
relevant to understand the assets of the municipality of
Cascais, and to understand the nature and the role of the
brand Estoril Coast.
This was especially relevant since there was pressure to keep
the Estoril Coast brand in the market with the support from
the Cascais municipality. Part of the political class and entrepreneurs, specifically the ones that are based in Estoril argue
that Estoril Coast brand has equity, which was built during
more than 80 years, and consequently it would be wrong to
ditch it because it would jeopardize tourism in the region.
Nonetheless, after research conducted with different stakeholders in Portugal, Spain, UK, Ireland, Germany, Sweden and Denmark it was concluded that Estoril enjoyed a good level of awareness in Spain but it had quite low awareness in the other markets.
It was concluded that the relevance of Estoril Coast as brand
to promote tourism in the region was diminutive. The conclusion of the research was that the Lisbon was much more
important to promote tourism in the entire region.
It was recommended that the Estoril Coast brand should be
discontinued and the brand Estoril would become an asset
of the Cascais municipality brand. Therefore, the brand
roles should be inverted and Estoril should become a subbrand of Cascais and not the other way around (figure 2).
Therefore a new brand architecture should be created for
the Cascais municipality, where Estoril would be a subbrand. Estoril would be especially useful for communicating to the Spanish market.
Figure 2
Estoril Coast
Cascais
Estoril
Cascais Municipality
CASE STUDY
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Moreover, the town of Cascais should be seen as an asset of
the municipality of Cascais and therefore a sub-brand of
Cascais. This was necessary in order to differentiate the
municipality from the town. The municipality has much
more potential than the town. In order to maintain an idea
of size and relevance of the municipality it was suggested
that other sub-brands could be developed in the future.
Although this brand architecture implies a bigger investment because of the existence of sub-brands, in fact each
one has a specific role and would leverage the brand of the
Cascais municipality. Each sub-brand would have a limited
communication budget and be endorsed by the Cascais
municipality. This solution would allow the municipality to
save money from the investment of the brand Estoril Coast
CASE STUDY
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Graphic design:
• Aleksander Bąk / www.aleksanderbak.pl
Photo credits:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
www.mediaserver.hamburg.de © M. Lebowsky, bcsMedia
www.brisbanemarketing.com.au © Brisbane Marketing Pty Ltd / Dominika Lis / G20 Australia
www.brisbanemarketing.com.au © Brisbane Marketing Pty Ltd / Andrew Taylor / G20 Australia
www.studybrisbane.com.au © Brisbane Marketing Pty Ltd / James Goss
Wirtschaftsförderung Lübeck GmbH © Antje Rautenberg
www.flickr.com/photos/cityofathens/3705875587 © Breathtaking Athens
www.colombia.co/en/investment/why-colombia/why-colombia.html © Marca Colombia / Oscar Garces
Barcelona Inspires © Barcelona City Council
www.thehaguepeacejustice.com © Steven Scholten
www.flickr.com/photos/loufi/3321513 © Hendrik Dacquin
www.visitbritain.org © This is Great Britain
Cascais Tourism Office © María F. Carballo
www.kaboompics.com
Copyright Notice
Copyright © Best Place – European Place Marketing Institute 2015. All Rights Reserved.
The images, photographs and graphic devices are used in this publication solely for information purposes. All copyrights remain by their owners.
For further information please contact:
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Magdalena Florek
Jarosław Górski
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tel: +48 22 201 26 94
fax: +48 22 201 26 96
[email protected]
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