Branding Strategy Insider

Place Branding: A Two Day Master Workshop

The Blake Project delivers brand education workshops around the world. We also work with municipalities in helping them release the full potential of their brands. With these experiences we are pleased to offer an in depth two day workshop on Place Branding with an optional third day consulting intensive.

This workshop is delivered at your organization or venue of choice.

Key stakeholders in the branding decision making process – mayor’s offices, visitors & convention bureaus, economic development councils, business improvement districts, business leaders and others will find this engaging and instrumental in their brand building process.

Day 1

1. I.         Branding introduction
   1. What is branding?
   2. Why is it important?
   3. How does it apply to places?
2. II.         The five drivers of customer brand insistence
   1. Awareness
   2. Relevant differentiation
   3. Value
   4. Accessibility
   5. Emotional connection
   6. How these drivers relate to place brands -- examples

Positioning A Place Brand

As anyone involved with branding municipalities knows, there are three primary audiences for municipalities – residents, businesses and tourists. (There are other audiences as well, but for the sake of simplicity, I will focus on these audiences.)

Residents are most concerned with good job opportunities, low crime, good medical care, affordable housing, scenic beauty, attractive neighborhoods, friendly people, good school systems, etc. Businesses are interested in prevailing wages, labor force quality, housing and quality of life, labor market rigidities, proximity to suppliers and final markets, energy and resource costs, real estate costs, innovation capacity, etc. And tourists are interested in reasonable travel distance and costs, a variety of interesting things to see and do, aesthetically pleasing environment, restaurants, shopping, etc. Throw in meeting and event planners, and the list includes air transportation access, distance and costs, hotel rooms and ground transportation costs, space requirements, contiguous venues, safety of the area, tours and other activities, etc.

Given the variety of needs and considerations by different municipality audiences, the question I most often am asked by stakeholders interested in municipality branding is, “Can one brand position work for a municipality or do we need a separate brand position for each audience?” The answer is “yes.” Yes, one overarching brand position can work but it must be designed to work with more specific brand messages for each audience.

Countries Are Not Brands

The World Cup approaches and, once again, the English nation hopes against hope that it can win the tournament and finally end 44 years of hurt. Meanwhile, in South Africa the dreams are just as bold but aimed in a very different direction. FIFA’s World Cup presents its hosts with, what they believe to be, their biggest ever opportunity to build a stronger country brand.

That’s a shame because, despite its growing popularity and firm establishment within marketing, the business of “country branding” or “nation branding” is nonsense. Countries are not brands. They are countries. Brand strategy should be reserved for brands. I may have a hammer, but it doesn’t mean that every problem is shaped like a nail. Real expertise in a field is to know the limitations of that field and behave accordingly.

I can appreciate the attractions of country branding. Selling a brand strategy to a public servant in Finland or Ghana must be a lot easier than pitching to a trained marketer from the likes of Unilever or Ford. And I can also appreciate that even the gigantic budgets of P&G or HSBC are dwarfed by a nation’s coffers. I can imagine, too, that measuring the impact of a country branding strategy is far less taxing than the typical corporate branding work, where sales figures and brand equity scores always influence the assessment of impact. But the core problem endures: conceptualising a country as if it were a brand is stupid.

The Marketing and Branding of Nations

Just as a product with brand vitality will better compete and succeed, so too will a nation with a strong brand.  Perceptions about an entire nation will be vast.  In evaluating stakeholders' perceptions of a country, marketers should look for and evaluate the following characteristics when surveying stakeholders impacting the perceptions of a country:

Strongly Branded Nations generally:

    * Deliver the benefits and promises that stakeholders desire and hold credible
    * Stay relevant—functional attributes coupled with “intangibles” (described below)
    * Provide value for the resources required to invest / visit in that country
    * Have a salient market position in the minds of stakeholders
    * Make very clear promises that are kept over time
    * Have unique brand equity involving strong thoughts and feelings
    * Are dependable and deliver consistently against expectations
    * Have loyal stakeholders
    * Have favorite perceptions about the country that match the nation’s communications
    * Have an ability to be identified under different conditions
    * Are less vulnerable to competitive neighboring markets
    * Command Larger Margins; Price Premiums; Less vulnerability to price sensitivity
    * Engage in better trade cooperation
    * Leverage vast opportunities from capital and labor endowments

Rebuilding Brand America

Just as businesses rely on their brand recognition and public perception to help improve commercial success, a country’s reputation and global image is a reflection of the strength of its “brand.” 

In recent years, while other countries brands have drastically improved, America’s brand has declined. A recent study shows America’s brand index as ranking 7th among all other major, developed nations. In order to improve its global brand recognition, what America needs is an objective audit of “brand America” and new focus on reestablishing the authenticity of the American Promise.

Following the widely accepted principles of what makes a brand strong, brand America must adhere to the same foundational pillars: being relevant and meaningful to a strategic target audience; being competitive and as attractive a solution to meeting the need as alternative options; and being authentic while delivering the expectation set.

A Brand Must be Relevant
The relevancy of brand America is without question. The promise of brand America speaks loudly to the human desire for exerting some control over personal destiny. 

Since its inception, the brand America promise has been the opportunity for the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Brand America has come to represent a location where anybody has the chance to self-manage his or her destiny, and in the process be rewarded for both hard work and the courage to take smart risks. There are countless examples of entrepreneurs achieving remarkable success based on ingenuity, passion and effort.

“Rags to riches” is the cliché most commonly used to describe the success of Americans, and has served to inspire people around the world to change their destiny. It promises life in America will provide the opportunity needed to achieve their full personal potential.

The Case For Place Branding

In my current role, I am often asked why I believe place branding is a right strategy for accelerating the economic growth of a location.

Global competition for capital investment in increasing, driven in part by companies deciding to increase their capability and capacity to service emerging markets in Asia. This puts pressure on the amount of practically available capital for investing in developed markets. Additionally, advances in telecommunications are making it possible for companies to service developed markets from virtually any location that can provide a high-speed internet connection. Limited dollars and increased choice are the classic conditions that demand effective place branding to attract capital investment and drive accelerated economic growth.

Place branding is a strategy being used by an increasing number of locations around the world to effectively compete for an increased share of foreign direct investment dollars and capital expansion of resident companies. However, too often place branding initiatives are little more than sales campaigns with limited sustainable impact.

Branding Small Municipalities: Visitor Attraction

What does it take to get visitors to stop in your town? Better yet, what does it take to get them to make your town a destination?

As with all other brands, your town must deliver each of the following to become a strong brand:

•    Awareness
•    Relevant differentiation
•    Value
•    Convenience
•    Emotional connection

Let’s start with relevant differentiation. That is the most important driver of strong brands. Why should someone stop in your town or, better yet, plan a trip to your town? What makes your town unique or more compelling than others?

To determine relevant differentiation, you must first identify your municipality’s assets. Is it near a lake, a mountain or a cave? Does it have a large waterfall? Is there a whitewater river nearby? Is the weather particularly nice at certain times of year (or year-round)? Does it have a well-known golf course? Does it have a unique museum? Does it have an interesting history? Did a famous person grow up or live there? Does it have unusual architecture? Does it have a rich cultural life? Is it the home of an annual fair? Does it have an annual art, music or film festival? Does it have an annual sporting event? Does it have interesting ethnic neighborhoods?

Next you must determine what types of people are most likely to be attracted by your municipality’s assets.

Place Branding for Small Municipalities

Place Branding is a regular topic here on Branding Strategy Insider. We have covered the process as well as other angles of the discipline. Admittedly, the focus of our blog posts and our consulting work has been on large municipalities. A recent inquiry from a small town in South Dakota (USA) inspired us to design an approach specifically for smaller municipalities with limited resources.

We are now offering an inexpensive and proven turn-key approach to successfully branding small and medium sized municipalities to residents, businesses and tourists. The output is a brand promise that is unique, compelling and believable for your municipality and a tagline that articulates that promise.

The process includes the following steps:

•    INFORMATION REVIEW: Information gathering with key stakeholders including mayor, city manager, visitors and convention bureau, economic development agency, business improvement districts, business owners and cultural institution leaders
o    Includes review of research, websites and marketing documents/presentations
o    Focuses on identification of strengths/assets
•    DEVELOPING BRAND PROMISE OPTIONS: Development of up to 25 brand promise options based upon strengths/assets
•    TESTING BRAND PROMISE OPTIONS: Testing of brand promise options with the most important target audiences (residents, businesses, tourists) through an online survey
o    Evaluation criteria include relative appeal, uniqueness and believability for your municipality
•    SELECTING BRAND PROMISE: Recommended brand promise/positioning

Place Branding Q & A

Today we are sharing some of the questions and answers from recent interviews regarding the place branding process. We hope our insight helps you in your place branding endeavors.

*How is branding a city different from branding a product?

In some respects, branding places is no different than branding anything else. Finding the most powerful and unique image for the place (“unique value proposition” or “brand position”) is the most important activity. After that, building awareness is next most important. Both of these activities assume that the requisite research has been done with the most advantageous and receptive target audiences.

Beyond the basics, branding places becomes a more interesting and complex activity than branding a typical product or organization. The target audiences are myriad and disparate, including at least the following:

•    Residents and potential residents
•    Businesses and potential businesses
•    Tourists/visitors
•    Meeting and an event planners (including convention planners and major sporting event organizers)

Each of these audiences has its own distinct issues and needs.

*What does a city – or place need to discover in the branding process?

Ultimately, a place must find those one or two things that will get the target audiences excited about living, visiting and conducting business in its geography. Those one or two things must be unique and compelling enough to cause those people to choose it over all of the other increasingly compelling options that residents, tourists, businesses and meeting planners have. And, most importantly, those one or two things need to be authentic and believable. Finding these one or two things is much easier said than done and requires rigorous research among the target audiences.
 

Powerful Place Branding

It is very important for a place to take inventory of its assets to determine which of those are unique and compelling to each of its target audiences. For instance, my city, Rochester, New York has identified the following as potential assets:

•    Large number of cultural amenities
o    Largest number of cultural workers per capita
o    Rich musical scene – Eastman School of Music, Hochstein School of Music and Dance, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Rochester International Jazz Festival, etc.
o    Numerous film festivals
o    (George Eastman House) International Museum of Photography and Film
o    (Strong) National Museum of Play with the National Toy Hall of Fame
o    Writers & Books delivers the biggest literary center program per capita
•    Abundant outdoor recreational opportunities
o    Close proximity to the Finger Lakes
o    Lake Ontario, Erie Canal, Gennesee River
o    Nearby skiing
•    Light traffic, short commutes
•    Affordable housing
•    Excellent school systems
•    Large concentration of colleges and universities
•    Concentration of optics, biotechnology, food and beverage science and fuel cell technology businesses
•    Largest number of utility patents issued per capita
•    Very high United Way giving per capita
•    Friendly people
•    Pleasant summers

The proper analysis is to evaluate each of the assets against the following criteria – unique, compelling, believable – with each of the target audiences. The place would then choose one or more of the assets as the foundation for its unique value proposition. Closely related assets could be clustered together under a broader heading or could be used as proof points for higher level assets.

In Rochester’s case, while its top-of-mind associations might be “snow” or “long winters” or “Kodak” today, it could be “small town feel, big city culture,” or “just perfect for families” tomorrow.

Most places stand for a small number things in peoples’ minds. This is their brand position. The objective of a branding exercise is to insure that the primary associations are unique and compelling, not neutral or negative.