Why Your City Brand Matters. A lot.

Coke. Disney. Apple. Companies spend significant resources to develop a vision and brand to market themselves to consumers in order to increase product demand.  In order to enhance their economic, political, and cultural magnetism to appeal to residents, visitors and new businesses, cities across the globe are now too investing in brand development.  The concept of municipal branding, in particular, exploded in the last decade after Las Vegas became synonymous with the catch phrase, “What happen here, stays here” (Prather 2013).

A brand is distinct. Rooted by its positioning relative to the competition, combined with succinct personality traits, a city can combine its functional elements with symbolic values to set them apart. In order for a city to be a good brand, it must own defining and distinctive characteristics that can be readily recognized, like city appearance, people’s experience of the city, people’s belief in the city, what the city stands for and what kind of individuals reside in the city (Crombie 2011).

According to CEOs for Cities (2006), a strong city brand can:

• Shift perceptions of a place that may be suffering from a poor image among external and internal constituents
• Create a common vision for the future of the community and its potential
• Provide a consistent representation of the place
• Enhance its local, regional and/or global awareness and position
• Shed unfavorable stereotypes associated with a place and make it more appealing

According to Kalekin-Fishman (2011), the image of a city is critical to its reputation as well as its future prosperity and progress.  A city brand also gives a voice or a name to its culture and social capital, helping to bring a community together (Crombie 2011). A brand is the identity of our organization which is comprised of all communications, reputation and every detail of a person’s experience viewing or interacting with the destination. City departments, services, infrastructure, culture, and communications with both residents and visitors create one brand. The brand’s visual identity is formed from the consistent use of visual elements (logos, typography, color, layout, imagery, etc.). Consistency is ensured by the formation and use of brand guidelines. When all communications look and feel similar, brand recognition is formed with the audience.

In order to move forward with a brand strategy, cities must understand their existing image and how it is communicated; additionally, cities must acknowledge how different components contribute (landscape, architecture, public art, municipal services, festivals, etc), how existing marketing materials are used and how and the word of mouth communications about the city. In most cities, city branding has been a vital component of strategic marketing from a tourism promotion standpoint. Branding is also important to promote a city for economic development in an increasing competitive market to entice relocating corporations and innovative businesspersons.

Baker (2015) notes that in place branding cities deal with the overall perception of the place, often dealing with external factors beyond the influence of organizations in charge. For example, if Virginia Beach claims itself as “natural” yet does not offer practices, benefits and product related to stakeholders’ perception of what “natural” means – the brand is not true and the brand promise is meaningless. External environmental factors – crisis, political will, natural disasters, budget – may impact the brand.

Few municipalities have dedicated brand staff, though the trend is growing.  Norfolk, VA hired a Chief Marketing Officer in 2016 to ”focus on building awareness and use of the city’s services that help local businesses and residents thrive and help Norfolk’s leading organizations build and promote the city’s overall brand as a great place to live, work, play and visit” (Inside Business, 2016). Denver, CO employs a full-time Marketing and Brand Manager for their municipality. Fayetteville, NC also has a municipal division titled Corporate Communications, Branding & Corporate Identity.

Recently, Columbus, Ohio sought to get all of the entities who market Columbus on the same page and buy into one message that would resonate with the market. After a long period of stakeholder engagement and research, a logo family and a universal brand toolkit were developed to allow all of the city’s organizations and departments to visually communicate with the same or similar voices. New advertising campaigns for the city’s tourism, economic development and sports commission were launched simultaneously, all building on the new Columbus place-making brand. The results were impressive:

• more than 30 organizations all over the city began adopting the Columbus logo mark into their marketing
• 454 other users – to include local business owners and non-profit organizations- downloaded the brand toolkit
• multimedia impressions from the economic development campaign reached the 200 million
• web traffic on the Columbus region economic site increased 400% over the previous year
• 139% jump in convention hotel room bookings over the previous year

A successful branding initiative follows four stages (Crombie 2011):

1. Evaluation: Public Opinion as Marketing Research – understanding what people’s current image of the place is, and then build on it.
2. Training: How to improve on the existing images and focus them on that which is critical and attractive
3. Identifying the “Core Idea”: Focus on the essential elements of a brand and a marketing plan.
4. “Living the Brand”: Communication as Implementation.

Branding action plans and timelines should be based on organizational vision, mission, values and business goals:

• Define clear objectives with specific results that can be measured
• Understand and prioritize the audiences we are trying to attract with more in-depth interviews and focus groups (business sector, residents, visitors, political leaders, media, student groups)
• Re-evaluate current brand images
• Set an aspirational identity that all stakeholders agree to
• Develop the positioning and primary benefit our City provides
• Create the value proposition for each target audience (some messaging may be applicable to all audiences)
• Execute a marketing plan to reveal and share the brand at key touchpoints
• Measure the brand

A strong brand increases tourist visitation, retains city employees, encourages economic development, and in turn affects revenue, community involvement, and pride. Each interaction a person has with our brand leaves a lasting impression. A strategic and consistent brand builds trust and loyalty among the audience.  I’m embarking on a brand journey in my current organization and I’m excited where it will take us. When is the last time you checked on the status of your brand?

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