The increased competition on an individual, business and national level could not leave competition between cities unaffected. A competition that is constantly increasing in the effort to attracting all kinds of investors and especially tourists who, apart from all others, increase the size and improvement of the services offered by a city.
City branding is that strategy that is applied to competition between cities not only cities between different countries but also between cities in the same country. The more successful this strategy is, the more the expected benefits are magnified.
City branding is linked to every aspect of the city, embracing the development of the city both in terms of recreation and tourism and in terms of investors and domestic visitors, with actions to strengthen existing infrastructures and amenities for both citizens and new residents, immigrants and tourists.
by Thanos S. Chonthrogiannis-https://www.liberalglobe.com
The successful branding is based on the creation of a relationship between the brand and the consumer and always in such a way that the functionalities offered by this brand are upgraded each time In such a way that they fully meet the needs of the consumer who makes use of it.
A successful example of City Branding
Photo by Author: Alf van Beem, Source: Own work,
licensed Public Domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain
In the same way and the cities to satisfy all kinds of functionalities and other types of needs should gather all these forces in a unique urban proposition that will be the slogan of the city.
For the formulation of this unique urban proposal that will define and the slogan of the city should be attended by people of marketing, Urban planners-surveyors, sociologists, communicators, geographs, historians, graphic designers, architects, economists in order to shape both the identity of the city, its values and its image but also the accompanying to all such advertising slogan that will propose and all this.
In essence, branding is the ideal starting point for the city’s marketing and the most compact framework of work in which the urban image can be achieved.
The vision is what defines the strategy
Everything in City branding starts at the city’s municipal authority. The city’s municipal authority which is oriented to the successful City branding operates the whole process in such a way that directs all decisions as an integral part of the model to be used to achieve predetermined goals.
Within this framework and work model is formed, with joint decisions that come as a result of many and multi-level researches, the vision of the city and the strategies formulated to achieve the goals of this vision. For example, it could be said that the objectives of urban branding are:
- Increase the number of visitors making at the same time the city attractive.
- Improving the quality of life for both residents and students.
- Attracting investments, tourists, visitors and new residents.
- Strengthening entrepreneurship.
- The emergence of the city’s special identity and the improvement of its accessibility.
- Constant improvement and further development of infrastructure related to the sights and monuments of the city.
- The constant improvement of the quality of the entry points of the city e.g. airports, ports, train and bus stations, national roads etc.
- Increasing customer satisfaction by providing the city with quality and modern services etc.
- Improving the sense of safety of tourists-raising policemen in city patrols etc.
Having the municipal authority of the city set the above targets should respond through survey results in the following e.g. questions:
- Why do tourists from all over the world want to come to our own city?
- What role do all these positive prejudices on the image that tourists have for the city which image appears through the ever-increasing number of bookings-hotel reservations each year?
- What are the values of City branding of our city?
The results of such questions to be given by tourists, the municipal authority of the city should compare them with corresponding results of surveys of other competing cities.
The orientation to the development of City branding
All these above questions that are a key research tool will give the municipal authority a profound knowledge about the particular values and characteristics of the city, with its potential for growth and weaknesses, with the perceptions and attitudes of residents, entrepreneurs and tourists and in general contexts of all those interested parties to assess the current and future desired image and identity of the city.
Moreover, the municipal authority of the city will achieve through these procedures the clarification of the unique identity of the city that will firmly carve the direction and the path in the future. This is accomplished by first defining in detail the clear values of the city in which functional, emotional and economic benefits will be included.
Then the municipal authority of the city needs to accurately determine the differentiation of the city. This is achieved by targeting through questionnaire different groups of people in the city e.g. residents, businesses, tourists, employees, visitors, etc.
These social groups should, through their answers and their subsequent participation, determine how culture and history, infrastructure, urban landscape or green spaces in the city, etc. can be combined in such a way as to render the an acceptable identity that at the same time this identity of the city will be differentiated from other cities by always passing the appropriate messages to the general public.
How the municipal authority should operate in a successful city branding
The municipal authority of the city must adopt the City branding of the city by believing in it and thus putting the City branding of its city in high priority. In fact, the municipal authority of the city must:
1. Participate actively in the effort to create and support the city branding of the city.
2. To show her undisputed loyalty to City branding.
3. To transmit to the employees in the municipality its real enthusiasm for the city branding of its City.
4. To have made it abundantly clear to all employees and associates of the municipality the values of City branding of the city so that they can believe it and struggle with all their energy for it.
5. To exercise continuous and uninterrupted coordination of all relevant actions for the uniform provision of City branding values to all interested parties. The inhabitants of the city should act in accordance with the participatory spirit so that the process of City branding to become more effective.
6. To avoid taking all those decisions that may damage the city branding City ‘s image.
7. To perform periodic review of the city’s City branding performance through surveys to anticipate and correct in the emergence of possible discrepancies between the perceptions of the municipal authority and the interested groups for the identity of the city and the values of the workable City branding.
8. To identify the tourist markets that will appeal more to the city branding of the City.
9. To approve the implementation of a promotional campaign based on convincing events.
It should be stressed that the successful management of City branding can contribute to the increase of investments as well as their returns, both in the city’s properties and in the infrastructures and in the various events in City, creating wealth that will then be able not only to reinforce the existing City branding but to create urban wellbeing conditions for the city’s inhabitants.
Thanos S. Chonthrogiannis
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