Cape Town develops city brand with heart

Tourism boss: We represent possibility, inspiration, freedom, freshness, transformation and a vision for the future routed in an interesting and imperfect past

Post-World Cup, Cape Town’s tourism authority and key city stakeholders are committed to moving swiftly towards a single-minded destination identity that will enable Cape Town to position itself as a leading global competitor for business, investment, visitors, students and talent.

Unlike traditional brands such as London, New York and Paris, Cape Town is considered to be a ‘challenger’ brand. Speaking at a Cape Town Tourism Brand Workshop held on 17 February 2011 at the Freeworld Coating Design Centre, Cape Town Tourism’s CEO, Mariette du Toit-Helmbold said; “We are an emerging player in a league with Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro and Barcelona. We represent possibility, inspiration, freedom, freshness, transformation and a vision for the future routed in an interesting and imperfect past. We speak to the heart.”

The Cape Town brand workshop was chaired by Guy Lundy, CEO of Accelerate Cape Town, who said: “Today’s world is an extremely competitive place. Differentiation is key; Cape Town cannot just be the same as everyone else. Therefore we need to create a brand positioning that is recognizable and understandable, and very importantly, believable. We must also ensure that we can deliver on the promise of the brand. Perhaps most importantly, the Cape Town brand must be able to encompass business and study, amongst other things, in addition to simply leisure and beauty, on which we are currently overly reliant (which adds to our significant seasonality problem).  It must also avoid raising the position of one sector and inadvertently killing off another.”

Du Toit-Helmbold added: “When we say brand, we do not refer to a new logo or a clever strap line, we are talking about a stand-out position and values that will resonate strongly with our own citizens and the world. Cape Town is iconic, complex and multi-faceted.”

“Her incredibly rich offering and diversity is our greatest opportunity as much as it is also our Achilles Heel. With the World Cup having come and gone, we find ourselves in a brand vacuum. It is a dangerous place to be in the light of tough competition, a world still battling through a recession and ever-changing consumer trends.”

“We cannot depend upon the next big event to give direction to what Cape Town’s brand position should be. Although Cape Town is considered as one of the new cities to watch for 2020, I believe we find ourselves at a tipping point where we can either sink into insignificance or take our place as Africa’s top city and one of the top city destinations in the world to live, work, visit, study and invest in.”

The journey to a new brand for Cape Town started in 2008 with a series of workshops between tourism, business and the City of Cape Town. The City mandated Cape Town Tourism, at the end of 2009, to coordinate the development of a destination brand positioning, working closely with the Cape Town Partnership, Accelerate Cape Town and business leaders.

In October 2010, a Brand Workshop, facilitated by leading brand strategists Rob Hill of Ogilvy and Mathew Weiss of Coley Porter Bell, was held with a variety of Cape Town stakeholders from the tourism, business, creative industries, local government, academic and sport sectors.  Over the past three months the outcome of the workshop, and research conducted before the workshop, has been shared with key partners to test the proposed brand positioning of ‘Inspiration’ and its relevance to all sectors.

Whilst Cape Town is South Africa’s top international leisure destination, the new destination brand seeks to counter the perception that Cape Town is only this, by highlighting Cape Town’s strengths as a leading academic, medical, knowledge economy, business and events city.

The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), who recently ranked South Africa 34th globally and first in Africa for the number of meetings hosted, rated Cape Town as the leading meetings city in Africa with a total of 49 international meetings held in the destination.
 Cape Town’s academic offering is also a key brand attribute. UCT (University of Cape Town) is the highest ranked African university in the Times Higher Education rankings and UCT’s Graduate School of Business was recently lauded as having the best value-for-money MBA by the Financial Times (FT) of London’s Global MBA Top 100 Ranking. 

Cape Town is also an increasingly fertile ground for the creative and design industries. Festivals like Infecting the City change the way citizens utilise public space, the annual Design Indaba conference is praised as the top annual international design event and the World Design Capital 2014 Bid is testimony to the use of design to transform the city’s social and physical landscape. Entrepreneurs also play a significant part in reinforcing Cape Town’s reputation as a knowledge economy and centre of innovation. Of all the cities in South Africa, Cape Town has the highest percentage of entrepreneurs.

These factors are positive markers for the direction in which brand Cape Town is heading; a strong all-season brand with a business and domestic focus alongside a well-capitalised, authentic international leisure offering that goes beyond natural beauty, sea and sand.

Concluded Du Toit-Helmbold; “The Communication Group in the UK defines a destination as, ‘A place where people want to be. It is a special place, it is more than just bricks and mortar; it is a place whose greatest assets and experiences occupy people’s minds and hearts.’ It is time to redefine Cape Town beyond the well-known stereotypes. It is time to involve all the people of Cape Town to tell our full story, warts and all.”

Watch the unfolding story and join in on the conversation about Brand Cape Town by visiting www.capetown.travel/industry

Valere Tjolle
Valere Tjolle edits the Sustainable Tourism Report Suite, latest special Vision offer at: www.travelmole.com/stories/1146486.php