Opinion: Key strategies for city branding

Bill Baker, author of the book, Destination Branding for Small Cities says efforts to brand cities often start with great fanfare and energy, only to run out of steam.

Momentum begins to lag. Fresh ideas are not as frequent.  Communications start to miss the mark. Consumer experiences fall short, and suddenly the brand you’ve labored so hard to build has faded and become fuzzy to customers and stakeholders. 

When it comes to cities and destinations, Baker has identified several essentials that, when followed from the earliest stages, can keep your city or destination brand robust and immune to decline.

Baker’s eleven essentials are:

1.     Follow a proven, systematic approach, not a quick brainstorming session.

2.     Initiate broad stakeholder engagement and reach out to more than "the usual suspects".

3.     Learn everything you can about your target audiences.

4.     Clearly define your Destination Promise based on your most potent competitive advantage relative to target audiences.

5.     Put local politics and self-interest aside and focus on the customer.

Additionally, Baker says destination and city marketers should follow six guiding principles:

6.     Ensure Sufficient Understanding of Branding

The quality of outcomes from the planning, launch and implementation are greatly improved when participants are knowledgeable about brands and branding. Offering educational seminars, whitepapers, briefings and books to those who will be actively involved in the process builds support and long-term confidence in the project.

7.     Treat Branding as a Strategic Business Tool

Branding is often mistakenly regarded as just another word for marketing or advertising. In fact, it needs to be far more pervasive. The brand should first and foremost be regarded as part of a strategic toolkit and as the central organizing and decision-making principle guiding the way the city or destination presents itself to key audiences. This makes it everyone’s job to a greater or lesser extent!

8.     Focus on Product and Experience Delivery

A brand is a promise. It is the promise of a valued experience that must be kept.  To remain relevant and in demand, product development, placemaking and experience management should receive the same level of focus as communications and sales. This requires city-wide collaboration with experience providers, prospective investors, partners and residents to canvas ideas and implement programs aligned with the brand.

9.     Foster Unity

Use the planning process and brand strategy to unify and rally partners, and to focus resources, behavior and decision-making around those competitive strengths that make the city as distinctive, compelling and valued as possible.

10.  Be a Change Manager

Fundamentally, successful city or destination branding is an exercise in change management. It may call for changes to regulations, laws, systems, budgets, processes, resources, and recruitment. Above all, it may call for a change in attitudes and relationships. The first casualty may be the old "that’s the way we’ve always done it" attitude. For many people, the prospect of new focus, concepts, priorities, and partnerships causes extreme resistance. A genuine mandate for branding success may require a change of mindset within, and between, many organizations.

         11.  Keep an Eye on the Horizon

 Be sure to keep a watch for economic, social, cultural and technical trends that may help or hinder the acceptance and performance of your brand.

Bill Baker is the author of Destination Branding for Small Cities and President of Total Destination Marketing based in Portland, Oregon.