21st February 2019

Advocacy: the missing link in place branding?

Strategy Toolbox

It’s sometimes possible that, when you are convinced of the value of what your organisation is achieving, you neglect the task of helping others to share the same vision. At City Nation Place events we’ve often talked about engaging citizens, politicians, and the private sector in the process of place branding – working together to understand your place’s assets, creating a plan to grow and leverage your assets, and implementing that strategy with the consensus and contribution of all stakeholders. However, in our research for future agendas, a new word is appearing in the conversations we are having with place branding practitioners around the world: “advocacy”. There’s a growing recognition of the need to advocate for the beneficial impact of your place branding strategy – as Victor Hoskins, Director of Arlington Economic Development in Virginia USA [one of the winning places in the race to host the new headquarters for Amazon] commented, ironically it can be when you are most successful that you need to advocate the most.

A quick survey of recent news stories demonstrates that advocacy is required to support place branding strategy across destination marketing, investment promotion, economic development, and even place making.

Housing campaigner and journalist, Nye Jones, recently wrote in The Guardian [1] that “place making is tearing apart social housing communities,” before going on to directly equate place making with gentrification. Good place making is not about displacing people but about collaborating with communities to improve the quality of life for those who live there. In her response to the Guardian article [2], Jennifer S Vey of the Brooking Institution Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking argues that “we need to be far more bullish about advancing placemaking efforts that benefit existing residents and workers”.