9th February 2017

EXPERIENCE MASTERPLANNING

Trends & Ideas

In this long-form blog Malcolm Allan explains his concept of “Experience Masterplanning” as a way of linking and integrating place branding and place making and challenges place-branders to get into meaningful conversations with place-makers in order to better understand what they can bring, together, to the creation of better places.

As a practising place brand strategist with a background in town planning and real estate development I have long been interested in the contribution that place branding can make to place making. I’ve been lucky to work with a number of colleagues - architects, landscape architects, development surveyors and leasing agents, who “get” what my take on place and destination brand strategy involves.At its simplest, it can be described as strategic thinking on the improvement, development and planning of the offer and experience of a place for target audiences: the people who live and work there, the businesses and organisations who operate there and the people, businesses and investors the place wishes to attract.

More widely, it’s been my experience that many professionals working in the built environment sector either are not aware of the practice of place branding as a strategic process and discipline, or do not understand what it covers and offers, or simply think that it’s just about the design of logos for the marketing collateral of developments or attractions.

In an attempt to address this issue, I organised a workshop for the UK Academy of Urbanism in March 2015 where I and a number of built environment professionals who had worked with me on brand development projects shared our insights on the contribution of place branding to place making.