IN DEPTH

To many Londoners, Brent Cross is best known for its shopping centre. Now, though, there is an ambitious regeneration project underway. Nick Searl, Partner at Argent Related and the joint lead on the project, joined us for a conversation to share how the ambitious development will put the spotlight on sport, play, and community wellbeing.

Creating a nation branding strategy is no small challenge. To be successful, it needs to be grounded in the everyday reality of that country, and to achieve that, you need data. Eglė Kudzmanienė, Chief Advisor at Brand Lithuania Unit, detailed how the nation created a data-centric approach to country branding that allowed them to react rapidly to changing perceptions of Lithuania.

The spotlight is on Glasgow as the hosts of COP26. What role do cities play in addressing global challenges such as climate change? Susan Aitken, Council Leader for Glasgow City Council, shares how can cities can leverage their events to grow their international reputation, engage citizens in key areas, and generate equitable development.

We talked last week about the importance of having reputational resilience as a place brand or marketing organisation, but of course, this is only one facet of the solution. You have to be able to secure the future of your own organisation to be able to continue delivering on your place brand and place marketing success.

What is the most important factor for a smart city  project or organisation to be successful in the long-run?

The smartest response isn’t to just recreate the same processes as we were used to pre-pandemic, but to understand how we can refine and improve our everyday ‘normal’. The pandemic has exposed our weaknesses and now we need to ensure that we address these in order to be more resilient against future shocks.

"The future of the city is the future of us. It’s who we are," says Jonathan Woetzel, McKinsey Global Institute. The question, then, is what changes do we need to make to bring people back to the city? And how do we do this safely, equitably, and in a way that makes us more resilient to future shocks?

As an iconic city and region, Bergen naturally comes with an inheritance of many clichés and tired symbols – and so did the former Visit Bergen profile, created in 2000. The identity wasn’t made for digital surfaces, and the positioning of ‘Gateway to the Fjords’ could communicate that it was only as a stop-over destination on the way to somewhere else.

Ireland became the largest English-speaking nation in the EU in 2020, and Limerick City and County sought to maximise this opportunity, creating a brand position that unifies everything that Limerick does - and included the entire community in the re-brand process.