Place branding can seem like a daunting challenge. It encompasses a huge number of different sectors and partners, and it can be several years before you start seeing real shifts in perceptions of your place. But every strategy has to start somewhere. We caught up with Mayor John Taylor of Newmarket, Ontario, to understand how they’re starting their place brand journey and what advice they have for others preparing to take their first steps.

In just three weeks’ time, we’ll be welcoming 200 place leaders from across the USA and Canada to New Orleans for the seventh annual City Nation Place Americas conference. Here's just a sneak preview of the discussions you’ll be able to join in order to get you excited ahead of the conference on June 7-8^th!

Discover how Prague is leveraging city diplomacy to take an active role in global challenges where the national government is unable to react as rapidly, and how cities can collaborate together for a more sustainable, resilient future.

When you represent arguably the most famous city in the world, launching a rebrand can be a daunting task. Nancy Mammana, Chief Marketing Officer for the newly re-named New York City Tourism + Conventions, talked us through how they’ve developed their strategy and what they’re doing to engage their stakeholders along the way.

What can you do to demonstrate the impact that place marketing has on the bottom-line for your organisation? Mohamed Ashoor, Head of Digital Marketing at the, Bahrain Economic Development Board [EDB], talks to us about how they developed a marketing attribution model to show the impact that marketing has on delivering investments into the Kingdom.

Whether you’re a city or a country, your values should be at the heart of your place brand strategy. Asbjørn Overgaard Christiansen, CEO of Copenhagen Capacity, joins Constanza Cea, then the Director of Marca Chile, to discover how Chile is connecting values and social entrepreneurship to drive investment into the country.

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. But it’s not Australia’s most famous city. To tackle misconceptions about the city, the team at Canberra are unearthing the city’s DNA to position the city in a way that reflects their everyday reality and showcases Canberra’s strengths to a domestic and international audience. Isaac Mizrachi, Senior Director – Marketing for VisitCanberra, caught up with us to outline the strategy and vision for the city, as well as his top tip for other destinations looking to grow awareness of their place.  

Medway in Kent was one of 25 areas in England awarded a share of £3 million to help them set their own standards for design locally. We asked Virginie Giles, Place Manager & Director for We Are Medway CIC, to explain more about the impact placemaking is having on the area, including the importance of bringing Medway’s diverse communities together to deliver positive change.

Shelley Watson, Head of Marketing for Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, spoke with Asbjørn Overgaard Christiansen, CEO at Copenhagen Capacity, to understand Copenhagen’s success at attracting top talent and how Copenhagen’s sustainable values have proven such an asset.

Maria Lypiatska, Head of BRAND UKRAINE and Strategic Communications Advisor for the MFA, outlines how they’re telling Ukraine’s story to the world during a war and shares lessons from crisis communications that hopefully you’ll never need to use.

Talent attraction is the global challenge right now. Katie Ralston Howe, the Director of the Workforce Division at North Dakota Department of Commerce, joined us to explore how they’re engaging their community in a strategy to attract new residents to the state.

Rural destinations are facing a potential renaissance. Idanha-a-Nova's Mayor Armindo Jacinto sat down with us to explain how a clear place brand strategy overturned decades of population decline and positioned the region as a place of opportunity and prosperity.

We've collated insights from our speakers across four of the key themes weaving throughout the conferences: how organisations are re-thinking after the crises of the past few years; collaboration between key stakeholders; quality of life for your residents; and developing a sustainable strategy that will continue to deliver returns.

Since its launch, the GREAT Campaign has created a wealth of world-class place marketing campaigns - but what's the secret to their success? Before Andy Pike, Director of the GREAT Britain & Northern Ireland Campaign, joins us at City Nation Place UK, we caught up with him to understand more about the strategy and vision behind the campaign.

Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia is, coincidentally, shaped like a banana. It’s also a hub for creative and digital industries, and Tourismus NRW e.V. have just launched a new strategy to reposition the region internationally. We caught up with Heike Döll-König, CEO of Tourismus NRW e.V. to discover what the impetus was for the strategy and how they’re moving forwards as a region.