Reputation

Berlin is arguably one of the cultural powerhouses of the world. With the global cultural sector devastated after a year of lockdown, we reached out to Burkhard Kieker, CEO of Visit Berlin, to discover what the city’s plans were for recovery, and how they have reframed their approach from ‘attracting tourists’ to ‘having guests’.

What learnings from the past year will continue to shape and evolve place branding and marketing strategies as we plan for the future? We reached out to our Expert partners to understand what they considered essential lessons for destination marketing and economic development teams around the world.

Achieving cut-through and investment in a crowded and competitive global marketplace requires delivering complex narratives in a compelling way. Citizens of Manchester achieves that by providing a powerful platform for The People Who Make Manchester The Place That Shapes The World. 

It's critical that a place brand strategy is representative of your community - and that your community is engaged with your approach. Al Hutchinson, President & CEO at Visit Baltimore, joined us to share the story behind Visit Baltimore's brand re-design, and how they put community voices in the spotlight with their messaging.

Launched amidst the pandemic and the BLM protests, the goal of Baltimore's new brand wasn’t to sugar coat any of Baltimore’s challenges, but to tell a holistic story that differentiates the city, while celebrating the people committed to making a better Baltimore. But how did they achieve this?

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.

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.

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.

The pandemic has sparked an entirely new vocabulary. And now the word “resilience” has continued to rise up the ranks to take centre stage. But what is resilience? What do we mean by it in relation to city or nation branding?

Research shows that once a visitor does decide to come to The Hague they are positively surprised. It was this gap between image and actual experience that launched the international campaign 'Dive into The Hague'.

The downward trend of nearly all the world’s most valuable nation brands is not entirely surprising. With COVID-19 contributing to the rise of protectionism, we may see a reversal of the economic growth brought about by globalisation. Nevertheless, with analysts’ forecasts looking less dire than initially predicted, and with a working vaccine in place, the future is certainly looking brighter.

The potential reputational risks involved in communicating about and during COVID-19 are many. But here are a few things that should be considered when deciding how to handle communications in a world turned upside down by this crisis.

While 'brand New Zealand' resonates globally, Auckland - the country's largest city - is less well known. Discover how they created a brand strategy that became the focal point of their recovery strategy and won them the 2020 Place Brand of the Year award.