Last week, we welcomed over 300 place branding leaders organisations across North America for two days of inspirational and thought-provoking discussions on how places can adapt and evolve to meet the new realities we’re facing. It was a challenge boiling the conference down to just a few key takeaways, but these are the four themes that resonated most for us throughout the conference...

The pandemic has altered the way that we live and work – perhaps irrevocably – and with it, cities, regions, and nations need to re-think what it is that makes their place attractive. How can places adapt and evolve their strategies to respond to these changes?

Last week, Brand Finance's 2021 Global Soft Power Summit was hosted virtually and questions of public health and COVID governance dominated both the discussions and the results of the 2021 Global Soft Power Index. “ But what can we learn from the impact felt on nations’ soft power approaches as we prepare for recovery?

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?

Whilst the impact of the pandemic is ongoing, the 2021 Survey has been able to look back on the past year and forward to the next, to explore the longer-term changes this is bringing to the practice of place branding and marketing for cities, regions, and nations around the world. There are a few key issues that places were grappling with that we’d like to highlight and explore…

What role does sound play in recreating the experience of another location? How are places leveraging the uniqueness of their soundscapes to drive their place marketing and place branding?

International relations are at a crossroad. With so much upheaval comes an intense international scrutiny on how countries are managing their reputations.

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.