Small City Branding Around the World

Will Hudson Yards Totally Disrupt Midtown Manhattan?

A recent article in Institutional Investor is a timely reminder that every place, no matter its size or popularity, must always keep an eye over its ‘shoulder’ for unexpected competitors and threats. Midtown Manhattan would seem to be on an unassailable high with new buildings, iconic tenants, millions of visitors and soaring real estate prices. But, amazingly 60% of Manhattan’s buildings are over 50 years of age making the city’s commercial real estate much older than cities like London and Beijing.

But there is a new city rising on the west side of the Manhattan. Hudson Yards is about to disrupt Manhattan as a place to live, work and play. Hudson Yards is the largest private real estate development in the history of the United States and the largest development in New York City since Rockefeller Center

Hudson Yards will consist of 16 skyscrapers containing new office, residential, and retail space. Among its components will be a huge retail center with two levels of restaurants, cafes, markets and bars, a hotel, a cultural space, performing arts center, a 750-seat school, and huge public open park space. It’s designed as a ‘playground’ for Millennials.

Many iconic commercial tenants are planning to vacant marquee buildings for Hudson Yards. While Hudson Yards will be a significant competitor to Midtown as a trendy and modern alternative for commercial and residential real estate, Midtown will remain a formidable tourism destination because of its iconic attractions and neighborhoods.

This is a great reminder that every place, no matter its size or popularity, must constantly innovate, invest and stay on watch for tomorrow’s unexpected competitor.

Produced by: Total Destination Marketing

Best Selling Book: Destination Branding for Small Cities

Welcome Signs Show How Many Places Are Out of Touch

Welcome signs can play an important role in the marketing and branding of cities. They not only provide a sense of arrival, but also communicate a welcome to travelers and can signal that the place is ready for them. They can also serve to convey the distinctive identity of the place and why it may be of interest to prospective visitors and new residents. One of the most famous of course is the iconic “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign which was erected on what was then the outskirts of The Strip in 1959. 

CityLab has assembled a slide show of some of his favorite welcome signs around the USA. I think that Mark must have quite a sense of humor. Some are funny, some interesting, but unfortunately many of them reflect small towns that are totally out of touch with the needs and interests of prospective visitors and new residents.

At a time when places of all sizes are locked in competition for their economic well-being, I found myself looking at many of the signs and asking “who would care?”  The signs reminded me that cities of all sizes in the next decade will have to work much harder at marketing themselves and developing a competitive identity than they have done in the past. Their audiences are becoming more discerning and demanding and their competitors are increasing and becoming more sophisticated. There are so many other choices.

Produced by: Total Destination Marketing

Best Selling Book: Destination Branding for Small Cities

Avoid a Place Branding Headache: Don’t Hire a Painter if You Need an Architect

I used to think that positioning was the trickiest part of place and destination branding. However, I now believe that getting the RFP or Expression of Interest, scope of work and agency selection processes right in the first place are probably the most problematic and can most easily send a place branding project off the rails from the start.

Many communities do not fully understand the nuances of place branding and are somewhat tentative and imprecise in how they ask for the services required to undertake the process. Or they have been misled into thinking that all they need is a new logo, tagline or advertising campaign theme. This view has been verified in recent months as we notice a steady flow of poor outcomes for communities. They announce weak or bland positioning and cheerleading taglines that are only designed to make locals feel warm and fuzzy, but are doomed to fail with external audiences.

We have seen situations where advertising, web design and communications agencies have successfully pitched for the development of place branding strategies. Unfortunately, few of these agencies have any tourism, placemaking, community development or city brand planning credentials, but that didn’t stop them from being appointed to their first jobs in the field. Branding is strategic!

Yes, creativity and designs are important. But more important is establishing a strategic guidance toolkit to inform your operations, communications and experience delivery. We have even seen cases where cities have simultaneously issued RFPs for web design and brand planning. Of course, they then merged their requirements and selected what they considered to be the best agency to tackle the combined assignments. That’s right. The painter will design the house as well as paint it!

Here is an article in our Library, (Don’t Hire a Painter if You Need an Architect) provides good advice, which, along with the blog by Derrick Daye of the Blake Project provides some valuable considerations for communities about to start their brand planning.

Produced by: Total Destination Marketing

Best Selling Book: Destination Branding for Small Cities

Do Billboards Destroy Community Character?

Project for Public Spaces has highlighted an excellent article in the Planning Commissioners Journal (PCJ) by Ed McMahon, who is a Senior Resident Fellow at the Urban Land Institute. Ed is a nationally renowned authority and speaker on sustainable development, land conservation, and urban design.

In his PCJ article, McMahon argues that billboards are not only unsightly, but damage community character. He also responds to arguments commonly heard in favor of allowing billboards.

McMahon claims that “in a relatively short time, outdoor advertising has gone from from small and folksy to huge and intrusive. We have now entered the era of digital billboards – huge outdoor TV screens wasting energy while degrading the landscape and distracting drivers.”

On a recent drive from Portland to Seattle, I observed the size and attention-grabbing techniques of some of these mega-sized digital billboards. I would add that they may also be a tad more distracting and dangerous for motorists than the passive displays of a few years ago. I think in some cases they are also reshaping the identities of the communities that have these displays along their corridors. I’m with Vermont, Maine, Alaska and Hawaii all of which have banned billboards.

I don’t hate commercialism, I just prefer nature and attractive communities a whole lot more. 

Photo Credit:  Los Angeles Billboard - Flickr photo by Awecelia

Produced by: Total Destination Marketing

Best Selling Book: Destination Branding for Small Cities

 

Tourism Really is About Small Businesses

After delivering a presentation recently a city official challenged me on the notion that tourism in his small city was “a business of small businesses”. I quickly convinced him of this obvious fact by reviewing the “mom and pop” motels and restaurants listed in his city’s local visitors guide. How could this escape him?

A few weeks ago while researching the economic value of beaches, I discovered the following quote from Dr. James R. Houston of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “Perhaps Americans do not appreciate the importance of tourism to the national economy because 98% of the 1.4 million U.S. tourism-related businesses are classified as small businesses, and this makes the industry extremely fragmented”, Dr. Houston said. That’s so true!

I am sure that Dr. Houston was referring to the number of enterprises and not the volume of revenue generated. Nevertheless, while many communities and city officials do recognize the value that well planned tourism can bring to them, many are failing to grasp the fundamentals and their communities are leaking buckets of potential income every week.

Tourism is often dismissed because it doesn’t fit with the general thinking about economic development by local officials. It then follows that tourism doesn’t receive sufficient consideration when it comes to government policies, infrastructure and investment. In the future, successful destinations will be those that treat their tourism-related businesses as  components of a series of experiential themes or clusters. Economic development marketers have been using industry clusters for decades.  For tourism enterprises this provides opportunities for increased collaboration, improved visitor experiences, increased profits and more opportunities to build economic growth through expanding existing businesses. It may also help in gaining a stronger, more unified voice and new found political clout.

Sponsored by Rural Tourism Assessments

 

Confront Reality if You Want a Better City Image

I recently spoke with the CEO of a small chamber of commerce on the East Coast. She said they wanted to “create a new city brand and change their city image in the next six to twelve months.” Rather than outline how we may be able to help them achieve their goals, I instead focused on managing their expectations and what a brand can and cannot do for them.

I explained that branding can, and does, bring short-term benefits but the true value and rewards of branding are long-term and cumulative. After all, it probably took decades to shape the current image and identity of her city. Successful place branding is achieved from many small victories, again and again. A city’s image is the result of thousands of influences and influencers over an extended period. On the other hand, a Grand Slam approach to branding a city on the basis of one big ad campaign is a sure fire way to blow the budget with little long-term impact. True success will only come from the consistency of messages and the delivery of outstanding experiences from many sources hitting their mark again, and again, and again.

Big budgets and better communications alone will not turn around the city’s image if its reality is standing in the way. It could be unattractive public spaces, crime, outdated infrastructure or lack of cooperation between businesses and among government officials that is holding the place back. Today, city branding can engage urban planners, architects, elected officials and placemaking specialists as readily as businesses, tourism and economic development marketers.

The benefits of city branding are considerable, however they will not materialize overnight because it will take time for the brand to gain traction within the community, among key partners and with key markets. From the outset, you must be sure that the objectives are clear and realistic, programs are well funded and that there is an understanding of what branding is and isn’t. This includes ensuring that no one expects a magic wand. And when the brand strategy is finally revealed, that’s when the hard work really begins – and it will take much more than a great ad campaign!

Produced by: Total Destination Marketing

Best Selling Book: Destination Branding for Small Cities

What Are Twenty-Five Essentials for Downtown Tourism Success?

In recent years the travel and tourism industry has proven to be one of America’s most productive engines for economic growth and job creation. At a time when leaders at all levels are searching for solutions to sluggish growth, unemployment, increased competition, and continued economic challenges, tourism is proving to be a valuable investment.

But its benefits are bypassing many communities because they are unable to present themselves as a viable destination.

When it comes to generating or consolidating community employment, it’s important for leaders to note that most tourism jobs cannot easily be outsourced. While jobs in other industries may have been shipped overseas, the tourism jobs tied to downtowns, Main Streets, historic and cultural precincts and natural areas can no more be outsourced than the attractions themselves. A study by McKinsey Global Institute casts tourism in a positive light and predicts as many as one in seven new jobs over the next decade will come from travel and tourism.

There is a great opportunity for convention & visitor bureaus, chambers of commerce, tourism offices and local government to capitalize on this important trend if they adopt the right community-wide approaches for tourism management in downtowns and small cities. Importantly, success in tourism takes more than an ad hoc approach. Decades of developing Tourism Readiness Reports has shown us that highly successful downtowns and small cities are organized and consistently display the twenty-five characteristics outlined in this article.

 

What Are the Seven Keys to Strong Community?

Kaid Benfield recently presented an interesting blog in Atlantic Cities in which he outlined the seven keys to strong community which were created by his colleague Scott Doyon at Place Makers. I agree with the article as far as it went, but would also include the economic dimensions because without them the livability aspects might not be viable.

Here are what he identifies as the seven keys to stronger community:

1. Good governance
2. Walkable, connected, mixed-use character
3. Parks and gardens
4. Partnerships
5. Programming
6. Neighborhood-responsive schools
7. Tree culture

While the list is focused on the sense of community rather than communities in general, I think that pro-active economic development is an essential ingredient. This should focus on the retention and generation of businesses and jobs that are conducive to sustaining community livability. 

Integral to economic development is place branding which directly contributes to increased effectiveness and efficiency in how cities compete and present themselves. Branding enables the place to focus on their differentiating strengths to establish their competitive identity and generate the economic activity to optimize the seven keys.

What Can Disney Teach Us About Urban Planning and Managing Visitor Experiences?

Disney theme parks can be instructive for us when it comes to designing and managing city precincts for the enjoyment of visitors. Disney simultaneously offers both good and bad examples of what to do – and not do. An interview in Smart Planet with Jennifer Gray, an historian of modern art and architecture, provided many interesting perspectives, and provoked some heated reactions in the comments from readers.

Gray says, “In recent years Disney-urbanism has colonized authentic cities. Urban entertainment districts such as South Street Seaport in New York, Quincy Market in Baltimore, and Harbor Place in Baltimore are good examples. South Street Seaport conveys the impression of a once-active seafaring culture, but without the messiness of a functioning seaport – the smell of fish, working-class dockhands, clamoring fish mongers. Instead we find national retail and restaurant chains like The Gap and McDonald’s.” But having lived in New York, I know that South Street Seaport is for the tourists, because as locals we know that it has lost its authenticity and is a ‘Disneyfied’  experience.   

Whenever I visit a Disney theme park with my family, it doesn’t take long for me to be in trouble because I am slowing everyone down. I am easily distracted observing the streetscapes, public spaces, architecture, trash bins, garden maintenance, crowd calming techniques, and even the trash collectors on roller-blades (they add to the sense of fun and can cover more territory!).

There are many aspects of Ms. Gray’s interview that I disagree with, however I always value fresh perspectives on the work of Disney because no other individual has had a greater impact on managing visitor experiences - whether we like all of his work or not.

Can Place Branding Save Our Struggling Downtowns?

I was interested to read the blog in DRUM by Scott McCubbin. Scott summarized the observations of several keynote speakers at the British Consortium of Shopping Centres Conference.

England was once known as a nation of shopkeepers. As Scott observes, this moniker has been replaced by the image of a nation of closed shutters, rusted padlocks and “To Let” signs.  So many of the speakers at the conference raised issues and solutions that mirror those we often find in small cities and downtowns in the USA and Canada.  These typically involve addressing the impact of big box stores on the outskirts of town, cross-community consultation, developing an attractive destination appeal for visitors and residents and creating a distinctive brand identity. 

“The question isn’t how can high streets be saved, but which ones should we save?” was the grim conclusion by Justin Taylor of property consultants, Cushman & Wakefield.

Night Economies: What’s The World’s #1 24-Hour City?

I always thought that because Frank Sinatra sang, “I want to wake up in a city that doesn’t sleep”, it inferred that New York City was the #1 place for night owls. Well it seems that New York is well down the list in a study of the world’s 24-hour cities by Marion Roberts, a professor of urban design at London’s University of Westminster and author of Planning the Night-time City. 

The BBC reports that Cairo was ranked the “most 24-hour” city of all. Next came Montevideo, Beirut, six Spanish cities (Malaga, Zaragoza, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Seville) and Buenos Aires. London was ranked 17th, Paris 18th and New York 32nd.

Roberts identifies many of the benefits and challenges of managing the night economy of cities. She says, “In the UK, Europe and Australia, a lot of their ‘24-hourness’ has been about extending entertainment and this has disadvantages for city center dwellers unless carefully managed. However, it does generate more jobs, activities and social solidarities.” This is a subject that cities worldwide will increasingly have to address.

Cairo might be the #1 night-time city, and it’s a great place, but I can’t imagine Frank Sinatra belting out, “Cairo – the city that never sleeps!”