Small City Branding Around the World

What’s the Difference Between Branding and Marketing?

We receive many emails from city leaders, practitioners and students around the world. From time to time we share some of the responses with readers. 

I had an email from Sharon at a chamber of commerce on the East Coast of the USA, “Some members of our Board are confused about the difference between branding and marketing a city. I am finding it hard to e xplain. Can you help me?”

Sharon, your Board members are not alone in their confusion because I often hear discussions where the terms “branding” and “marketing” are mistakenly used interchangeably. They shouldn’t be. There are distinct differences.

City branding provides a framework for organizing, differentiating and focusing around your city's competitive and distinctive identity to ensure that its messages and experiences are as distinct, compelling, and rewarding as possible. Most importantly, it’s a promise that must be grounded in truth and reality.

Marketing, on the other hand, comprises the processes and actions for communications, product development, pricing, and promotions directed toward facilitating transactions with end customers. It involves deploying and following elements of the brand strategy such as positioning, personality, core experiences and tone of voice.

We can consider branding as long-term and strategic, while marketing is supposed to be strategic (or at least should be), it is usually short-term and mainly tactical.  Brands are distinctive, where marketing isn’t.

You can consider marketing as being a part of branding. Not the other way around. And marketing alone can’t build your city’s brand. In essence, marketing is what enables you to communicate your brand messages or promise to customers, while branding relates to your competitive identity and how you keep the promise.

Whose Place Brand is it Anyway?

Last week I was reminded of the fragility of place brands and how they need to foster deep community roots from the start of their brand planning process. The marketing manager of a small destination marketing organization (DMO) told me that his city had completed a brand strategy during the past two years which had been well received. But with the arrival of a new Executive Director, they had abandoned the strategy. Fortunately, this was not one of our clients.

This discussion brought home to me that from time to time pivotal people who are essential to the vitality of a destination brand move on. They might be the head of the tourism organization, elected officials, board members, staff or key partners. The result can be that their replacement wants to “do things their way”.

For this reason, it’s important from the earliest stages to ensure that there is continuity in understanding, knowledge, energy and support in regard to the brand strategy.  Of course, it goes without saying that community brands for destinations have to be built following a highly consultative and transparent process. The brand does not belong to any one person or organization. And a new Executive Director should not be empowered to arbitrarily reject a strategy that community members and key stakeholders were engaged in for about eight months. The marketing manager told me that there is now deep cynicism among stakeholders and staff toward starting a new brand planning process just two years after the last effort.  

A brand strategy is not the same as an advertising or marketing campaign. The advertising should be designed to reflect the brand and will change from time to time. However, the brand should be based on the enduring essence of the place and not be changed as frequently as an advertising theme. It’s a strategic toolkit and needs to be given the opportunity to develop deep roots, resonance and loyalty.

Importantly, a place brand belongs to everyone in the community to a greater or lesser extent. It should never be established in such a way that it is reliant on one individual.

Sponsored by: The Essentials of Small City Branding

Is Color Too Often an After-Thought in Destination Branding?

On two occasions I was recently reminded of the often overlooked power that color can have in destination branding. My friend, Todd Mayfield at Axia, reminded me that when we look at logos, websites, advertising, and other marketing materials the first things that catch our eyes are the colors. He added, “Whether we realize it or not, it happens in a millisecond. Within that millisecond, color is followed by shape and then the content of images. When developing their brand identity, many cities and destinations don’t approach color from the scientific perspective that it deserves.”

Colors have a pivotal role in branding because our brains, and behaviour, are hard-wired to them. They have the power to change our moods and even our brain chemistry. They can instantly trigger myriad thoughts, memories and associations for people, places and events. Colors can cause us to reject products and experiences before we even know what’s on offer. On the other hand, a carefully crafted color pallet can draw us in and create a mood conducive to new messages – and buying.

Supporting this view, Thomson Dawson at Brand Strategy Insider wrote a terrific piece on the importance of color in branding. He wrote, “Effective and comprehensive brand strategy must consider the critical importance of color. It is far more than a simple aesthetic consideration in the tool kit of components that make up brand identity and experience. Color is the very first perception customers will have with your brand, and along with perception comes a whole host of emotional associations.”

He went on to add, “The color of your brand is an essential character in your brand’s story. When choosing a color to represent your brand, you must think far beyond your own personal, subjective preferences.”

My view is that destinations usually don’t take the selection of colors to represent them seriously enough. Too often the personal preferences, whims and dislikes of committee members and executives come into play, rather than what will best define the brand’s personality, emotional benefits, support the positioning, and contribute to increased awareness and customer recall. The importance of selecting the right color pallet should never be underestimated. And it shouldn’t be changed with the publication of each new brochure and website. Nor should it be changed shade by shade by a designer after the initial color pallet has been created and approved. However, it may need to be tweaked over time to keep it fresh.

One city that got its distinctive color pallet right is San Antonio TX. I love the richness of the colors used by the city in support of its “Deep in the Heart” brand. It fits on a strategic level, is distinctive and really connects emotionally.

 Produced by: Total Destination Marketing

Best Selling Book: Destination Branding for Small Cities

Are Emotional Benefits Always in Your Destination and Place Branding?

One of the most overlooked, yet most powerful component in the branding of places is the role of emotional benefits. This was recently the subject of considerable discussion at Strengthening Brand America between Glenn Myatt – Brand Truth, Tom Buncle - The Yellow Railroad, and myself.

Emotional benefits are the positive feelings that people receive from a place. While the tangible benefits may be enticing and important and help validate a logical decision, they can’t create a deep relationship. Emotional benefits have the ability to connect with people and influence the way they feel and bond with their deepest needs and desires. They should fulfill the state of mind that visitors or customers are seeking, such as enrichment, romance, escape or adventure, etc.

Here is a summary of the comments on Strengthening Brand America:

Bill Baker: “From time to time place marketers tend to overlook the valuable role that emotion plays in the decision making of their prospective customers. This makes no sense and is like the buyers of new cars relying on a vehicle's Specifications Manual to base their purchase decision. If emotion plays no role, almost all brochures, advertising, photo images and videos could be removed from marketing budgets because all that will be needed are lists of specifications. Emotion is front and center in all of our brand strategies irrespective of the size of the community. Among its many roles is to provide filters for the selection of appropriate images that reflect the brand and better connect with prospective customers.”

Glen Myatt: “Bill's car analogy is spot on. Deciding on a car or a destination are both high involvement decisions. Typically people use extensive information searching to make their decisions. They will claim they make measured, rational choices because of this. But for cars econometric research has shown that advertising has a far greater impact on actual choice than buyers consciously believe. This lines up with some of the more recent findings in consumer psychology which see that in many situations people will develop an emotional attachment to a choice based on a simple, often irrational factor.”

Tom Buncle: “The only thing I'd add is that, like cars where most people have a limited understanding beyond basic functionality, so too do they when choosing a destination, even if they've been before. This is because each holiday is different and the visitors' experience depends on their relationship with the destination. After a highly rational information search has narrowed the candidate destination set, an unknowable set of expectations is generated about a holiday, thereby creating a gap. Emotion and imagination tend to be quicker to fill this gap than rational analysis - hence the larger role that emotion plays in holiday decision-making compared to most physical products.”

 In all of our brand building work we always advocate that the most powerful, meaningful and appropriate benefits - the emotional rewards - should always be at the forefront. Avoid talking about the city, region or downtown as a series or list of locations, attractions, and things to see and do. Instead, bring it to life as an experience and make customers feel as though they are already there sensing and feeling it whenever they read, see, or hear your communications. Make it easy for people to see themselves in the picture.

You can contribute to discussions like this at Strengthening Brand America.

Why Brands Matters More Than Ever In the 21st Century

From time to time we hear some people say that in today’s Digital Age brands are now irrelevant. We usually find that their understanding of a brand extends little beyond a logo and an advertising campaign.  In a recent edition of Forbes, David Cooperstein debunked this notion and highlighted why brands matter. He said, “I think we are at the beginning of a new brand journey. This is one that reacquaints the brand with the business strategy, elevates the CMO and marketing team to the level of business strategist, and reconnects sight, sound and motion but in a digital context, and creates differentiation beyond the campaign. I feel good vibes from brand and creative folks that they get the need to reinforce their brand across all touchpoints, and that advertising is merely one part of the process.”

While place branding is being successfully adopted around the world, there are some who still mistakenly regard it as a fad. In examining their critique, I often find that they don’t really understand the concept. They particularly don’t consider its benefits in providing a strategic framework.

I really like the perspective that my friend Malcolm Allan at Colliers International in London gave in my book on this observation. “Place branding is a relatively new discipline and its small but growing band of adherents and practitioners have often been received with disdain and disbelief by people from established professions in town planning, economic development and tourism, numbers of whom regard it as a passing fad, just a new way of sexing-up traditional approaches to city planning, marketing and place making. As a qualified practicing town planner and economic development professional for over thirty years, I see it very differently. For me the key word is strategy as in place, city or development brand strategy. I have often been struck by the power of major lasting brands to meet the changing needs of their customers whilst remaining true to their purpose and values – they provide a much needed (and proven) strategic guidance system.”

I know that when cities and other places recognize the power of a brand strategy they are then able to be more competitive and enjoyable. Achieving this takes a strategic guidance system that reaches across the city and takes a holistic view of its relationship with customers.

 

TDM can help: Place Branding

 

What is the Difference Between an Advertising Agency and a Brand Consultancy?

I have recently seen a flurry of RFPs for “Branding and Web Design”, “Branding and Public Relations” and “Branding and Advertising”. These RFPs came quickly to mind when I read this week’s blog from my friend, Marcus Osborne at FusionBrand in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Marcus says, “As the consumer landscape changes and consumer habits and the purchase decision-making process evolves, it is imperative that brand owners understand where, when and how to spend their valuable and increasingly limited resources. Historically advertising agencies defined and controlled a brand’s message and through which channels it was broadcast. They would then blitz consumers with intrusive advertising and messages. In the past, branding and advertising used to be elements of marketing. Today, marketing and advertising are now part of branding and it is the brand consultant you should look to if you want to build a brand.”

Marcus then provides nine excellent points outlining the difference between an advertising agency and a brand consultancy to assist brand owners in making informed decisions on who should build their brand.

The first important consideration is to recognize that the brand strategy and implementation are not the same thing. The project should be divided into two stages: (1) the formulation of the brand strategy, requiring strong research, analytical and strategic skills, and in the case of city and downtown branding, a detailed knowledge of tourism, economic development, product development and placemaking, and (2) the strategy implementation, possibly requiring advertising, web design, public relations, and publishing expertise. While some firms will claim to do both, it pays to gain a clear understanding of the depth of their experience. Recruit specialists appropriate to each phase.

We are starting to see an emerging awareness among many cities and destinations, and even their communications agencies, of an increasing appreciation for the specialist expertise needed to address the complexities and demands of brand strategy development. We have experienced this when some advertising agencies have wisely recognized that they were not place brand strategists and hired us to develop the brand strategy component for their clients.

Marcus Osborne makes some excellent points here.

What if Nike Took Over the Selling of Your Town?

I live a few miles from Nike World Headquarters just outside of Portland, Oregon. So Nike is a frequent subject of conversation around here and sometimes we take for granted the brilliance of what they do on the global stage. Recently, there was no stage more imposing than the London
Olympics where Nike was not an Olympic sponsor but had to rely on ambush marketing to gain visibility and project its brand. If you saw any of the Olympics, then you will agree that it was near impossible to miss the neon shoes worn by 400 of the world’s best track and field athletes. That was the brilliant work of Martin Lotti and his team at Nike.

Lotti, Nike's global creative director for the Olympics, told Creativity that his role was to focus on the Nike products that 3,000 Olympic athletes wear on and off the field, from design to deployment.  Painting Nike's Flyknit shoe Volt, as that vivid neon-green-meets-highlighter-yellow color is called, was Mr. Lotti's way to create a kind of "Team Nike." Before London 2012, the company matched the color of the shoe to the color of the individual athlete's uniforms. It looked pretty, but it blended in. This year, hundreds of athletes across different national federations wore the same color, what Mr. Lotti called "the easiest way" to make a splash. This approach further underscored for me the power of simplicity and how it can cut through to make brands memorable and effective.

In the same article Mr. Lotti said he believes good Nike products have four elements: (i) performance, (ii) emotion (a Team USA insignia over the heart, for example), (iii) environment, and (iv) aesthetics. It really struck me that these are among the key elements that we always encourage our clients to address through their own brand management.  This led me to consider, “What if Nike took over the branding and marketing of a city like yours”? What do you think would happen?