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.

Which Towns Have The Most Unfortunate Names? And Does it Matter?

The name of a place is the most powerful part of its identity. It has often been said that being introduced to a brand is like meeting a person. Their name is important - it’s how we remember them, make associations, and refer to them. It’s as if there is a filing cabinet in our brains where we keep everything relevant to that name. When we hear London, Paris or Saigon, we recall the many pieces of information, thoughts and feelings large and small, that we have assembled about each over the years, even if we have never been there.

I recall that in a survey a few years ago, Toad Suck, Arkansas, was voted America’s “most embarrassing or unfortunate” town-name, in a global poll. It beat Climax in Georgia, Boring in Oregon (and its namesake in Maryland) and Hooker in Oklahoma in a poll of almost 2,000 people by findmypast.com.

The web site and its global network of partner sites asked users in seven English-speaking countries (U.S., UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) to pick from its own shortlist of 11 unfortunate or embarrassing American town- and place-names. True, it’s not the worst thing you might unearth when tracing your ancestry. But some people are disconcerted to learn that their forebears came from somewhere called, for example, Toad Suck, Roachtown or Monkey’s Eyebrow.”

However, rather than feel embarrassed, residents of many towns with unfortunate names embrace their odd names with pride, have a laugh and use them as a feature to promote their towns. Of course, Intercourse PA has done that for decades. Boring OR and Dull Scotland have proclaimed "Boring and Dull Day in Perpetuity" in honor of the two communities. In today’s stressed and over-worked society the prospect of visiting places that embrace boring and dull might actually have some appeal to it. It might create some interesting economic development opportunities for visionary leaders. Make no mistake though - capitalizing on their unusual names will take more than providing a humorous photo-op with local town signs.

Produced by: Total Destination Marketing

Best Selling Book: Destination Branding for Small Cities

Oregon’s Ice Age Tourism Assets

My destination consulting colleagues and I often remark that residents of a city often don’t see what’s right in front of us when it comes to their city’s hidden tourism strengths. Well, on this occasion I must confess my guilt. A few years ago, I worked on a small project for the Historical Society in Tualatin, the small city where I live outside of Portland, OR. 

My assignment was to determine how the city can take advantage of the locally excavated remains of Ice Age animals such as mastodons and giant sloths, and promote how the great Ice Age Floods shaped the local landscape.

Despite having developed tourism strategies for nations, regions and cities, and even the Olympic Games, this is one of the most surprising and fascinating projects that I have ever worked on – and it’s right in my own backyard. And like much of the local population I had no clue about the Ice Age Floods. 

The Floods were one of the most cataclysmic events ever to happen in North America. They flooded Tualatin to a depth of about 350 feet and resulted in several geological phenomena that are still visible today.

A four state trail named the Ice Age Floods Trail has been established by Congress and will be administered by the National Park Service. As the Trail is developed over the next decade, I’m sure that Ice Age tourism will be a term that we will add to our tourism dictionaries.

The lesson for me is that sometimes you have to dig deep to find a city’s tourism assets, other times they come as part of a trend or as in Tualatin’s case, a small group of passionate scientists, academics and residents who have a great idea whose time has come.

Produced by: Total Destination Marketing

Best Selling Book: Destination Branding for Small Cities

Sponsored by Place Branding Book: Destination Branding for Small Cities

 

Top 5 Place Branding Books to Read in 2016

 

I was pleasantly surprised and very honored to recently see my book listed as a "must read". Just in time for Northern Hemisphere summer break, Place Brand Observer (PBO) has released a list of the Top 5 Place Branding books to read in 2016. Their list contains books recommended by place brand experts in PBO interviews.

The role of PlaceBrandObserver.com is to build bridges between place branding thinkers, shakers and doers, and to provide useful information, research insights and examples of credible, authentic place brands and responsible, sustainable branding, promotion and positioning of cities, regions, countries, nations, and destinations. In a nutshell they're a great source of information on place branding.

The books they listed are:

Top 1: Rethinking Place Branding: Comprehensive Brand Development for Cities and Regions. Edited by Mihalis Kavaratzis, Gary Warnaby, Gregory Ashworth (2014, Springer)

Top 2: Nation Branding, Concepts, Issue and Practice, Edited by Keith Dinnie (2nd Edition, 2015, Routledge)

Top 3: Destination Branding for Small Cities, By Bill Baker (2012, Creative Leap Books)

Top 4: Places: Identity, Image and Reputation, by Simon Anholt (2009, Palgrave MacMillan)

Top 5: Marketing Places, By Philip Kotler, Ronald Haider, Irving Rein (2002, Free Press)

Now to catch-up on my reading!

Posted by: Total Destination Marketing

Best Selling Book: Destination Branding for Small Cities

Google Trekker Brings Oregon Destination Brand to Life

 

I recently posted about how the importance of place brands has not diminished because of the myriad new digital communications platforms. However, the ways that places go about branding has changed. This is perfectly demonstrated by our client Travel Lane County (Oregon) in marketing their destination region, Eugene, Cascades & Coast.

Several years ago we developed the brand strategy for Eugene, Cascades & Coast. Since then, Kari Westland and her team have been really inventive in the ways they have gone about building the destination brand.  

The Eugene, Cascades & Coast brand is founded on the county having Oregon’s most accessible adventure experiences where you can easily find yourself hiking to spectacular waterfalls or endless public beaches, kayaking white water or ocean estuaries, cycling through wine country or on Oregon's best trails.

Travel Lane County is constantly introducing innovative ways to bring the brand to life. Their latest initiative is Google Trekker which harnesses the latest technology, similar to Google's "street view” to make the destination’s abundant pedestrian trails accessible to viewers around the world. The Google Trekker is a backpack system crowned by rotating cameras capturing 360-degree views. The images are stitched together creating a visually immersive experience. When backpacking wasn't an option, they strapped the Google Trekker camera to boats, horses and bicycles.  

Another new initiative is Pinot Bingo. This is a fun, interactive way to tour South Willamette Valley Wine Country. It's easy to play. Visit a winery. Ask them to stamp your bingo card in their numbered space. When you bingo card is full redeem it at the Adventure Center for your prize. I wonder how this can be combined with Google Trekker.

I can't wait to see their next innovations to bring the Eugene, Cascades & Coast brand to life.

Produced by: Total Destination Marketing

Best Selling Book: Destination Branding for Small Cities

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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

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

 

Are You Missing the Customer’s Most Important Question?

At the invitation of a friend I recently sat in on a Chamber of Commerce meeting where one agenda item was the design of their new website and brochure. Once attendees started discussing the merits of the designs, I was immediately struck by how their comments were limited to their personal preferences and own travel behavior, and were not focused on the Chamber's marketing and brand strategy and what will resonate the most with customers. 

One way to check that marketing communications are customer-focused and convey enticing benefits is to not only conduct research, but to also imagine the customer is looking over your shoulder as you prepare the materials. Or has a seat at the meeting. All communications, whether priority subjects, copy, images, video or logo design, must answer the customer’s perennial and most important question, “What’s in it for me?”. Failing to do this is marketing pitfall #1.

Sponsored by Destination Branding for Small Cities.

Is Destination Branding Obsolete in the Digital Age?

After a keynote presentation a few months ago, the CEO of a Chamber of Commerce approached me and said, “I enjoyed your presentation, but isn’t branding cities obsolete?” He went on to say that because of digital media, and particularly sites like TripAdvisor and the new digital power of consumers it make branding obsolete. I was reminded of this conversation while reading a blog, “A Cure for Digital Myopia” by David Cooperstein in Forbes magazine.

The issue of relevance in regard to tourism organizations, Chambers of Commerce, economic development agencies and yes, destination and city branding, is increasingly being discussed. Do I think DMOs* will become irrelevant or obsolete? In quite a number of cases the answer is probably yes, many are going to become obsolete. Actually, many of them have been irrelevant and obsolete for decades because they have done little to move the favorability or preference for their cities or generate sustainable ROIs. To be among the “survivors” DMOs will certainly have to adjust to many new realities. It doesn’t necessarily mean they will become obsolete.

I’m not going to bang the drum too much here about how DMOs need to change or they will go the way of the dodo bird. This subject has been covered at length by DMAI and others who have been advocating that DMOs dramatically change their business models. However, I do think it’s important to stress that destination branding is not obsolete or irrelevant for destinations. I might reconsider when I see Coca Cola, Toyota, or Starbucks shutting down their brand departments. Destination branding isn’t easy. Many efforts have not been done well and more focus is definitely needed on using it as the destination’s strategic guidance system. Quite simply, it’s not just an add-on.

The first challenge in adopting this approach is to understand what branding really is, what it isn’t, how it works and how to use it most effectively. Unfortunately, some still can’t get past thinking of a brand as little more than a logo, tagline and or an advertising campaign.  They don’t consider its role as the guidance system for communications, unifying stakeholders, product development and where possible orchestrating the experiences that make the place distinctive.

While the Digital Age has bought many new tools and opportunities, the fundamentals and principles of branding haven’t changed. And it certainly hasn’t become obsolete. But how you go about brand management has changed. Branding has become a whole lot more exciting because thinking in terms of a “digital platform” and not simply in the terms of media or digital media, opens a new world for your destination.

Destination managers now have the opportunity to connect with customers at many more communications and experience touchpoints than ever before to influence visitor satisfaction, loyalty and word of mouth (social media). In this environment, the relevance of DMOs should center on their role as “destination management organizations” influencing all aspects of the relationship with visitors, not simply focusing on sales and communications.

Over the coming weeks, I'll be exploring the benefits, role and challenges of destination branding in the Digital Age in an ongoing series of posts and articles. I’m also looking forward to your thoughts and comments.

*Destination Marketing Organization or in some countries, Destination Management Organization

Produced by: Total Destination Marketing

Best Selling Book: Destination Branding for Small Cities

 

 

Successful Place Branding: Don’t Forget Honesty and Accountability

During recent months I have conducted brand coaching seminars for small cities in USA, Canada and Australia. These sessions usually attract a wide range of interesting and challenging questions from participants. Interestingly, at the end of my presentations in all of these countries I been approached with a surprising number of questions or comments relating to intrusions and interference that had over-ruled or heavily influenced the defining of their city’s branding and tourism marketing. These seminar attendees lamented that they were compelled by city officials to introduce strategies that were deeply flawed and frequently failed once launched.

Place branding and marketing demand honesty and objectivity. Success calls for the city to be customer-focused, strategic, open-minded, and imaginative in order to reveal its brand in ways that will generate positive feelings, respect, and loyalty among target audiences.  It must be crystal clear about what it is, what it does, why it is interesting, and why it should matter to its key audiences.  In other words, success takes brutal honesty and reality-based decisions!

To the annoyance of many city leaders, the commonly held view of their city may be out of sync with what they personally see as its strengths. Successful place branding demands a consultative and community effort which ensures that the reality experienced by its customers must match the brand promise being conveyed by the city and its partners. When a brand strategy is shaped by the whim of an official it’s not likely to generate local support and enthusiasm – and quite possibly miss its target by a mile!

An added problem with city officials heavily influencing the nature of the brand is that in four years a new mayor, city manager or councilor might continue the cycle by changing the brand strategy to mirror their personal view. When we think of accountability in the branding and marketing of cities, we frequently think of the staff directly responsible for marketing. This accountability should also extend to mayors, councilors and city managers because when it comes to the city identity and image, they are playing with public funds, not to mention the city’s economic well-being in the form of income, jobs and new businesses.

Produced by: Total Destination Marketing

Best Selling Book: Destination Branding for Small Cities

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?