Re-thinking Shanghai's identity Following the Edinburgh case (cultural city of the world)

1. Branding a City
Exploring aspects of theory & practice
Edinburgh
September 2015
Michalis Kourtidis BA, MA, Chartered MCIPD
Lecturer in Business, Tourism & Hospitality
Coventry University College
上海Shanghai

2. Outline
• Concept, origin and development of City
branding in Scotland or U.K.;
• Various factors needing to be considered
when branding a city;
• Different perspectives or method in terms of
city branding;
• Any problems or thinking during the process
of branding the city

3. Brand Relationship Theory
or Consumer–Brand Relationship
• Functional Connection
• Personal Connection
• Attachment
• Functional Needs
• Identity Needs
• Emotive Needs
The relationship that consumers, think, feel, and have with a brand.

4. Response of the Brand
Consumer Needs
Brand Image
Functional
Identity
Emotive
Development of
Symbols
Social Values
Product Features

5. Stages of a Positive C B R

6. EDINBURGH
The case of

7. Nicknames of the city
• Auld Reekie
• The Athens of the North
• The World’s Festival City

8. What is there to offer?
1. Scotland’s capital city, home of the Scottish Parliament
2. A global festival city
3. UNESCO World Heritage Site – Old & New Towns
4. The first UNESCO City of Literature – from Sir Walter
Scott to JK Rowling
5. National Galleries & Museums
6. Reputation of innovations – from the telephone to
Dolly the Sheep
7. City centre surrounded by mountains
8. Royal palace & a castle at the heart of the city

9. 2007
Collective Marketing Brand
1st joint marketing campaign by
• New Festivals Edinburgh Organisation
• Scottish Government
• City of Edinburgh Council
• VisitScotland
• EventScotland
• Scottish Enterprise

10. Scottish Government
The interest of the stakeholders:
• Conscious that a strong reputational capital
brand is essential for an increasingly outward
looking Scotland seeking to assert itself in the
global stage.
• Edinburgh to become for cultural diplomacy
what Davos is for economics (Edinburgh
International Culture Summit 2012 – back in
2014).

11. The New Scotland’s International
Framework 2012
Economic
Development
Export
links
Cultural
ties
Foreign
Investm
ent
…with key overseas markets.
Show Leadership on the world stage around Low Carbon Economy

12. Is it all great?
• Newspapers play the role of getting the pulse of the
locals
• Locals do not buy in the marketing campaign
• Big parts of the population have lost confidence in
the government
• The image of Edinburgh is perceived to be only for
the outsiders
• Luck of inspiration from a leading politician with the
task to promote well-being of locals: an elected
Mayor (not only for the City, but the City Region)

13. Why do you need that?
• Closer to the pubic, deals with everyday life
and confronts negative PR on a daily basis; can
inspire locals (see New York, London, etc.)

14. The most positive
Development of Edinburgh
Brand
Development
of Scotland
Promising Purpose - Strong Commitment

15. SHANGHAI
Building our case

16. Confusion
Ad campaigns
Branding

17. Stockholm
‘Venice of the North’
What sort of questions does this ‘credo’ raise? How successful is it?

18. Confusion
• Big cities have multiple identities
– Architecture?
– History?
– Eco?
– ICT?
– Shopping?
– …
• They have to decide which one prevails or
• find something which ties them all up together
What are the identities of Shanghai?
Go to:
http://padlet.com/mkourtidis/Shanghai

19. Ultimate purpose of Urban branding
1. For the city to become better understood in
various facets
2. and more attractive to or appreciated or
trusted by
3. more people
Morgan, N., Pritchard, A. and Pride, R. (2011). Destination Brands:
Managing Place Reputation (3rd Ed). Oxford: Elsevier

20. 1. Understand why you are re-branding your city.
2. Conduct thorough research.
3. Start to craft your city's brand message.
4. Educate inside and out.

21. Understand why you are
re-branding your city
Identity/ -ies
Back to the exercise

22. Conduct thorough research.
• Perception of the city already exists among
inhabitants

23. Strategy of Creating Identity
Impose creativity, consistency, truthfulness, effectiveness
onto:
• Development & promotion of National & Regional
Tourism, Inward Investment, Recruitment & Trade
• Branding of exports
• International relations & foreign policy
• Social & cultural policy
• Urban & environmental planning
• Membership of supranational bodies
• Diasporas
• Sport
• Media management
• More of a topical significance

24. Start to craft your city's brand message
• Invest in Reality, not Image. Regenerate,
invest, transform first. Only when change is
visible should you start to "brand" it
• Look at the key assets. Make something
tangible about the city & make people
connect with that
• The role of the media: Photos, videos, movies
need to capture the spirit of the city

25. Deliver the Brand
Pre-Visit
Before
Decision
During Visit
While making
decision
Post-Visit
Post
Decision
Advertising
/ Media
Website
PR
PR
Signage
Environ
ment
Transpo
rtation
Airports
Direct
Mail
Word
of
Mouth
Photos &
memories

26. Educate inside and out
• Clean streets
• Effective & efficient transportation
• Residents feel proud to be brand ambassadors
– When citizens are proud, visitors are encouraged
to find out why they are proud and then tell the
world.

27. Direct your branding
Outside
Inside

28. People are Culture

29. Most successfully branded cities
• Paris
• Hong-Kong
• New York
• Liverpool
• Edinburgh
• Sydney
• Glasgow
The Guardian

30. Least successfully branded cities
• Belfast
• London
• Jerusalem
• Birmingham
• Bristol
• Toronto
The Guardian

31. 8–Step Process to
Develop a Place Brand
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
IMAGE
Step 4
Step 5
Step 6
PROPOSITION
Step 7
Step 8
IDENTITY
Define Clear Objectives
Understand the Target Audience
Identify Current Brand Image
Set the Aspirational Brand Identity
Develop the Positioning
Create Value Propositions
Execute the Brand Strategy
Measure Success

32. Execute the Brand Strategy
Pre-Visit
Before
Decision
During Visit
While making
decision
Post-Visit
Post
Decision
Advertising
/ Media
Website
PR
PR
Signage
Environ
ment
Transpo
rtation
Airports
Direct
Mail
Word
of
Mouth
Photos &
memories

33. Measure city brand identity
(prefer a comparative study)
The Presence
The Potential
The People
The Prerequisites
The Pulse
The Place

34. Top Mega cities of the world
• Tokyo
• New Delhi
• Shanghai
• Mexico City
• Sao Paolo
• Mumbai
• Osaka
• Beijing
• New York-Newark
• Cairo

35. Megacities will become even bigger
• Well-being at the centre of inhabitants
• Where will they live? Think creative…
– http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000235756

36. Who owns the destination?
• Not a matter of a closed group of people
• The importance of stakeholders
– The example of Vancouver:
https://vimeo.com/66920801
• Partnership, shared vision, involvement of
stakeholders is key

37. What’s included in place branding?
• Hardware of a city: geography, environment,
industries developed because of the physical
offerings
• Software of a city: experiences, culture,
people, unique characteristics

38. What’s culture in city brand identity?
• Not for sale - A promotional gift
• “Culture is the rich harmonic accompaniment to
the simple, accessible, easily memorable melody
of the commercial competitive advantage. You
can whistle a [city’s] commercial brand, and not
it’s cultural counterpoint; but the former is
worth very much less without the latter.”
– Anholt, S
文化

39. Culture is next-door to tourism
• Makes a complete place, rather than a tourist
destination, a place worth visiting at different
times of the year (broad social appeal, usually
well behaved visitors)
• Attractions are the commercial dress of
culture and should be aligned with it.

40. Steps towards branding
• Audit of current brand perceptions and
communication: messages sent out by
– Government
– Industry
– Guest experience – tourist’s perceptions
• Alignment

41. Steps towards branding
• Engage stakeholders*
– Business players
– Governmental & civic level
– Community level
– Tourism destination market level
– People
* Vancouver spoke to more than 130 stakeholders to finalise their proposition
https://vimeo.com/68405297

42. Participation is key
• Any future plan will fail
• unless people develop a sense of ownership
• P2P Diplomacy

43. Alignment of the interests
attracts investment
Ultimate aim:
develop Residence

44. Set your targets
Measure your expectations
• Set small victories and celebrate them
• What if the usual visitor extends their visit and
stays to Shanghai from 72 hours to 96 hours?
• How would they spend their extra day?
• Would they be interested in that?
• What would that mean for Shanghai?

45. Visualise
Not only
who you are
but
what you want to become

46. To sum up
• Brand has to respond to Consumer’s needs
• Edinburgh: a successful international example of city branding
• A national perspective: involvement of the government,
industry, people
• Identify and make stakeholders buy into the idea; let them
participate
• Identity has to be real – discover it
• 8 Steps to follow
• Measure branding
• Value and use Culture to support commercial aspect of city
• A long journey

47. Future is Created Now

48. Reference list
• Anholt, S. (2006). Competitive Identity. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Chen, X. (2009). Shanghai Rising : State Power and Local
Transformations in a Global Megacity, ed. Minneapolis, MN, USA:
University of Minnesota Press
• Musterd, S. and Kovacs, Z. (2013) Place-making and Policies for
Competitive Cities, Chinchester, John Wiley & Sons
• Prophet Consultancy (2006). Branding Your City. CEOs for Cities.
March
• Todd, L.A. (2015) Developing brand relationship theory for
festivals: a study of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In: The Future
of Events and Festivals. Routledge Advances in Event Research
Series . Routledge, Abingdon Oxon, pp. 157-176.