Branding places: the biggest challenge for any 21st-century marketer
Branding places has become crucial to generate business opportunities over the last decades. Cities, regions or even countries have starting to understand how their development can be strongly related to their attractiveness within our globalized world. An attractive place is obviously a place where tourists want to go, where businesses want to expand or where young graduates want to live — in other words an attractive place naturally becomes successful within a few years.
Place branding is Great (Britain)
“Sounds like Great Britain. Business is Great Britain”. A bunch of catchphrases created in 2010 to create a new hype over her Majesty’s lands. Of course everybody knows about the UK, its famous capital city & a few British rock bands. But who really wants to go to Great Britain? Besides partying for the weekend in London, why would a 20 years old French guy go there to study? Why would a 50 years old German business angel decide to start investing there? Also, why would Brazilian, Japanese or Chinese tourists spend time there? What if France or Italy were considered as more attractive to them, just as “they say on TV or in magazines”?
Great Britain started to think beyond “alleged” attractiveness, considering its country just like a brand. Her Majesty’s loyal subjects began to spread their own flag and brand messages all over the world — through one unique country brand agency: VisitBritain. In all international airports, educational & business districts, people started seeing billboards, online banners & outdoor activations bragging about the UK’s most success stories. Another form of soft power.
Promoting Great Britain flags & values is not only a matter of outer politics anymore. The UK’s attributes of power and pride started to get marketed on billboards just like products. Of course, launching this campaign wasn’t brand new, as some other countries had already invested in advertising campaigns. However VisitBritain was the first national agency to promote a country’s values, lifestyle & way-of-life with so much passion — as if the UK had become a movie that no one should miss.
Place branding shifted from making people “know about” to make people “dream about”. Shortly followed by the City of Stockholm — Great Britain inspired a major global movement of country branding aiming to make foreigners feel they would enjoy the advertised place even more than their own homeland.
Great Britain. Basic branding. Magic results.
Places are like products — they must be managed with a proper strategy
The Great Britain story shows that success is related to attractiveness. A place becomes attractive when it generates a higher perceived value than others do. That’s why some districts become more expensive. That’s why fancy restaurants open in specific places and not in others. Nobody really knows why, but everybody feels this place is better than many other ones. At least they think or have heard it’s better. Just like your friend telling you should go to Croatia (despite he knows you prefer hiking in the mountains). Or just like your boss telling you he “feels” a huge market opportunity in a specific country — without giving you any further explanations.
When people think about a place, most of them tend to rely on their feelings first — before making their choice more rational. Before considering to google a specific restaurant, you think about this restaurant in a positive way — that makes you want to confirm your first intention. It’s the same process when you consider moving or even travelling to a country.
People choose a place among places they’ve heard about, and especially among places that seem to suit their own personal goals. The reason is simple: places are just like brands. Just like businesses, countries are competing on the most global & competitive market: Earth.
When considering going to a place they’ve never been, people enter micro-moments. They leave a world of tangibility to look for a greater experience. They don’t know what they want, but they want something else. So they start to think about what could suit their sudden self-fulfillment needs. Sometimes people have in mind something they’ve heard just before (as your coworker just told you how going to Stockholm is sooo great), but otherwise they try to remember what seems to fit their needs. That’s how places enter micro-moments. And that’s why places need to have a proper strategy to be related to people’s zero moments of truth. As places are not products or services, only thought benefits really count. Just like when buy something because “you love the brand”.
Branding a place goes way beyond launching marketing campaigns, it requires to create the perfect brand experience. People look for experience when considering places, so places have to promote a disruptive approach with specific communications directly related to customers’ self-fulfillment needs. Self-fulfillment needs are specific as they don’t match any cyclic schemes. Try to remember precisely the last time you were thinking about going somewhere you’ve never been. It’s hard isn’t it? It’s probably because you don’t think about going somewhere else all the time. But when you do, seeking new experiences drive your mind away from your daily reality. You want to find something new by going somewhere you.
Keep in mind Great Britain! Branding efforts will touch people’s subconscious & make them think about your place. Especially if you have great reviews or online consumers stories, as people will check about your place more than ever — if they have your place in mind!
