Advertising, Baltic States – CIS, Belarus, Direct Speech, EU – Baltic States, Forum, Markets and Companies

Gonzalo Vilar is a partner and director on global strategy in Bloom Consulting (Madrid), where he is engaged in the strategy development for the majority of projects in the country branding, identifying flows of foreign direct investment and tourism strategies in different countries around the world.

- As an expert in the field, could you say why it’s important for countries, cities, territorial objects to have a brand, and what is the key factor in creating such a brand?

- Due to the nature of cities, countries and other territories, its brand is the most important asset they have in today’s competitive world. Countries, regions and cities are composed of many stakeholders and the brand is what identifies all of them. One of the key factors in creating a successful brand is the stakeholder involvement, both public and private. The majority of the brand strategies fail because stakeholders do not understand the brand strategy or because it may not suit their needs. How much power can a brand have without their support? None or little.

Another critical factor is to understand the specific strengths and features of a particular territory to create emotional attachment with the target markets (investors, citizens and tourists).

- Can it be possible to combine in one brand an image, appealing to the tourist or investor, and citizens’ concept of the city?

- A country or city brand has many purposes and objectives. As you have well mentioned, it serves to attract tourists, investors, and talent, but it also is used to foster exports, public diplomacy, and citizen’s pride.

Answering your question: Yes, it is possible to create one image for all purposes. However, there are only a few examples of territories that have successfully managed to achieve it. The most famous one is New Zealand, which communicates consistently the idea of "purity" through its strategy, portraying the all black and 100% pure image. Good luck for the rest! Why? Because having a unique image limits the possibilities to be relevant to all of the above mentioned target audiences. I believe that an image that is appealing for tourists will not be for an investor.

- Which specialists should work on creating territorial brands and what is the perfect number of them? What can attract local people to the process?

- To create a territorial brand, I would recommend setting up a mixed team of external strategy consultants specialized in the development of countries and branding along with local institutions and partners. Usually this means a team of 3-5 people from the consultant side and 2-3 from the city, region, or country members and local partners.

As mentioned before, stakeholder involvement is essential when building a country brand.

It should be taken into consideration from the beginning of the project until the end. That means during the research and interview process as well as in intermediate presentation and during implementation.

- Which tendencies in territorial marketing do you observe now?

- I see various tendencies from the territorial marketing organizational side but also on the consumer side.

First, I would like to highlight that territorial institutions are becoming more.

professionalized every year in terms of developing their brand. We see more and more teams and departments from public institutions dedicated to promoting and developing their brand. They are truly understanding the importance of their brand for achieving their objectives and therefore they are treating it as an asset from a strategical point of view.

Second, as the territorial marketing and branding industry is maturing, we observe a slight change and interest in measuring the impact of their strategies by creating accurate KPIs and defining clear objectives for the brand strategy. This is now fostered by the need for public institutions to show society the socio-economic impact of their initiatives.

Third, the industry is slowly acknowledging the importance and need of becoming digital.

Consumers are rapidly shifting their consumption behavior, using today’s information coming from search engines as a source of inspiration and has become as important as recommendations from friends, family, colleagues or even professional advisors. Today, we have studies from Google and the Economist Intelligence Unit that quantify yearly the shift of this behavior.

Fourth, territorial organizations in the following years will be forced to develop their digital and social media channel dramatically fast. Today, according to a study conducted by Bloom Consulting, around 60% of the National Investment Agencies do not have any social media accounts. National Tourism Organizations (NTO), however, are more advanced as 80% of all the NTOs have a Facebook account. Other social networks such as Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin are still far behind Facebook.

Fifth, there are new measurement metrics on the market today that are not yet being used by countries, cities, and regions. At Bloom Consulting we have developed unique measurement systems such as the Digital Demand that allows a territory to understand their level of "online appeal" and compare it with their competitors.

- How can you avoid making a mistake in choosing the image for territorial brand?

- First of all, I would clarify one thing. Branding is more than the image of the brand or the logo! There is a traditional misconception around this subject as branding is really about strategy. You may not have a logo but you will still have a brand. Barcelona and San Francisco are very powerful city brands and very few people remember their brand image.

You will make a mistake if the image of the brand is not aligned with the strategy of the country or territory. In other words, if the image of a brand helps you to convey the desired image territory, then it is a good image.

- What is the reasonable price for a city brand?

- As mentioned before, to develop a city brand it takes a team of 5 people working at least 4-6 months. The final price will depend on the scope of the project and the amount of research and outputs desired.

The variables that may influence it is the amount of research you want to conduct, the need for creativity or not, the detail of the implementation plan and set of activities defined to promote the brand, and the measurement system put in place to measure the impact of the brand.

- What instruments are the most effective in promoting a city brand?

- The most effective instruments to promote a city brand are the ones that put you on the map. I mean not only the physical map but also the emotional map.

There is a big misconception in regards promoting a brand. Traditional strategies relied on media advertising assuming that through advertising you would automatically be on the map. This has proved to have limited impact as promotion is more than just advertising.

I would recommend cities, regions and countries to focus on actions, activities and policies that will place you on the map and as a consequence you will create word of mouth and reactive media coverage, whether is done through traditional or digital channels. For example, for certain countries it may be more efficient to be on a local newspaper or magazine rather than in international newspaper or news channels.

That said, the news today travels faster through digital channels and therefore territories have more opportunities to be on the map today than before.

- What projects are you working on at the moment?

- We are currently working on developing brand strategies for private destinations in Brazil. We are also working in projects for the governmental agencies of Sweden, Malta, Seychelles, Latvia, as well as for regions such as Spain.We are right now working with a lot of countries and cities in projects related to Digital Demand, a tool developed in-house by Bloom Consulting that is able to characterize and measure the selling proposition of a country, while also understanding the behavior of the main target markets and comparing the results among its competition. We are able to get these insights through a massive analysis and clustering of keywords performed in online search engines.

- If several attempts to create a city brand failed, could it be ever done successfully? What would you do in a similar situation?

- Sometimes we help to build a brand from scratch and sometimes we work to reposition an existing brand. Past experience has proved that cities and countries can reposition themselves and create successful brands.

As mentioned before, the reasons why brands do not work are mainly because they believe that advertising will be enough and they do not work out the strategy. The challenge is from the inside. It is really important to put in place the right management structure and set clear objectives for the brand.

- What would you recommend to Minsk in creating and developing its own brand?

- In my opinion, Minsk is in a developing stage and it needs to be "put on the map" on an international scale. But, first you need to decide which areas of the brand you want to work: Tourism, Trade, Talent, Exports, Public Diplomacy, and/or Pride.

Once you decide in which area(s) you need or want to work, I would recommend you start by creating a brand management team and engage local stakeholders in the process. Once all the previous aspects are decided and settled, you can start by launching a research project to understand the perceptions of Minsk and define your desired target markets. Only afterwards, you may start developing a brand strategy and defining the actions, activities and policies that will define your brand. Finally, you should define an implementation plan and the key performance indicators along with the monitor measurement systems and tools.

- In what way events such as OPEN help to create and develop the field of territorial marketing and branding and can be useful for the authors of current and future projects?

- Events, such as OPEN, are important in spreading the knowledge, new ideas, innovation within the field, and raising awareness about the importance of territorial branding in today’s globalized world, where countries regions and cities are in competition in the tourism, trade, talent, export, pride and public diplomacy arenas.

- In conclusion, your wishes to the participants of OPEN 2014.

- I hope that the event will be a good platform for everyone to share knowledge and learn something new. Hopefully all the participants are engaged in the program and presentations, and ask many questions. For me, this is a place to share my passion for place branding and I hope that it will inspire the other participants.