LESS PLACE, MORE BRAND
WHY TOO MANY CITIES AND TOWNS ARE GETTING IT WRONG
You don’t have to travel too far within a metropolitan area or to a new region to see major infrastructure works being undertaken in the belief that they will create a nicer, more attractive environment, bringing additional business to that locality. But is this a sensible expenditure of scarce public sector resources? Or, are there better strategies that communities can follow to boost local retail business and attract more tourists to the local cafes, hotels and other facilities?
A great deal of the local beautification effort we see in communities draws on a body of work around place branding or place marketing. Essentially it consists of the promotion of a city, town, or region as a place to visit, invest in, or buy products from, and directly addresses the challenge of stimulating demand for a community’s products. Place branding or marketing is a well-developed field in economic development and near-universal in its coverage.
Place marketing programs have been documented in the UK; Australia; South Africa; Europe, the United States and many other nations. It is an exercise far larger than simply conducting an advertising campaign. It frequently involves ensuring that existing assets – physical infrastructure, tourist attractions, natural resources – are at an appropriate standard, and in some places communities look to make themselves more attractive to visitors and locals alike by recruiting additional facilities that serve their particular market.
Place branding is not simply targeted at one audience or set of economic priorities. Instead it is used by communities, cities and towns to achieve multiple goals, including the attraction of visitors, residents and workers, as well as business, industry and export markets.
Place marketing and place promotion are important because many places are relatively substitutable – that is, they have few, if any, features or benefits that cannot be found in other places, and they therefore have to build an image of advantage based on those attributes that are unique or distinctive.
Place branding may have some of the features of corporate marketing, but when we look at the findings of contemporary marketing researchers, we quickly appreciate there is a world of difference between the ways in which places are currently marketed compared with household groceries such as toothpaste, food or laundry detergent. These differences should give all those involved in economic development pause for thought, as they suggest that there are further opportunities to improve programs and boost the economies of cities and regions.
The marketing researcher Byron Sharp argues that good practice in marketing comes down to making use of a small number of insights into how consumers buy. His three key insights, and associated strategies, are:
1. You achieve growth in market share by increasing the popularity of the product and by gaining market share, with most individuals consuming the brand occasionally;
2. Most products are unique, but ‘mainly compete as if they are near lookalikes’ (Sharp 2010 p xiii). These products vary in popularity and therefore turnover, even if the points of difference between themselves and their competitors are relatively minor;
3. Brands need to build two assets – physical availability and mental availability (whether consumers think about that product), and the easier they are for the consumer to recall the larger the number of individuals that will purchase them (Sharp 2010 p xiii).
These points are important because they show that too often places have been positioning themselves incorrectly: for example, the focus on building assets with potential to attract tourists or businesses is of little value if potential visitors are unaware of your city or town, or cannot travel there easily. The money previously spent on street beautification would be better spent improving road access or boosting the number of flights to the local airport, while also advertising across diverse markets.
Most marketing researchers would argue that places simply do not advertise enough. When asked what would make for a more effective advertising campaign, marketing researchers simply argue there needs to be more. Advertising works by ‘refreshing, and occasionally building, memory structures….by consistently using the brand’s distinctive assets’ (Sharp 2010 p xiv). It is effective when it:
· is salient or relevant to the consumer;
· is noticed and elicits an emotional response;
· carries with it relevant mental associations;
· refreshes and builds memory structures;
· reaches out to consumers;
· has a continuous presence, pervasively affecting people’s awareness.
Consumers of any product – whether it is detergent or a weekend vacation destination – are often busy and make relatively speedy decisions that are often driven by previous experiences or exposure to advertising. The challenge, therefore, is to put your town, your city or your region in front of potential visitors or investors as often as possible and in ways that will both attract their attention and be remembered.
Marketing researchers also challenge economic development practitioners to rethink their priorities when it comes to identifying what is special with respect to their town, city or region. Earlier generations of marketing research, and contemporary practice in place branding, emphasizes the need to make the product unique, innovative or in some other way special. Sharp (2010) shows that it is the marketing elements that need to be distinctive if a brand or product is to grow. This includes the brand name, but may also include a color, a logo, a tagline or association with a celebrity. These ‘distinctive assets’ build awareness of the product for the consumer and help make the brand easier to find. It is these distinctive assets that can be built upon, promoted, and ultimately used to drive greater market impact.
Sharp, B, J. Dawes, J. Romaniuk and J. Scriven. How Brands Grow: what marketers don’t know. South Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 2010.