Digital presence, search results and online reputation. In today’s fast-paced world there’s no way around the growing importance of this correlated pyramid. Countries, regions and cities already know that their Place Brand needs to be strategically managed in terms of having a strong digital presence to achieve great search results, based on a positive online reputation.

Eindhoven have taken the world stage by storm, winning the 2018 City Nation Place Award for Place Brand of the Year. Peter Kentie, Managing Director at Eindhoven 365, took the time to share the thinking behind their repositioning, and to explore their innovative approaches to funding and stakeholder engagement.

Among the many tantalizing tropes trotted out by diplomats and China watchers is one popularized in the late fifties by John F. Kennedy: that the Chinese word for “crisis” 危机 weiji is a combination of two characters for “danger” and “opportunity.''

Weiji sure does seem timely. Global turmoil inspires caution and deliberation, but also resolve and visionary action.

With new challenges around funding and data, place brands are having to become more innovative in their approaches. Malcolm Allan, President at Bloom Consulting, shares some of his thoughts on the opportunities arising for place brands.

Doing good by the world whilst simultaneously improving brand image is a win-win for everyone involved. A sustainability agenda is no longer an optional extra for companies that want to maintain or improve the support they receive from customers, employees, investors and beyond; it is an essential part of doing good business in an open and transparent manner.

So what can cities, regions and nations do to improve their approach to sustainability and encourage more efficient output from the companies that reside there?

Following the terrorist attacks of 2015, the Paris Convention & Visitors Bureau had to add to its usual B2B marketing focus with communications to reassure the consumer audience. Alice Rampelberg, Marketing B2C and E-Commerce Director at the Paris Convention & Visitors Bureau, explained how Paris have reinforced their global tourism brand as well as how collaboration with London is opening the door to more American tourists.

For the first time, the City Nation Place Global conference will be in Shoreditch, London’s ‘Silicon Roundabout’ and the third largest hub for tech start-ups in the world. With talent attraction a major focus for much of the world, we began to wonder what makes a destination the perfect incubator for successful tech start-ups. What are the magic ingredients you need in place?

New research has revealed that people are increasingly less willing to follow the money to big economic and urban centers and are instead choosing to live, work and invest in places that give them better quality of life – and in turn the money is following them.

There are just a few short days left until the City Nation Place Awards shortlist is announced for 2020! We took the opportunity to ask one of our jurors, Adam Joyce, VP of Acceleration, Calgary TELUS Convention Centre, to share a few of his thoughts around the key challenges facing place branders as we head in to the new decade.

With the new decade looming large on the horizon - and technology continuing to develop rapidly - how will place branding need to evolve to face the new challenges? Jos Vranken, Managing Director at NBTC Holland Marketing, shared a few of his predictions for the future of place branding.

In 2011, Vibe Israel began the task of igniting new conversations that would challenge the international perception that Israel was little more than a site of conflict. Before the City Nation Place Global conference, the CEO of Vibe Israel, Joanna Landau, explained to us what they mean by "bottom-up country branding" and how they worked to implement such a monumental image change.

We can all agree that tourism promotion is an essential component of a city, nation or place’s economy, right alongside a solid economic development strategy. In 2018, travel and tourism generated 10.4% of all global economy and created 319 million jobs – that works out as a global average of 1 in every 10 people whose daily income is reliant on tourism.  And yet for some reason, when the going gets get tough and budgets need to be cut, everyone seems to turn their eyes to the place promotion budget.

At the start of September, over 80 delegates representing over 25 countries across the LatAm and Caribbean region made the journey to San Jose in Costa Rica for the first City Nation Place LatAm & Caribbean conference.  It’s always such a pleasure to bring place branders together – the willingness to collaborate and share ideas defies the assumption that place branding is all about competitiveness. 

Promoting a destination can be a challenge when its overshadowed on the world stage by another city. But for Kim Heinen, International Press Officer at Rotterdam Partners, embracing your differences – and even your “quirky and ugly sides” can be the key to reaching an audience who truly appreciate your place. We caught up with Kim before the City Nation Place Global conference to get a quick sneak preview of the work that Rotterdam have been doing.

Sustainability is increasingly seen as an intrinsic element of a place brand strategy - both in terms of managing your environmental impact and the longer-term impact of policies and strategies on your community. With the deadline for the #CNPAwards approaching, we asked Leigh Dawber, Chief Marketing Officer for Cape Town Tourism, how she feels that places should work to embed a more sustainable approach into their place brand vision.