When so much of place marketing is about encouraging people to live, work, invest in, and visit your place, your thriving private sector is living proof of your place’s appeal. Your private sector is a significant factor in your external reputation. Think of Switzerland’s reputation for luxury watches and fine chocolate, a reputation that is built on the legacy of their private sector.

However, tapping into this resource isn’t always easy. On the surface, it may not seem to your private sector that your objectives align, and for those who do believe in your vision, they still have full-time day jobs to manage.

So, what can you do to cut through the noise and show your private sector partners the value in your work? Ahead of City Nation Place Global, we reached out to our speakers to understand what they’ve found to be effective tools in engaging their private sector in their place brand and marketing vision.

Understanding your private sector partner as an audience

According to H.E. Nouf Mohamed Al-Bushlaibi, Executive Director of Strategic Marketing & Communications Sector, DCT Abu Dhabi, their approach to place branding and marketing “strategically prioritises collaborative engagement with the government and private sector, recognising them as a key audience and as essential partnerships.”

The word ‘audience’ is an interesting one. Like with any audience, your private sector has distinct needs and objectives, and your messaging should reflect these requirements – which will likely change depending on the maturity of the company.  But do you do the research to understand what those challenges are and how you can provide a solution?

“In collaboration, we always aim for win-win,” shared Asbjørn Overgaard Christiansen, CEO of Copenhagen Capacity, “which is why we ensure that the private companies’ pain points are targeted when we are engaging them in our work with place branding.

With KPIs and budgets often tied up in econometrics associated with visitor or investment attraction, investing the resources into profiling your existing private sector can be a challenge, but it’s essential to building a long-term partnership. Even a handful of quick Zoom calls can unearth a treasure trove of information that you need to get the nuance right in your messaging.  Involving private sector leaders on your Board should also provide essential insights.

Providing training

Training is a vital component of engaging your companies in your strategy. Jess Radford, Director of Place Branding & Operations at Brand Tasmania, told us that they’ve used workshops as a platform to engage partners in the place brand, creating a suite of workshops that build on each other.  “Starting with a ‘Brand Storytelling’ workshop, our partners learn about the Tasmanian brand story and how to write their own individual story,” Jess explained. “Follow-on workshops take this storytelling approach and translate it into the digital space.”

Adriana Acosta, Country Brand Director for Costa Rica, shared a similar approach with us, stating that “Essential COSTA RICA organises free training for companies on topics related to the vision of the country brand, and provides networking spaces to educate about trends in marketing, commerce, and tourism,”

The notion of place branding is a complex one. By offering training, you can unpack what place branding means, your strategy and vision, and how your work can support your private sector in achieving their own objectives.

As Jess highlighted, it’s important to develop a feedback loop to ensure that you’re delivering against the needs of your private sector: “We always get feedback from our partners on what workshops they would like so we can continue to evolve this content and make sure it meets our partners’ needs.”

Licensing your brand to your private sector

As we mentioned at the start, your private sector is an integral place branding asset, purely because so many of us form opinions of a place through the products that we consume. You may never go to France, but you’ll likely have had a glass of Champagne, and you might not have been to Germany, but you’ll have driven in one of their cars.

In an ideal world, the relationship between private sector and place branding should be symbiotic. A company has as much to gain from leaning into your values, as you do in having concrete proof of your high-quality exports. Licensing the use of your brand to your private sector is an excellent way to formalise this partnership and add legitimacy to your partners reaching out into new markets.

“The Essential COSTA RICA licensing programme allows a direct approach with more than 750 companies from different sectors,” Adriana explained. “Companies that are part of the licensing programme ensure their alignment with the core values of the [nation] brand: innovation, excellence, sustainability, social progress, and Costa Rican roots.”

Brand Tasmania’s Jess Radford concurred, sharing that their partners have “enthusiastically taken up the opportunity to be part of the Tasmanian certification mark programme because they understand how this programme helps differentiate Tasmanian products in local, national, and international markets.”

Putting the spotlight on your private sector

Your private sector can also serve as ambassadors for your place by participating in your communications.

Copenhagen Capacity’s Asbjørn Overgaard Christiansen highlighted that previously, Copenhagen’s talent attraction campaign had failed because they focused too narrowly on communicating the hard facts: the number of hiring companies, Danish salary levels, living costs. In short, it didn’t resonate with their target audience. “We found that the soft measures and messages of life quality, work-life balance[,] flexibility, etc are working much better,” Asbjørn continued. “And we always include the private companies in these messages to ensure a trustworthy communication with real-life examples from specific companies.”

Talk is cheap. But incontrovertible proof of your message is invaluable.

“In the Greater Toronto Area, private partners have been instrumental in advancing a common narrative across the region,” explained Daniel Hengeveld, VP Investment Attraction at Toronto Global.

By bringing together key partners, the investment promotion organisation has positioned the region as a world leader in the semi-conductor and hardware tech cluster – and validated their positioning by showcasing their existing private sector experts. “This collaboration, involving city, academic, and private partners, has since attracted additional investment from firms like Marvell, Cerebras, and Astera Labs which have grown the ecosystem significantly,” Daniel added.

Understanding the private sector perspective

Ultimately, the answer is to build strong relationships with your private sector, and to continually keep your finger on the pulse of what support you can provide.

As H.E. Nouf Mohamed Al-Bushlaibi, DCT Abu Dhabi, shared with us, “our engagement with our stakeholders is built on trust and collaboration, enabling these key relationships to thrive. These partnerships and the knowledge sharing they bring about are crucial to ensuring our strategy is comprehensive and adaptable to evolving market needs.”

To understand the private sector perspective in more detail, we’re partnering with FDI Intelligence to discover what motivates private sector leaders to engage with place brand teams, and when and why place is perceived as important to business success. The findings of this research will be unveiled at City Nation Place Global in November – join us in London to find out more!

Adriana Acosta, Essential COSTA RICA, H.E. Nouf Mohamed Al-Bushlaibi, DCT Abu Dhabi, Daniel Hengeveld, Toronto Global, Asbjørn Overgaard Christiansen, Copenhagen Capacity, and Jess Radford, Brand Tasmania, are just a few of the expert speakers who will be joining us at City Nation Place Global this November 6-7. Check out our agenda to find out more!