More than Just Lines on a Map: Best Practices for U.S Bike Routes
Jeremy Hildreth Getting Reputation of Places Right
1. “Doing” place branding right:
axioms | questions | techniques
Jeremy Hildreth
Creative director, WhereBrands (UK)
Kyiv, Ukraine, 8 December 2010
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2. From Confessions of a Dangerous
Mind:
“When you‟re young, your potential is infinite. You
might do anything. Nearly. You might be
Einstein...you might be DiMaggio.
“Then you get to an age when what you might be
gives way to what you have been.
“You weren‟t Einstein. You weren‟t anything.
“That’s a bad moment.”
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3. With a place this moment never comes.
You are always young.
You always have potential.
4. So okay…
Right now, you are not Sweden.
You are not California.
You are you.
Make the most of that.
5. The meta-process:
1. Figure what your story is.
2. Determine what your story should be.
3. Tell the revised story directly.
4. Get the revised story told indirectly.
5. Make the story stronger and more true.
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9. Five axioms of place branding:
1. Brand image and brand identity are not the
same thing.
2. There‟s only so much “best practice” one place
can learn from another.
3. By and large, you must earn your reputation.
4. Perceptions are stickier than you think.
5. If you can‟t be perfect, you can at least be
interesting.
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10. 1st axiom of place branding:
Brand image and brand identity are not the
same thing.
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13. Let’s be clear:
Logos, flags, colours, songs, websites and so on:
…brand identity
What people have in their heads about you:
…brand image/reputation
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14. Place branding question:
Do you realize that “working
on your brand [identity]” may
not help your brand
image/reputation?
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16. 2nd axiom of place branding:
There‟s only so much “best practice” one
place can learn from another.
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17. Wally Olins
“When it
comes to
images, most
countries aren‟t
France. Most
countries are
Paraguay.”
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18. Most mess up very basic things:
It definitely should have said:
Vilnius, Lithuania | European Capital of Culture ‘09
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19. Place branding question:
Are you selectively imitating
only relevant success models,
and mostly doing you own
thing anyway?
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20. 3rd axiom of place branding
By and large, you must earn your
reputation (and it must fit you).
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23. Place branding question:
Is the reputation you want
obtainable, & worth having?
In the meantime, are your interim claims
credible and/or sensible?
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24. 4th axiom of place branding:
Perceptions are stickier than you think.
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25. Q: What one factor has the
biggest affect on future
perceptions of a place?
A: Current perceptions!
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29. “Writing is
easy – until
you think
about the
reader.”
Ernest Hemingway (?)
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30. “I leave out
the bits that
people tend
to skip.”
Elmore Leonard, novelist
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31. Place branding question:
Are you respecting your
audience? Does your story
genuinely justify their
attention?
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38. Five axioms (recap):
1. Brand image and brand identity are not the
same thing.
2. There‟s only so much “best practice” one place
can learn from another.
3. By and large, you must earn your reputation.
4. Perceptions are stickier than you think.
5. If you can‟t be perfect, you can at least be
interesting.
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40. Top technique 1:
Be substantive.
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41. Symbolic actions (Anholt)
“A particular species of substance that happens to
have an intrinsic communicative power:
– They might be innovations, structures, legislation, reforms,
investments, institutions or policies
– which are especially suggestive, remarkable, memorable,
picturesque, newsworthy, topical, poetic, touching, surprising
or dramatic.
Most importantly, they are emblematic of the strategy: they
are at the same time a component of the [place‟s] story and
the means of telling it.”
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44. Top technique 2:
Label your exports.
(Label stuff that‟s Ukrainian as Ukrainian,
and do it in an interesting way.)
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47. Label wines (and other Chilean exports) in a way
that characterises* and conveys „Chilean-ness‟ and
teaches people something about the country.
* or even mythologizes
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48. Use creative, clever labeling:
• Made by Chileans, the British of South America.
• Made in Chile, the most stable, safe, prosperous
and democratic nation in South America.
• Chile: Latin America‟s success story.
• Product of Chile, home of 55 active volcanoes.
• Made in Chile, called “the thin country” by the
Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo
Neruda.
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49. MADE IN UKRAINE
Tell a little story.
Plant an idea in the mind.
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