Strategic Brand Consultancy
If you were to ask me to name the least-understood concept in branding, I would say "brand personality." Plenty of insightful approaches exist for discovering a brand's purpose and promise. There are universally-accepted methodologies for developing brand identity and architecture. Marketing communication is -literally- a science. But I have yet to hear a branding expert …
Continue reading "How to create a brand personality for a place that stands out?"
This is the fourth instalment of a series of “systematic problems of placebranding projects” illustrating the roadblock faced by the brand Guadalajara. These essays are intended to help practitioners -both city officials and consultants- to launch more successful and resistant brands. (Read the earlier instalments here and here, and here.) Problem #6: Overlooking the change management side of the …
Continue reading "What went wrong with brand Guadalajara? Part 4/4"
This is the third instalment of a series of “systematic problems of placebranding projects” illustrating the roadblock faced by the brand Guadalajara. These essays are intended to help practitioners -both city officials and consultants- to launch more successful and resistant brands. (Read the earlier instalment here and here, and the subsequent one here.) By using the weak start of …
Continue reading "What went wrong with brand Guadalajara? Part 3/4"
This is the second instalment of a series of “systematic problems of placebranding projects” illustrating the roadblock faced by the brand Guadalajara. These essays are intended to help practitioners -both city officials and consultants- to launch more successful and resistant brands. (Read the earlier instalment here and the subsequent ones here and here.) Let’s recap what we have discussed so far. …
Continue reading "What went wrong with brand Guadalajara? Part 2/4"
This is the first instalment of a series of “systematic problems of placebranding projects” illustrating the roadblock faced by the brand Guadalajara. These essays are intended to help practitioners -both city officials and consultants- to launch more successful and resistant brands. (Read the subsequent ones here, here and here.) Here we go again. Another city branding project is dealing with a …
Continue reading "What went wrong with brand Guadalajara? Part 1/4"
It has become a familiar narrative: A city, region or a country launches its new visual identity, only to learn that its habitants hate the logo's guts. From Toronto to South Australia, and from Caribbeans to Latin America nobody seems to be happy with the brand that is supposed to represent them. Sadly, that has grown to be a …
Continue reading "Keys to successful place branding – Part 1"
This is the last installment of our interview with Jose Filipe Torres, the founder of Bloom Consulting. This week, we talked about Bloom Consulting’s Country Brand Rankings. What makes it special? How it works? And why you should care… Click to read the first and the second part of the interview. There are very respectable country brand …
We are continuing our conversation with Jose Filipe Torres, one of the vanguards of country branding. We talked about success, failure, limits and dreams. This is the second installment of a three-article interview series with Jose Filipe Torres. Click here to read the first part of the interview. Why do country-branding projects fail? I would say 90% of …
Continue reading "Does every country need a global brand? (continued)"
Meet Jose Filipe Torres, one of the best-known country branding practitioners in the world. We had an opportunity to pick his brain on the most pressing issues related to place branding. We asked, he answered. Candidly… This is the first installment of a three-article interview series with Jose Filipe Torres. Without further ado let’s turn …
Continue reading "What do countries really mean when they say “We need a brand”?"
Working with a destination is arguably the toughest brand assignment. Experts, such as Simon Anholt think that you cannot "brand" a place in the traditional sense of the word. As someone who got involved in a couple of place branding projects, I tend to agree. Here is why. Based on my personal experience, many branding projects …