Strategic Brand Consultancy
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"
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”?"
Did you know that the success rate of a place-branding project is less than 15%? Turns out that most of the place-branding initiatives are prematurely ended within a year of introduction. You might think that such a high failure rate is outrageous. Unfortunately, as someone who has been involved in a couple of place branding projects, I …
Continue reading "How do you define success for a place-branding project?"
Recently, I have learned that 86% of place branding projects fail. While the research does not explain why, I am willing to bet that one of the principal causes of failure is “thinking stereotypically instead of archetypically,” and go even farther to suggest the only way to successfully brand a destination. Case in point: Ottawa. The picture on the left was taken …