Cities And Their Image

The city was always the place people would go to, but there are more and more cities that are well equipped and cater to the users needs, which makes that cities are in a competitive market. In a competitive market a city needs marketing and branding otherwise there is no income out of tourists. The marketing is used to cope with vacant retail property, annoyed tourist and angry people living in the city. The city has to sell itself to its users to keep them living there and coming there. First world problems such as safety become important in cities if they want to grow and keep the tourists coming. How attractive is a city where tourist can hardly move or have to queue up to visit attractions and residents are ambushed on their way home?

Branding A City

Branding comes from a vison plan a city has. The city government is steering the city as a business is steering its products. It is something which has become necessary because people want their first world problems solved or they don’t visit the city anymore. A bad experience can be bad publicity for the city and its attractiveness to other tourists. Here branding comes in and rebranding. Branding is creating an image for the city the government of the city, its inhabitants and its entrepreneurs want. This can be done based on an icon of the city, history, etc. The Domtoren in Utrecht is the icon Utrecht will always use in its outings to tourist, icon branding. Amsterdam is rebranding itself by rebranding the surrounding region as part of Amsterdam, Zandvoort as Amsterdam Beach. It is still Zandvoort and the tourists will know that when visiting, but before they visit it in the brochure it is Amsterdam beach a new destination in Amsterdam, destination branding. These examples give the cities power on how the world sees the city. It is also the way to attract a different kind of tourist. It is all in the message the city is communicating. In City Branding image is everything! And icons and history are the way to create an experience economy that represent the City Branding the city has chosen. Another good example is the creation of ‘Hanzejaar’ by 9 cities in the eastern part of The Netherlands. They want the tourist visiting them to do more than biking and hiking and preferable stay longer. They use history, Hanze time to brand themselves. From 1 april till 31 December 2023 there will be all kinds of events all over the 9 cities around Hanze time to entertain long and short stay tourists. Through this the 9 cities create income to spend on renovating their city and keeping their inhabitants happy. A lot of events involve promoting local business, renovating the area around the events and making the city reachable by public transport. From this all the inhabitants of the city proffer and this make them want to keep the tourist coming in the tourist season. The inhabitants can even get a budget for their own event to entertain themselves and tourists.

City Marketing

Branding comes from a Marketing plan. A marketing plan is made after a long-term vision is set for a city. Utrecht was selling all the broken roads at first as we are renovating the city for our children. It was on all the billboards around Utrecht Central. This marketing plan came from a vision that Utrecht has to grow to a certain amount of inhabitants before 2030 to keep its position as the 4th city of The Netherlands. The difference between City marketing and City branding is the time set. City Marketing is long-term, and branding can be short term to promote a region or part of a city. By making Zandvoort known as Amsterdam Beach it becomes a destination to tourist visiting Amsterdam. It attracted by using this name tourists and formula 1. And now it is known by foreigners as the formula 1 beach circuit, and it can slowly kick out the name Amsterdam beach. Zandvoort now attracts its own tourist on its own name but couldn’t have done it without working together and teaming up with Amsterdam. Zandvoort is now renovating, building and attracting (high end) tourist it hadn’t before.

Hanzesteden And City Branding

After the lockdowns people kept more around their own house/surrounding when playing tourist. Also the foreign tourist stayed away. The cities missed a lot of income on events being cancelled. Therefore cities had to rethink the way they branded themselves, which tourist they wanted and how to attract tourist, which wouldn’t annoy the residents of the city which were the cash cows during the lockdowns. Seeing their own inhabitants as tourist they have to entertain besides attracting foreign tourists is the new way to do City marketing and City branding. The 9 Dutch cities in eastern part of The Netherlands are doing this by making the Marketing plan for Hanzejaar together with its local business and residents. The local business and inhabitants were invited at first in focus groups to participate in thinking what the marketing strategy of the city would be for a few years. After the plan was set the local business and residents could get a budget to cater their own ‘Hanzejaar’ event in their own city (Alphabetical order): Deventer, Doesburg, Elburg, Harderwijk, Hasselt, Hattem, Kampen, Zutphen and Zwolle. The importance of this way of marketing is keeping the local business and inhabitants in the city and catering to their own needs. But also creating understanding for nuisance when the big events are held as Dickens festival in Deventer. All 9 cities are working together on their marketing and promotion in foreign outings. Even their agenda is planned the way that they don’t bite each other in attracting the same tourist. Some events are planned in the way that tourist can stay in the region and bike to the next Hanze city for the next event.

City Branding And Its Consumers

City branding is there to cater the consumer, tourist visiting the city, but also the local businesses and the residents living in the event area of the city. All of them have to get the message that they are welcome in the city and what is happening in the city. The Local business and inhabitants can even participate in branding the city by organizing events or cater products around events. A lot of business in the 9 Hanze cities participating in ‘Hanzejaar’ are catering special Hanze products. Some products are historically correct, and others are grown or produced locally. Doesburg has its mustard and Harderwijk has its guide guild. To guide in Harderwijk a guide must be a member of the guide guild. Doesburg mustard can only be produced around Doesburg. By doing this the quality of the products have a minimum standard and employment is created locally. The consumer is certain of the quality of the product it is buying, where it is produced and how.

Women As A Brand To Sell More

Another popular marketing is marketing directed toward women. Women are being seen as the ones with buying power, with catering to their needs others needs are also catered. Nowadays a product should have more colors then at the time of mass consumption. Only new products sell with mass consumption marketing and then only for a short time. People are only happy with a product when it solves their (first world) problems. The new marketing (women marketing, City marketing, etc.) needs to:

• Solve the problem

• Improve life

• Speak the language of the consumer

• Balance the life of the consumer

• A product has to have a story. The consumer wants to know who produced it, how it is produced and for what else the product can be used.

Women marketing is about expanding the product and taking it from mass production to solving the problems of each unique customer. This benefits product diversity and makes a product sustainable, which makes customers loyal to brands. From then on, a product sells also through mouth to mouth.