The Reading Room

Destination Branding

Jon Linton

Destination Branding for Small Cities – The Essentials for Successful Place Branding, Bill Baker, Creative Leap Books, Portland Oregon, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-9797076-0-5.

Destination Branding – Creating the Unique Destination Proposition, second edition, Nigel Morgan, Annette Pritchard and Roger Pride (edited by), Elsevier Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-0-7506-5969-7.

Here are two useful books on the topic of destination branding, and they complement one another in an interesting way. Bill Baker’s Destination Branding for Small Cities is a very nuts-and-bolts, “how to” type of book, that describes a linear process through which a smaller community can undertake a successful identity-building and branding process. (It’s a sort of “community branding for dummies” approach, and that’s not in any way intended to disparage a straightforward and simple approach – the Consulting for Dummies book is an oft-referenced work on my own bookshelf. But I digress.) The second book, Morgan et. al.’s Destination Branding – Creating the Unique Destination Proposition, on the other hand, consists of a series of readings representing different perspectives on the branding process, and reflects upon some key contemporary issues in the overall approach to destination marketing.

Baker’s book is built around the concept of “seven steps to building a community brand,” all using the letter “A” for ease of remembering (and, not surprisingly, he calls it the 7A process). These steps lead towards the development of what he terms a “Destination Promise” (a trademarked concept). The Destination Promise:
... encapsulates the positioning, benefits and value proposition that distinguishes the place from competitors. It acts as a vision and roadmap to deliver superior value to customers and forms the driving force for all marketing and experience delivery efforts in order to establish competitive advantage. (p. 184)

The seven steps that the book recommends be followed in order to develop this Destination Promise are as follows:

1. Assessment – This initial set of activities is devoted to determining the inventory of branding assets that the community possesses (through interviews, focus groups, comparative assessments with other communities, etc.)
2. Analysis and advantage – Once the inventory is complete, the next step is to determine the community’s competitive advantage: what will the city become known for? (This is the point at which the Destination Promise is developed.)
3. Architecture and alignment – This third step looks at the relationship between the overall community brand identity and the various sub-brands within the community (experiences, places, organizations, etc.) from the perspective of their fit and alignment with the overall brand
4. Articulate – The next step involves determining how the brand will be expressed: through key words and phrases, taglines, photographs and images, logos, visual identity, etc.
5. Activation – This step looks at how the brand is to “come to life” through advertising, website development, public relations activities (which he maintains are more important than advertising), brochures and word of mouth – he argues, quite reasonably, that an integrated communications strategy is required, and suggests that a brand management manual or reference policy be developed to guide those using the brand
6. Adoption – This step in the process is devoted to engaging the various stakeholder partners in the launch and on-going implementation of the brand management strategy.
7. Action and afterward – The final step (which is really a continuation of Step 6 in my view – but who am I to quibble?) examines ways to keep stakeholders engaged, and ensures that the brand remains fresh and relevant.

Morgan, Pritchard, and Pride’s Destination Branding – Creating the Unique Destination Proposition is a series of essays written by luminaries in the field of destination marketing. The book is divided into three sections. The first deals with contextual issues around the art and science of destination marketing, primarily in terms of nation-branding (although there is much here that will be of interest to municipal and regional branders as well). The second section is devoted to various challenges that will increasingly face destination marketers in the future: political directives, technology (Internet) opportunities and constraints, and the on-going need for accountability. The third section gets into the really fun stuff: case studies of destination branding in practice. Particularly fascinating are the profiles of how events are used to brand cities (Philadelphia) and countries (Australia); how the Lord of the Rings was used for maximum leverage effect in New Zealand; how a sport – golf – was used in the branding of Wales to challenge other major golf-oriented destinations; how music and cuisine were used in the pre-Katrina branding of Louisiana; how Singapore was positioned as the hub to the “New Asia”; how the friendliness and capabilities of the people of Shanghai were used in the development of their brand; and several others. Although Baker’s 7A process isn’t mentioned specifically in this book, one could easily imagine that the kind of process these destinations went through in identifying their respective competitive branding advantages was similar to his (and I am thinking particularly of Step 2 here).

These two books make a great companion series for anyone involved in the process of community branding and marketing. Useful and interesting! MW

From the April 2010 issue of Municipal World

Check out Jon’s bio on the Municipal World website.