Why Cities Need to Create Their Own Global Brands

MKTG 3343
Erin Larson

       Cities all over the world seek to attract not only tourists and foreign investments, but also competitive global population centers. To do this, these centers must strategize and brand themselves in order to appeal to knowledge workers, institutions, cultural and sporting events, and even film shoots. Greg Clark expressed the difficulty of assigning personal identities to cities: "Cities aren’t simply products or companies, so it’s easy to make mistakes." Cities must appeal to all aspects of a culture, and therefore logos and slogans are inherently useless in global branding. Clark said the best route for success would be in bringing together city representatives, recruiting citizens and city institutions to build an alliance, align existing events and marketing with a story, and review progress annually to develop additional approaches. 

        Since cities are "engines of economic development, sustainability, [and] social mobility" they tend to affect rural areas as well, and can benefit from city success. Since the number of global cities is increasing with every year, visibility and differentiation is the key. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-cities-need-to-create-their-own-global-brands-1492394882