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IntroductoryFinal
note
programe
Communication actions
in today´s city branding & marketing
INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP
DONOSTIA-SAN SEBASTIAN, 21-22 APRIL 2015
Introductory note
A new ecology of tools
After having focused on the two strategic aspects of integrated city branding, namely:
unifying city narratives, duly translated into strategic messaging and related imagery by
means of brand toolkits (Liverpool, June 2014) and governance, as a matter of bringing
together the range of local stakeholders with a relevant role interacting with different
audiences and target groups (La Rochelle, December 2014), now the third AT.Brand
international workshop, to be held in San Sebastian, enters the more operational ground
of communication action planning.
A first assumption is the deep impact of the digital shift, at a point that increasingly there
is no significant distinction between promotional strategies off-line and on-line, as both
are intertwined. Now, urban identities must be equally constructed at the digital level,
and the experience of place starts in front of the computer screen. Even most innovative
Destination Management Organizations are re-designing themselves, from an
organizational perspective, by means of the digital driver.
Getting awareness of the digital shift´s different angles is important to make the most of
the trend. Thus, as marketing is interaction, new digital media allows the city to reach
easily far-located target audiences and “open conversations” with them throughout a
kind of return communication. As said, thanks to the digital shift, new tools have emerged
adding new dimension and enriching the experience of place in real time by both visitors
and locals. Furthermore, digital media enable refined and affordable tools to measure
local community involvement with the city brand.
However, addressing the question of communication channels & actions in today´s city
branding and marketing is not only a matter of migrating to digital-based initiatives. The
challenge for cities is to make a choice on their particular mix of different tools, which
may include all-time formulas but now duly revisited, along with others coming from a
wider concept of what communication action can be.
In re-thinking “classical” formulas first discussion is about the role of advertising and
campaigning. It is a fact city branding has been closely associated to overall, expensive
campaigns, only affordable to a few, which to some extent has damaged the reputation
of the field, particularly in a context of financial and economic crisis affecting many local
governments. Unfortunately, a conventional marketing approach, along with the
dominant role of branding and advertising agencies, still push in that direction. Anyhow,
the creative side of advertising can be seen as a challenging effort aimed at producing
an outstanding and synthetic combination of core messages and images. That is, the last
test tube where the unifying city proposition is distilled, successfully or unsuccessfully.
Introductory note
Ambassador networks is another well-known tool to deliver city´s messages and
qualifications as well as to promote local engagement around the city brand. However,
its potential is not always fully exploited because of lack of concrete assignments and
work plans for all the people recruited. The same for the big events, or better said singular
events, as they have great potential to be capitalized in terms of communication and
global positioning for the host city, especially if they are consciously leveraged upon
existing city values, as Liverpool is doing with music and music festivals. Other smart
strategy is making the most of the big event in a way that it can be expanded and
transformed into a new city value. That is what Barcelona has brilliantly done, turning the
annual organization of the World Mobile Congress into Mobility as cross-cutting theme
which is deliberately contaminating many other activities and events in the city all over
the year. In a short period of time, it has resulted in new value creation and Barcelona is
also branded now as “mobile world capital”.
Indeed, a wider understanding of the concept of communication action is certainly a
key driver to address action planning in the context of city branding/marketing, and a
way to unleash the field from the constraints of a campaign-based logic. Thus, reinventing the visitor centre (this time also showcasing flagship urban projects and ongoing
emergent dynamics in the city, therefore places that might target the local population as
well), re-freshing official city merchandising (for instance re-interpreting old icons from
contemporary design, as part of high-quality policies of city representation), low-cost
guerrilla tools and other soft actions for promoting without “selling the city”, they all can
make a difference if are well articulated to conventional communication initiatives.
But the new frontier in city branding and marketing deals definitively with getting
adapted social media-based tools and crowdsourced techniques in order to boost
engagement, interaction and co-creation with the different city´s target groups, in
particular with its own residents and stakeholders. It´s more credible when third parties
also talk about the city than just “official storytelling”. In Nantes, for instance, bloggers are
now at the heart of the tourism office’s digital strategy. And these tools, suitably curated,
can be a solution in updating and keeping fresh on a permanent basis the range of city
stories. The rise of an active citizenship and civil society, digitally educated, and their
ability to personalize and share city experiences is opening new exciting opportunities in
many aspects of urban development.
Miguel Rivas, Grupo TASO
Introductory note
21 April
VENUE: KURSAAL, Avda. de Zurriola, 1 - 20002 Donostia/San Sebastián
http://www.kursaal.eus/en/
09.15 – 09.30
Registration
09.30 – 10.00
SESSION 01 OPENING
Welcome words by Juan Karlos Izagirre, Mayor of San Sebastian City Council.
Fomento San Sebastián's strategy: positioning Donostia as a city of
innovation. Euken Sesé, Director of Fomento de San Sebastian, Economic
Development Agency.
10.00 – 10.40
SESSION 02 SETTING THE CONTEXT: URBAN INTERNATIONALIZATION TODAY, THE
VALUE OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION
David Adam, Global Cities.
Q&A. Discussion time
10. 40– 11.30
SESSION 03 PARTICULAR SETS OF COMMUNICATIONS FROM OUTSTANDING
PRACTICES
Things that we do to promote Zurich internationally as business hub
Lukas Sieber, Head of Communications, Greater Zurich Area AG.
Integrated brand communications: It’s Liverpool
Peter Smith, Marketing Liverpool,
Q&A. Discussion time
11.30 – 11:50
Coffee-break.
11.50 – 12.40
SESSION 04 CAPITALIZING BIG EVENTS IN TERMS OF CITY´S COMMUNICATION
From the Mobile World Congress to the Mobile World Capital: creating new
city value to Barcelona
Jesús Moreno, Marketing, Advertising & Sponsorships Director of Mobile World
Capital Foundation.
Expected impact of the European Capital of Culture 2016 to San Sebastian´s
international positioning
Pablo Berástegui, Director of San Sebastian European Capital of Culture 2016
Q&A. Discussion time
Introductory note
12.40 –13.30
SESSION 05 BRANDOFFON
Andy Stalman, Identity & Branding Expert
Q&A. Discussion time
13:30 – 14:30
Lunch break
14.30 – 15.20
SESSION 06 DISRUPTIVE WAYS OF DOING
Connect Ireland, the ambassador formula revisited
Joanna Murphy, Chief Operating Officer of Connect Ireland and Philip
Moynagh, Vice President of the Internet of Things Group at Intel Corporation.
VisitOslo, how we are re-thinking our organization by means of the digital
driver
Bente Bratland Holm, CEO of VisitOslo.
Q&A. Discussion time
15:20 – 16:20
SESSION 07 CROWDING TOGETHER THE CITY´ STORY
City narrative 2.0: what´s going on in Dublin?
Robert Hughes, Dublin City Council
Cardiff Unscripted, capturing the essence of the city in a digital era
Louise Prynne, Marketing Director, Cardiff Business Council/ Cardiff Council
and Darryl Corner, Senior Video Producer, Media Wales.
Cork - helping Ireland’s second city have more conversations and do more
deals
Roger Hobkinson, Director, Colliers International.
Q&A. Discussion time
16:20 – 16:40
SESSION 08 DEBRIEFING | Communication channels for the city: old formulas
revisited and new paths
Miguel Rivas, Grupo TASO
20.00
Dinner
Introductory note
22 April
VENUE: TALENT HOUSE, Paseo Duque de Baena, 42 - 20009 Donostia-San Sebastián
http://www.fomentosansebastian.org/talenthouse/index.php
09.15 – 09.30
Registration
09.30 – 10.30
AT.BRAND STEERING GROUP MEETING
Please note this session is for AT.Brand project partners only.
10.30 – 11.30
FOCUSING BRAND COLLABORATION ACROSS THE ATLANTIC, PART I
Interactive session and discussion introduced and conducted by Roger Pride,
Managing partner at Heavenly Group, on the basis of the consultation and
deskwork carried out within the AT.Brand framework.
11.30 – 12:00
Coffee-break.
12.00 – 13.00
FOCUSING BRAND COLLABORATION ACROSS THE ATLANTIC, PART II
Interactive session and discussion conducted by Roger Pride.
13.00 – 14.00
Pintxos lunch
City tour: bus shuttle to CicNanogune + Graphenea; IK4-Ceit, Tecnalia, and
other city hotspots
20.00
Farewell dinner (only for AT.Brand partners)
Introductory note
Workshop format and registration
This is cross-learning
AT.Brand workshop in San Sebastian is a small event, seized to promote discussion on
innovative city branding among peers. It is basically organized by practitioners for
practitioners. That is why it is important the relevance of the different city delegations
participating in the workshop in terms of capacity for policy decision-making.
Leaving apart classical meeting culture
The international workshop in San Sebastian will be very horizontal, with no keynote
speakers and no boundaries between contributors presenting case studies and other
participants – even meeting room´s layout will work in that direction. Contributors who
make a presentation and then leave are not welcome. No passive attendance.
No uncritical presentations without clear messages. Do not tell just about lights, we are
also interested in learning from the shadows and failures. Presentations might be
approached as food for critical discussion with all the participants. Discussion time will be
at the core of the meeting.
Open event
Participation in the workshop is open to any senior practitioner, expert and scholar
working in the field of place branding, and it is free, although registration is mandatory
and subject to admission by the organization committee since the workshop´s capacity is
limited. Registration includes participation in the workshop sessions (sessions of interest for
a wide audience will be concentrated into one full working day), workshop materials,
coffee and lunch breaks and social event.
For any consultation on the registration procedure, please contact Elisabeth Jorge,
Donostiako Sustapena - Fomento de San Sebastián, elisabeth_Jorge@donostia.org
Introductory note
AT.Brand is a partnership of six cities – Dublin, Liverpool, Cardiff, La Rochelle, San Sebastian
and Faro, plus the Conference of Atlantic Arc Cities, working on three areas: i) crosslearning on innovative city branding, open to any interested practitioner; ii)
implementation of pilot actions in each of the participating cities, matching specific
needs and with high potential for transferability; iii) and exploration on trans-national cobranding in the Atlantic area, including open consultation to a wide range of stakeholders
in the macro-region.
Representative of AT.Brand lead partner: Robert Hughes, Dublin City Council,
robert.hughes@dublincity.ie
Local organization team for San Sebastian´s workshop: Elisabeth Jorge, Donostiako
Sustapena - Fomento de San Sebastián, elisabeth_Jorge@donostia.org, Tel +34 943482800
Scientific co-ordinator for San Sebastian´s workshop: Miguel Rivas mrivas@grupotaso.com
Introductory note