Part 1: The Landscape

Destination branding has been becoming more popular over the past several years, notably the last decade, with countries, regions, cities and major events trying to create a more powerful and compelling presence. Having work extensively with destinations around the world, it is interesting to address new opportunities and approaches for success.

In a nutshell, for today’s fast paced, complex and competitive global environment, a destination brand can help create differentiation, focus and meaning. It can attract investment, redress stereotypes and endorse change. The risk of destination branding is that it can be superficial and an overly branded approach can trivialize important issues and lead to negative perceptions, backlash and cynicism. The brand can also be politicized, poorly developed and inconsistently executed.

In recent years, most destinations have had a generic marketing approach: broad targeting (honeymooners, seniors, families, culture lovers, young people), generally superficial with vague messaging (“Truly Asia,” “Unlimited,” “Amazing”)  and advertising-centric.  Today (and tomorrow), the process needs to change to result in the creation, expansion and extension of strong brands. Destinations must focus on narrow targeting, prioritizing key channels, innovative marketing practices, making the brand essential and a more strategic approach implementing and bringing the brand to life. In the past, considerable effort was placed on creating the brand strategy and identity, which then tended to be poorly executed, limited in its development and inconsistently applied.

Destinations brands of tomorrow will make as much or more attention to how the implemented and operationalized, who they are addressing and how they are delivering. (rp)

Next:
Part 2: Operationalizing a Destination Brand