The Marketing discipline abounds with the letter P playing various roles as essential ingredients towards the attainment of various goals. We have:

• The traditional 4 Ps of Marketing (Product, Price, Place and Promotion)

• The more contemporary 6 Ps of Brand Marketing (People, Product, Price, Passion, Pleasure, and Purpose)

• The 7 Ps of the Service Mix or Service Marketing {Product (Service), Price, Promotion, Place (Distribution), People, Process and Physical evidence i.e. packaging}

• And the more recent 6 Ps of Destination Marketing (People, Place, Prerequisite, Pulse, Presence, and Potential)

In the last article we discussed those 6 Ps that determine the success or otherwise of City Brands; this week, we will continue in that same direction by examining one more P, one without which, any well conceived, integrated and executed Place branding strategy incorporating the 6 Ps will only ensure that a City Brand becomes another one of many standard Place Brands.

Simply put, such cities will not stand out, especially for something unique in the global game of place branding.

For a minute, ponder…

• Why would I want to go the extra mile (literally) to visit your city?

• Why would I want to spend my hard-earned resources in your place?

• Your place is naturally beautiful and developed, but so are mine and several thousand other places worldwide.

• Your people and their culture are friendly and exciting, and so are numerous other colorful people and cultures worldwide, even much closer by.

• Your City is familiar and has huge potentials …big deal! So are several others.

PECULIARITY

Just as is essential for product and service brands to stand for something unique and desirable, a Destination Brand must represent a singular idea in the marketplace of city brands. Being synonymous with something is to be guaranteed a certain level of mindshare among several competing places, and the market share that follows this.

Peculiarity is not the same as Presence which only has to do with familiarity and a city’s contribution to global affairs in recent years. It is that Unique Selling Point USP, the singular superseding idea that a city embodies in the mind. It is the one compelling thing that gives people worldwide a justifiable and compelling excuse to visit a place. It is the solid foundation for a city’s perception.

MILAN AND STYLE

For example, sometimes last year, one of my bosses, renowned for his sartorial eloquence went on a trip to Europe. Before departing, he informed us he would be stopping by in Milan; and when he revealed his only reason was to get some tailored suits et al, other directors wasted no time in advancing funds for him with requests that he got one or two items for them too. It then dawned on me that this stylish Italian city must be earning lots of tourist dollars from those who appreciate the tradition and authenticity of Italian style.

Thus apart from its world famous soccer teams, AC Milan and Inter Milan, the city of Milan is famous for fashion and style. An ever-cogent reason to come calling and come a-spending. A unique platform, which effectively positions Milan in the mind, and will always make it stand out.

SOURCES OF PECULIARITY

A city can build its own peculiarity on a varying number of platforms. These include the following:

• Nature-based Peculiarities

The perceptions of some of the most successful and enduring city brands are those that are steadfastly tied to one or a combination of their peculiar histories, natural attributes, as well as cultures e.g. Athens, Milan, Paris, Rome, the Caribbean, and the cities of Brazil, among others.

This nature-based positioning is most sustainable as it is founded on those attributes that come natural to a place. Although, these attributes may not necessarily be exclusive to a place, but making the peculiarity claim and promoting it will register it in people’s minds.

• Man-made Peculiarities

Some strong city brands’ positionings have been successfully founded on man-made peculiarities involving one or more of special infrastructures, peculiar commercial activities and potentials, as well as special events that are unique to these places.

Examples include the ‘Sin City’ of Las Vegas, the Glamour City of California, the Tinseltown that is Hollywood. Even Switzerland and its cities are peculiar for their special style of banking.

• Social Class

Also, based on the level of special infrastructures available, some cities differentiate along the line of social class. These places are peculiar by their positioning as exclusive preserves of the high and mighty. Examples include the French coastal town of Monaco and its peculiarity as destination for the extremely rich.

HOW TO BUILD PECULIARITY INTO A PLACE:

Building Peculiarity or a semblance of such into a Place can be a daunting task, as it usually is with a product or service brands. For those rare places with especially unique natural features, it could be fun to do, as what would be required is to claim this ‘stand-out’ attribute(s) through well-articulated communication plans that not only create awareness for the place, but also induce patronage.

Actually, it’s not as simple as that; for those city stakeholders who have realized, and are desirous of the enormous benefits of professionally branded cities, whether there’s a natural basis for peculiarity or not is not as essential as getting their city branding right!

Thus, the following steps would surely be instructive:

1. Envision Your Place in the Committee

As a stakeholder responsible for the destiny of your place, take a moment to think, what is your vision for the place? How do you see your place as it is (the present) and how do you see your place in some years to come (the future)?

Building any great brand always start with a mental picture; so you must begin with a vision of where you hope to see your city, compared to other places in your region or even in the globe, in the nearest future.

Whatever your vision is, it must be informed both by a realistic understanding of where you (as a place) are and what you have in terms of human and material resources, as well as an aggregation of your people’s aspirations.

• Identify a Differentiating Platform

Having a natural Point of Differentiation from other cities or places may be easy to do for certain special places, especially those with uncommon natural attributes relating to scenic beauty of a place, the landscape, the weather, or the people and their culture.

But for those places that are not so peculiar, a platform does not actually have to be exclusively unique, it could be just a point of strength fashioned out based on certain ‘created ways of life’ or a shared attribute with some other places (as in a special qualities or capabilities) such as highlighted previously in this piece; being first to claim and project such attributes could help in developing peculiar perception.

• Develop a Place Promise

The values of having a well thought out Value Proposition for any brand cannot be over-emphasized; and for a city, it is its promise of value to be delivered to citizens, residents, and visitors at all times.

This Place Promise or Value Proposition will form the fountain that gives life and direction to all other activities relating to building the place into a successful brand, such as the formulation of the City’s Slogan, the development of the requisite infrastructures for taking the Place to its envisioned land (especially with regards to the chosen peculiarity platform), as well as other brand building tools like communications and events marketing.

Whether the unique platform chosen is natural or man-made, it is the Place Promise, through a well-articulated City slogan, that will project this peculiar platform to the outside world, and attract prospects so that they can have a feel of what a place has to offer. However, a Place Promise must be Desirable (at least to the target), and Deliverable at all times

The latter point is essential so that visitors’ experience of your place will be consistently reaffirmed, which will eventually buttress the desired perception, and secure your city’s positioning.

• Formulate City Slogan

As earlier stated, the City Slogan will draw from the Place Promise; but because tag-lines are usually (apart from logos or other visual identity elements) the take-homes for the target market and the general public, the slogan formulated for a Place must in a subtle way perform the following functions:

• Communicate the city’s attributes: its brand character, style, and personality
• Relay the city’s message in a clever, fun, and memorable way
• Highlight the Differentiator i.e. that Unique platform; and
• Play the ambassador by inspiring visit or relocation

The benefit of having a compelling city slogan is manifest all around us:

• Lagos as ‘the Centre of Excellence’
• New York as the ‘Big Apple’
• Cross River as ‘the People’s Paradise’
• Japan as ‘the Rising Sun’
• Malaysia as ‘Truly Asia’

In some clever ways or another, the above highlighted examples fulfill most or all of the functions City Slogans should perform.

• Establishing Supportive Actions

Now this is the most essential part of the whole process, the development of peculiar prerequisites. It involves the implementation of quite a number of activities ranging from infrastructural development to citizens’ orientation, as well as the implementation of Marketing Strategies that support your chosen special platform and affirm your City Slogan.

With particular regards to this topic, the nature and level of infrastructures to be provided must, to a great extent, be informed by the nature of your positioning platform. Certain aspects of your prerequisites must reaffirm your unique point of difference. These infrastructures could be either physical facilities or institutional infrastructures.

For example, a city that wishes to position on the platform of entertainment must put in place those facilities that will support world class entertainment; while a place that wishes to be taken as a ‘center of commerce’ must necessarily have amenities that sustain world class commerce and trade.

In this area, the need for a Public Private Partnership is required. In some cases, After the Government has chosen a positioning (or realized an existing peculiar platform to project), what might be required of them is to create the statutory and institutional framework, while the private sector plays their part by investing in those set of activities that justify those infrastructures.

This point also reinforces the earlier point about needing to understand your place and its strength, as well as carrying along the people.

However, city stakeholders must not for the sake of standing out for a particular thing, neglect having a reasonable level of infrastructural development across board; remember investors and corporate organizations are always interested in establishing in those places deemed developed. Therefore, while the peculiar prerequisites are necessary for your positioning, general prerequisites are sufficient grounds for playing the Destination game.

• Integrate the 6 Ps

I will not waste precious time dwelling on the 6Ps (Place, Prerequisite, Presence, People, Pulse, and Potentials) and the need for their integration. But it helps a great deal to ensure an evenhanded level of success across all those essential Ps.

And if this is adequately achieved, they can help in projecting a city’s positioning more than any other measure could. What more could be more convincing than having the Presence and Pulse of your Place, saying the same thing as your People and the available Prerequisites?

• Communicate! Communicate! Communicate!  

‘Of what good, is a Diamond that nobody sees?’

After taking the pains to go the extra mile in developing your city’s Peculiarity, your Place Promise and Positioning must be sufficiently communicated.

Essentially, it’s not as straight forward as it sounds, much more is necessary than just communicating a place’s uniqueness, it will not do to just buy advert spaces in the mass media.

For any significant success to be achieved, the communication plan must entail a number of approaches and measures that go beyond advertising across the regular mass media channels, to incorporate other subtle tools of marketing such as Documentary production, PR and Events Marketing, which is proving to be an effective marketing tool for city brands.

On a parting note: seeking out a peculiar platform for your city, building upon it, and sustaining it with a mix of strategies are highly essential, but extremely rewarding at the same time. Peculiarity will eventually provide a distinctive platform for a unique positioning that will be immutable, because it shapes the kind of perception that cradles and sustains an enduring positioning.

SOME CITIES AND THEIR PECULIARITIES

I used the Milan example at the beginning of this article; below is a quick run through some other cities and their peculiarities

Paris and Romance

The French city of Paris is most renowned for romance. This peculiar perception that has become legendary is not unconnected to the French People and their romantic ways of life: there is the French Kiss, their food, perfumery industry, and other peculiarities related to the concept of Romance. A perception sustained over generations by a customary visitor’s experience after experience; a direct advantage of having a people or culture-based positioning.

New York and Commerce

New York City’s popularity as a commercial centre is one reason why it remains attractive to businessmen, investors, and settlers, not only from within America, but also from different parts of the world. Although a number of entertainment-related activities happen in the ‘Big Apple’, it has never attempted to position itself around entertainment; choosing to be known for one particularly strong and relevant idea: Commerce.

And this particular factor is strongly contributing to the ever-increasing cosmopolitan composition of New York City, and to the City’s revenue and prosperity.  

Brazil and Carnival

Beyond its special brand of soccer, Brazil is renowned for its all-year round Carnivals and its fun-loving, people with their attractive and exciting ways of life. Thus, it is not surprising that in a recent finding by one of the American entertainment cable channels, it was revealed that the Brazilian city of Rio De Janeiro, has become the number one vacation destination for the American Rich.

‘Where else would you want to spend your cool money than on the relaxing beaches of this South American country, in the midst of its high-spirited people, and their exciting carnivals?’

Dubai and Tax-Free Shopping

Remember “See Dubai and Buy?” Dubai’s popularity as a destination point worldwide revolves around its positioning as a ‘duty-free’ shoppers’ paradise. A factor that has contributed to this oil rich emirate, becoming one of the world’s most visited destinations.