Expert Partner City Nation Place

We’ve been attending City Nation Place’s events for a number of years now – usually the UK conference, and this year the Global conference too.

After working closely with Martin Boisen to develop York’s place brand, we have been developing our place branding practice in the UK in collaboration with our urban design and place-making chums HemingwayDesign. We were originally inspired by the positive impacts place brands have had in many European cities through a shared values-based approach. No logo, no problem. No cute strapline, that’s fine. This was clearly about uncovering what a place actually stands for, believes in, and how that is distinctive from the next town over. We wanted to see more of that practice in the UK, so we took on the challenge. We look to create a place brand as a decision-making tool, enabling places to improve their programmes and planning through their shared values. We’ve seen how this creates a ‘positive feedback loop’, where over time a place demonstrably improves and shifts perceptions. The places we want to work with is judged by its actions, not its words – although this naturally follows.

Whilst this practice is pretty well embedded across Europe, in the UK we’ve found a mixed picture. Some clients want to do some nominal consultation and rush to marketing outputs. They might launch the place brand when it doesn’t need to be launched. Some lead agencies want true co-design but can’t quite let go of control to put power into the hands of their partners, stakeholders and communities. It’s a ‘first past the post’ mentality in a ‘proportional representation world’. As a nation of places we’re moving, but we can move more, and faster.

And we have some great clients who absolutely ‘get it’. FutureHumber is making waves with their many partners – and has already helped to secure £ms of government investment for the Humber region, just a few months after finalising their place brand. York continues to hold its nerve and say ‘yes’ to the ‘right’ investment, and is confident in saying ‘no’ where they don’t align with their values. Solent has worked hard to define its place ‘alliance’, and is finding more routes to build a growth partnership based on a shared vision.

Places are complex, fluid organisms. So, place branding is not easy, and it shouldn’t be – to develop, activate and maintain. But we still champion avoiding shortcuts when designing your place brand. That’s what provides longevity, sustainability and genuine impact, long after any (metaphorical or literal) ribbons have been cut.

We’re delighted to announce our partnership with City Nation Place, bringing our data-driven insights and culturally-led perspectives to a fantastic global place brand conversation. You’ll see us chipping in on their monthly provocations ‘Ask the Experts’, and a couple of articles on the website across the year. We look forward to listening, contributing, arguing and learning within this great CNP community.