Branding a city deals primarily with planning, organizing, and communicating the image of that city. A city brand represents intangible products and provides unique configurations of environment, culture, and tourist attractions. Building a better city brand has been on the agenda of many city governments for years.
A city brand is now one of the important factors affecting the competitiveness of a city, attractiveness for entrepreneurs, talents, investments, and tourists. Today, successful cities need to be branded like corporations and products. It’s possible for a city to have a brand that represents a place of quality. This will, in turn, establish brand loyalty, leading to the economic success of the city.
Hong Kong’s uniqueness lies in its internationality while being part of China — and that applies in many areas, including finance, trade, tourism, and higher education. Hong Kong’s positioning as Asia’s world city is built on a solid foundation of competitive strengths. Strategically located at the heart of Asia, Hong Kong is a metropolis offering global connectivity, creativity, diversity, and entrepreneurship coverage in a free, secure, and dynamic environment. Hong Kong is home to a unique network of people who celebrate quality living.
The idea of branding Hong Kong emerged around 1997. In 2000, the Commission on Strategic Development recommended to the then-chief executive that Hong Kong needed to promote its unique position as one of the most cosmopolitan and vibrant cities in Asia to a wide range of international audiences. To prepare for the launch of the BrandHK program, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government appointed a team of international communications experts to research the city’s core values and attributes, and develop a strategy to position the city. The findings concluded that the positioning as “Asia’s world city” best reflected the city’s unique features — Hong Kong as a natural, vital, and multicultural gateway not only to and from the Chinese mainland, but also to the rest of Asia and beyond. The core values of Hong Kong as a world city include freedom, entrepreneurship, quality living, innovation and excellence.
According to the world famous Anholt-Ipsos City Brands Index 2020 based on six aspects (international status, physical appeal, amenities, warmth of inhabitants, activities, educational and business qualities), London was the world’s top city brand, with Sydney, Paris, New York, and Rome rounding out the top five. Tokyo ranks in the second tier (11-20), with Singapore, Seoul, and Hong Kong in the third tier (21-30). Hong Kong’s ranking is lower than Tokyo, Singapore, and Seoul. It means that Hong Kong has to put in more of an effort to catch up with these cities in the Asia-Pacific region.
City branding is not only a promotional activity; it also should be considered a strategic process. So, city branding should be a vision-driven process in order to be successful.
At the end of the day, maintaining and consolidating a good city brand requires a huge pool of talents. We need to attract more talented people to Hong Kong.
A key challenge of city branding is the difficulty of ascertaining a city’s identity and core values in a manner that is widely acceptable, easily marketable, and presentable. In this light, strategies of product branding may be less appropriate in the context of a city where ownership, stakeholder involvement and branding development are more complex. As opposed to the branding of products, city branding is more multidimensional.
The process of creating a city brand must be coordinated from the combined expertise of two disciplines: from the perspective of marketing technique; and from the viewpoint of urban development strategies, including socioeconomic and planning. The branding can be deemed a success if it can deliver core urban values that are valid, distinctive, and communicable.
The establishment of a city brand cannot be achieved by putting forward only slogans. It can be attained only by setting up appropriate brand positioning, coupled with full-scale brand management work, to reflect its brand equity. If the positioning is unclear, and there is no long-term planning, it will be difficult to set up a good city brand.
In 2004, the brand development and management of Germany’s second-biggest city, Hamburg, was declared a priority, and the more traditional destination marketing approach was replaced by strategic city branding. This integrated approach embraced the idea of “one city — one brand” with a focus on external communications and continuity. It built close ties among related parties, such as urban planning and policymaking. It kept a balance between hard (infrastructural) and soft (cultural) factors. Control mechanisms and processes were defined to ensure the effectiveness of city marketing and to facilitate close collaborations in the interest of the city. By aligning the city’s branding project with the needs of the local population, it has gained relevance, authenticity, and ultimately, credibility. After the launch of the effort, Hamburg saw the rise of large-scale events such as the Reeperbahn Festival and the Hamburg Cruise Days.
Hong Kong’s value proposition as a global nexus of business, communication, transport, and culture needs to be more clearly spelled out. The positioning of a city brand is closely linked with its direction of future development. The building of the city brand of Hong Kong depends on the goals of its long-term plan: to be a hub of high technology innovation and specialized services. Its city branding should manifest Hong Kong’s image as a city of quality. As such, city branding needs to be a joint effort of the government, business, and the community in general, with the government taking the lead.
City branding is not only a promotional activity; it also should be considered a strategic process. So, city branding should be a vision-driven process in order to be successful.
At the end of the day, maintaining and consolidating a good city brand requires a huge pool of talents. We need to attract more talented people to Hong Kong.
The successful return of the Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament in November 2022 marked the beginning of the city’s push to return to normal life after the COVID-19 pandemic. The flagship event, with its carnival atmosphere and intense sporting action, signaled that the city is on the way back to restoring its worldwide known brand name.
The author was the former head of financial management (general manager) of Bank of China (Hong Kong), director and deputy general manager of Nanyang Commercial Bank, and alternate director of Shanghai Commercial Bank.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.