Dissertationen zum Thema „City branding“

This paper looks at the perceptions of people within and outside of Jönköping, regard-ing the main attractions/attributes within the Jönköping region and how they are being branded by the municipality. A model was formed to explain how consumer expecta-tions affect demand, and based on that a survey was handed out to find out consumers travelling habits, general perceptions about Jönköping and its branding. The results show that promotion has not been as successful as hoped and that Jönköping is still seen as a religious city among the respondents. A Las Vegas Entertainment Concept was formed to find out whether people would be willing to visit Jönköping more often if something „new‟ was presented. In conclusion, for consumers to visit more often new experiences have to be provided. It is all about the way Jönköping city is marketed in the future and what it will be able to offer to the different consumer segments visiting.

There is a mutual dependency between the business world and the country’s municipalities. The municipalities are dependent on the companies to create work and tax income while the companies are dependent on the municipalities they are located in to provide good infrastructure among other things.

Apart from this the municipalities can work activly with creating a strong brand in the eyes of the companies and many researchers in marketing agree that marketing of places will be more common in the future. Marketing of municipalities is however still a rather new and unexplored area and it is uncertain how and to what extent the municipalities work with this.

The thesis is formulated:

How are the municipalities working to market towards companies and is it possible to make out any positive change from these marketing efforts?

The goal of this study is:

Our goal is to examine how the view of marketing of places differs from different municipalities in the Stockholm region, how some of these municipalities work with this and how far they have come in this work. Further, we want to study if any connected between the municipalities work with marketing and the local corporate climate in each municipality can be found.

For this study, the municipalities of Solna, Haninge and Huddinge were selected and personal interviews were conducted with employees responsible for marketing at the municipalities. We also analized statistical data from Svenskt Näringsliv to compare what the companies in these three municiapalities think of the local corporate climate.

The result show that all three municipalities work actively with marketing of their brand towards companies but at different extent and they have come different lengths in this effort. Since the municipalities haven’t come very far in their work with branding we have unfortunately not been able to detect any effect from these efforts with regards to the local companies’ view of the municipalities.

Det finns ett ömsesidigt beroende mellan näringslivet och landets kommuner. Kommunerna är beroende av företagen för att skapa arbetstillfällen och skatteintäkter medan företagen är beroende av att kommunerna de är verksamma i bl.a. erbjuder en god infrastruktur.

Utöver detta kan kommuner arbeta aktivt för att stärka sitt varumärke gentemot företagen och många forskare inom marknadsföring menar att marknadsföring av platser kommer att bli en allt vanligare företeelse i framtiden. Fortfarande är marknadsföring av kommuner dock ett nytt och outforskat område och det är oklart hur och till vilken grad kommunerna arbetar med detta.

Problemformuleringen lyder:

Hur arbetar kommuner för att marknadsföra sig mot företag och kan man urskilja någon positiv utveckling ur denna marknadsföring?

Syftet med undersökningen är följande:

Syftet är att kartlägga hur synen på marknadsföring av platser skiljer sig mellan olika kommuner i Stockholmsområdet, hur några av dessa kommuner arbetar med detta och hur långt de kommit i sitt arbete. Vidare vill vi undersöka om det går att se någon koppling mellan kommunernas arbete med marknadsföring och det lokala företagsklimatet i respektive kommun.

I undersökningen valdes Solna, Haninge och Huddinge kommun ut och personliga intervjuer genomfördes med marknadsföringsansvariga på de tre kommunerna. Vi analyserade även statistiska data från Svenskt Näringsliv för att jämföra vad företagen i de tre kommunernas anser om det lokala företagsklimatet.

Resultatet visar på att alla tre kommuner arbetar med marknadsföring av sina kommuner som varumärken men de har kommit olika långt i detta arbete. Eftersom kommunerna ännu inte kommit så långt i detta arbete har det dessvärre inte gått att urskilja någon effekt av detta arbete vad gäller företagens attityd till kommunerna.

Slutsatsen som vi kunna dra av denna undersökning är att kommunerna arbetar mycket med att hålla en nära kontakt med företagen för att skapa en god kommunikation men att varumärkesbyggande blivit en allt viktigare del i kommunernas arbete. Detta arbete har dock nyligen tagit fart och det är därför svårt att urskilja någon direkt effekt i företagens syn på kommunerna.

The purpose of this study is to ascertain how present methods in branding, used in private sector companies, are or could be transferred to the public sector organizations.

It is done by means of a case study of Micasa Fastigheter done through participating observation. It also includes a survey of key decision makers included in the branding process, on different political and administrative levels.

Swedish municipalities’ and county councils spend over 50 percent of the Swedish gross national product, their operations affect most individuals just about every day and information and advertising from and about the operations of public sector organizations (PSOs) is vital for the existence of the citizens. How the PSOs communicate what they spend the tax payers’ money on has its own set of rules. The operations of PSOs are controlled by quite a number of laws and regulations. None of the laws apply directly to the methods of communication, yet PSOs have historically been very strict with most types of marketing. The results show that in the last couple of years this has changed and municipalities in particular have started to actively work on and communicate its brands. Stockholm is no exception. The reason for the change is the development of marketing in non-profit organizations, the occurrence of social marketing and image marketing and possibly the globalization and Internet.

Micasa Fastigheter is a municipal company that has gone through a branding process during the past 2.5 years. The company has step by step passed through the same stages in its branding process as a private company, the only exception being the very little advertising. It is thus possible for a municipal company to brand itself without clashing with the laws and regulations that govern the public sector. A result that, according to my survey, is due to a maturity in marketing issues amongst decision makers in the City of Stockholm, a general focus in the Swedish society on branding and, the people in charge of the branding process.

A look at the municipality of Stockholm is a good start since most trends start in the capital but a more thorough look at a substantial number of Swedish municipalities would be interesting for future study.

Traditionally, branding is all about differentiate the product from its competi-tors. When the brand is a place another level of complexity is added. A place has several different stakeholders that all have to communicate the same mes-sage in order to create a strong brand. Place marketing is a rather new theoreti-cal field and not many researchers have explored this phenomenon, therefore, there does not exist any common practice within this line of study. Compared to a product the stakeholders of a city often have quite different objectives, and therefore there is a risk that they communicate messages that contradict each other. Which features of a city is needed to create a strong brand?

The purpose of this thesis was to expore how the stakeholders within the city of Jönköping can cooperate in order to build a strong city brand.

The authors have chosen to focus on a qualitative method and personal inter-views as the primary source of information. The respondents that participated in this study were influential persons in leading positions within the main stakeholder groups in Jönköping, that is the public sector, the private sector and the university. Further the Managing Director of FMJ was interview. In order to determine, which of these stakeholders that were of interest the authours have used the snowball approach. To complement these findings secondary data, including three attitude surveys, have been analysed.

The authors have concluded that Jönköping does possess a few quite strong brand associations, however, the problem that the city has is the lack of an suf-ficient product to sell. A couple of years ago Jönköping established FMJ to take care of the external marketing and since than it has been many improve-ments, nevertheless the authors believe that another form of cooperation is needed. The city would have to develop a new organization with the base within the municipality, but it should include all the important stakeholders. The main tasks of this cooperation would be to integrate these stakeholders and build a strong product, which should emphasis the most important fea-tures of the Jönköping.

Städer blir i dagsläget mer och mer konkurrensutsatta och trenden är att samhället förändrasfrån ett industrisamhälle till att vara mer upplevelseorienterat där framför allt turistnäringen blir allt viktigare. Genom strategiskt varumärkesbyggande har städer möjlighet att skapa sig ett starkt varumärke som kan frambringa en konkurrensfördel.

En svensk stad som har arbetat framgångsrikt inom detta område, som i teorin kallas city branding, är Göteborg genom sitt bolag Göteborg & Co som aktivt jobbar med marknadsföring och destinationsutveckling. I denna studie undersöks hur Göteborg & Co har arbetat med att utveckla Göteborg till en framgångsrik destination.

Undersökningen har genomförts genom en kvalitativ studie med respondenter från samtliga affärsområden inom Göteborg & Co. Resultatet visar på att varumärket Göteborg har skaffat sig en styrka genom Göteborg & Co:s arbete med faktorer som långsiktighet, helhetstänk, framtidsvisioner och framförallt; samverkan.

Today cities are getting more and more exposed to competition from other cities around the world. The community is changing from an industrial community towards a community focused on experiences where the tourism industry is more important to cities to survive the competition. Through strategic branding cities have the opportunity to create a competitive advantage.

A Swedish city that has been successful in this subject area, theoretical called city branding, is Gothenburg. They have through their company Göteborg & Co been taking an active part in the work of marketing and destination development regarding the city of Gothenburg. This paper survey how Göteborg & Co through development has been working to make Gothenburg become a preferred destination for tourists, meetings and events.

The survey has been carried out through a qualitative method with respondents working in all different business areas within Göteborg & Co. The result shows that the strength in the brand Göteborg have been created through Göteborg & Co:s long-term work which is symbolized by factors like overall thinking, future perspective and most important;

cooperation.