I collided with place branding, place marketing and place in Hull 27 years ago.
It was sort of an accident. I’d been working as Marketing Director at a food services company which despite lovely people wasn’t my thing. Whilst there I rebranded their entire own brand range working with the late and truly amazing Aidan Kirby of Wolff Olins. He commented they’d been doing a small project in Hull where they needed a Director to develop a brand programme to put the city on the map. A mmm moment; my university city but no team, no budget and the other coast to where I lived! Clearly a match made in heaven but I went and to my horror was soon on the front page of the Hull Daily Mail as the person to help turn Hull’s image around! 7 amazing years there led me to form thinkingplace.
Recently I was back and well, Hull is so underrated and always has been with quips such as ‘Hull isn’t at the end of the world but you can see it from there!’ What sums it up is it was voted Crap Town and then won UK City of Culture! Hull has personality and a sense of place like few others because of its trading history, role in Europe, fishing and more that which gives you street names like ‘Land of Green Ginger’ and historic pubs such as Ye Olde White Hart and Ye Olde Black Boy which of course I revisited. 🙂
Despite the heavy bombing of the second world war so many historic buildings remain and they sit cheek by jowl with the new Hull Football Stadium, the world’s only submarium The Deep, a totally cool regenerated Fruit Market, a concert arena, city residential, new offices by the waterfront to name but a few. I was even pretty excited to see a road … the newly remodelled A63 to the port costing a mere £355m and relieving massive congestion, talked about for years now finally delivered. I then had the pleasure of walking round the transformed Queens Gardens modernising the historic park in the city centre, it was Hull’s largest dock before being filled in during the 1930’s and they have made a fantastic job of it.
Coming soon is the complete £27m refurbishment of The Hull Maritime Museum housed in a beautiful Victorian listed building with way more exhibits on display, this is Hull’s DNA. All part of a Maritime Masterplan which has seen the refurbished Spurn Lightship reopen for tours at the Marina and the Arctic Corsair Hull’s last surviving distant water side winder trawler undergo a huge conservation programme before opening in its own dry dock later this year.
Oh and Hull City are back in the Premier League! and Hull KR are the dominant force in rugby league.
Hull has been on an amazing voyage of transformation and just walking around made me pretty emotional to not just see the change but more importantly to ‘feel it’. The city has its mojo back and an air of confidence seen and heard in the many pubs and eateries. Sure, it still has many challenges but it is now properly celebrating and projecting forward what made it special. My visit to Hull reminded me why I love what I do, that all places can evolve and transform without destroying their sense of place and I’m not ashamed to say I shed a little tear of pride for the journey Hull and I have been on.
John Till, CEO, thinkingplace
