It was an enormous privilege to be asked to deliver a keynote at the latest ‘Joining the Dots’ event in Dublin as part of the Connected Places Catapult hosted by Dublin City Council and delivered in collaboration with the British Embassy. The event kicked off with a fantastic evening reception at the world famous Guinness Storehouse where we, along with sixteen local authorities from Ireland and the UK, were welcomed by the British Ambassador to Ireland, Paul Johnston and the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Daithí de Róiste who emphasised the importance of collaboration and best practice in regard to economic development in this case via place branding.
The following day saw a welcome from the Lord Mayor, Dublin City Council and reflections from Katherine Fitzpatrick, UK Honorary Consul for the South West of Ireland. Our good friend Clare Dewhirst, CEO of City Nation Place delivered the first keynote, The What, Why and How of Place Branding with some great international examples of best practice. Our founding Director, John Till then took a look at what makes the difference when creating and implementing a successful place brand in a session entitled ‘putting the pizzazz into your place brand … what makes the difference? ’with a host of UK exemplars. During the day we heard some compelling case studies from Dublin, Limerick, West Yorkshire, Glasgow, West Midlands, Cork and Donegal and there were excellent panel discussions.
Our takeaway from some passionate debate centred around the challenge of branding major regions/geographies in a way that doesn’t disenfranchise the places within them, the risk of brand (or logo) proliferation that causes confusion, the importance of engaging stakeholders as the place brand salesforce, place branding is about ‘fuzzy geography’ not artificial boundaries, no local authority or place marketing organisation can deliver success by themselves it needs a coalition of the willing, why do places have separate invest and visitor brands when there is only one place and make sure you have the right messages for the right audience.
A really insightful event that pushed the boundaries, some very frank and constructive discussion, friendships made and amazing hospitality.
