The nine steps of place branding

Looking to create a place branding strategy for your local area? Follow these nine steps.

In this section:

Step 1 - Why are you doing it?

Firstly, it is important to arrive at an understanding of why you are doing this work, and this needs to be shared and agreed at a senior level within the organisation.

Step 2: Ownership, governance and budget

Once the strategic objectives have been set, it is important to establish the ownership of the project.

Step 3: Where are you branding?

This is the first and often the most contentious issue in any place branding project.

Step 4: Research

Before you start to build your brand, you should build a research phase into your project.

Step 5: How are you going to do it?

At some point in this preparation stage you need to think about the practicalities of brand-building and implementation.

Step 6: Brand building: your story of place and the visual identity

Before you go anywhere near the visuals, or creative concepts for the place, you need to get your narrative nailed down.

Step 7: First collateral

Now you have your place brand, you can use it to create your first collateral.

Step 8: Using your brand; visibility, longevity, value for money

A place brand may not be for life but it should certainly have a lifespan of five or so years if it is to reach its full potential.

Step 9: Evaluation

Now that you've invested a lot of time and resource into your place brand, you need to think about how you are going to evaluate it and prove your Return on Investment (ROI).