Ni Pengfei speech at News release on Chinese urban competitiveness No.5

Ni Pengfei speech at press release on Chinese urban competitiveness No.5

Updated: 2008-08-30 16:12:11

Due to the globalization and internetization of the modern world, the international competition of the city becomes more and more fierce. In this escalated competition, brand competition becomes the commanding height. This report takes “city branding-the city’s most beautiful scenery” as its theme and summarizes the general strategic approach and experience of city branding on the basis of urban branding research literature of domestic and foreign cities. This report also designs a city branding index system that contains more than 70 third class indicators from the perspectives of functional cognition and emotional experience. The report also constructs the city branding index, which consists of the subjective cognition and comprehensive evaluation of the public over the city’s brand image. Standardized quantitative comparative study is done in this report over the overall-brand index and sub-brand index of more than 50 cities in China on the basis of data acquired through a number of research and surveys.

The report also finds: cities with high urban competitiveness tend to have higher index scores in terms of brand index. For example, the overall-brand indexes of the core cities in several major regions are much higher than the data of the rest and thus steal the show. In terms of various types of sub-brand indexes, each city has its own merits and all perform quite well, in which: the branding in coastal cities grows at a fast pace while the inland cities’ cultural advantages to be further excavated; resource-based industrial cities are burdened by its old development pattern are urgently to await development and improvement of their brand images; strong positive correlation exists between branding efforts and brand image; for example, cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou successfully highlighted and promoted their brand images by organizing events (Olympic Games, World Expo, the Asian Games); in addition, performances of cities like Qingdao, Dalian and Chengdu are also exciting due to their constant efforts on the construction of city brands, and so on.

In terms of the basic strategic framework for city branding that includes four strategic areas, namely: positioning of city branding, planning of city branding, marketing of city branding and managing of city branding, this report carefully chooses more than ten cities from different areas, of different sizes and with different cultural and institutional context as the case study objects on the basis of follow-up studies of more than one hundred international case cities. These cities include: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Toronto, Birmingham, Singapore, Stockholm, Fort Saskatchewan, Seoul, Hamilton, Amsterdam, Atlanta, Hong Kong, and so on. Based on the case studies, this report summarizes and introduces the international experiences in leading edge in terms of city branding, which is of significant reference value to the construction progress of city branding of mainland cities of China. In addition, based on the combination of international experiences gained from successful cases and relevant theories, the report also points out that some of the major problems still exist in the city branding process in China, which mainly indicated as in the following eight areas:

Firstly, disordered and weak positioning: brand positioning is the most basic and important part in city branding. Yet problems as inadequate manifestation of advantages, offside and misplace positioning and weak positioning are commonly existing in brand positioning of cities in China. City brandings such as “City of Leisure Enjoyment” and “City of Romantic Experience” are obviously lacking of adequate integration and substantiality.

Secondly, uncertain and changeable promotion: city branding positioning in China tends to be uncertain and shakable, which results in frequent changes in policies. In terms of brand promotion, sudden changes happen all the time, some cities even reluctant to take any further actions for in a very long period of time, which causes a serious lack of continuity and stability in city branding. The consequences can only be the hollow phenomenon in city branding, which can mean all of the branding efforts are likely to end in vain.

Thirdly, the lack of international vision: the design of city branding lacks of international elements and vision, which is not only bad for the city in its international competition, but also greatly reduces the value of the effort invested in city branding in China.

Fourthly, coarse and indiscreet design: the design of logos in China fails to properly demonstrate the unique characteristic and identity of each city. In addition, it also fails to meet the professional design standards, this in turn, significantly affects the quality and effect of the city’s brand image.

Fifthly, inadequate non-governmental participation: most of the city branding process conducted in China are government-led and commonly lack of participation of social and private sectors. Inadequate non-governmental participation reduces the emotional appeal and cohering function that city branding should have.

Sixthly, the craving for short-term effects: many cities are keen to pursue short-term and sensational effects, thus they tend to overly depend on tactical city promotion or city marketing and would usually neglect the long-term planning and steady construction of city branding. They tend to mistaken promotion and headline-grabbing for city branding. Efforts spent on short-term-oriented city branding can easily degenerate the projects into costly “vanity projects”.

Seventhly, communication that emphasizes the markets in foreign countries and ignores the domestic market: a problem commonly seen in the city branding promotion in China is that they tend to always emphasize the markets in foreign countries and ignore the domestic market. The negligence over the communication with audiences in domestic market will eventually cause the city branding to lose the heart and support of the audience, which will consequently cause the city branding to descend to self-deceiving false propaganda.

Eighthly, the absence of brand management: the current situation of city branding promotion in China is whoever initiates the promotion is responsible for its management, or there is an initiator but no manager; thus great randomness and limitations are caused in the market. Absence of brand management, particularly the absence of the governance-based city branding management, reflects the fact that our government system and public administration fails to adapt themselves to city branding trends.

Despite the fact that there is currently not a single professional case of city overall-branding in mainland China, yet encouraging progress has already been made in the construction of city sub-branding. The report selects four classic cases in which city branding accelerated the development of urban competitiveness in four cities from the four perspectives of city branding for business, city branding for tourism, city branding for livability and city branding as place of origin; and also briefly summarizes the specific experience acquired by each individual city that being analyzed.

In terms of business environment optimization and business brand construction, the experiences of cities like Shaoxing, Nanjing, Nanchang, and the Hong Kong are precious. The report excavates and introduces the experiences of Shaoxing in its “cultivation of market players and development of massive economy”; the experiences of Nanjing in its “insistence of opening up policy and practice and regulation of government services”; the experiences of Nanchang in its “launching of nation-wide entrepreneurship and perfection of entrepreneur services” and the experiences of Hong Kong in its “keeping a foothold in local region and taking a broad view of the global market”.

In the formation of city branding for tourism, experiences acquired by cities like Hangzhou, Ningbo, Shenzhen and Shanghai demonstrate distinctive characteristics of each individual city. The report excavates and introduces the experiences of Hangzhou in its “co-branding strategy and city-targeted marketing”; the experiences of Ningbo in its “professional marketing planning and improvement and revitalization of tourism brands”; the experiences of Shenzhen in its “cultivation of modern civilization and innovation of a famous tourism city” and the experiences of Shanghai in its “moderate market operation and effective government services”.

In the formation of city branding for livability, cities like Weihai, Chengdu, Nantong and Zhuhai assured success given the right assistance and each showed its own special prowess. The report excavates and introduces the experiences of Weihai in its “insistence in the theory of coordination and usage of market rules”; the experience of Chengdu in its “preservation of deliberate traditions and leading the trends of leisure”; the experience of Nantong in its “creation of prevailing practice of valuing the education and the perfection of social security” and the experience of Zhuhai in its “constructing projects to draw investors and achieving work in content by creating livable environment”.

In addition, the report also considers cities like Beijing, Qingdao, Quanzhou and Chongqing to be the successful examples of the city branding as place of origin. The report excavates and introduces the experiences of Beijing in its “simultaneous construction of preservation and innovation and attachment of equal importance to cultural and economic development”; the experience of Qingdao in its “keeping a foothold in international standards and adherence to the strategy of famous brand”; the experience of Quanzhou in its “relying on industrial clusters and creating self-owned brand” and the experience of Chongqing in its “occupying the big markets with the ‘small products’ and winning the world market with unique characteristics”.

The report emphasizes that urban competitiveness is closely associated with the city branding. Therefore, city branding is not only an important task and issues in urban management, but also is an effective means and a strategic leverage to enhance city competitiveness.

This Blue Book published by Social Science Academic Press is the fifth annual report of Urban Competitiveness of China done by the research team, in which, the research and survey concerning city branding has been strongly supported by Sina Real Estate Channels. The theme of the report takes a proactive approach and has objective commentary. It is rich in content, informative in data and has important reference value to the decision making and research of government from different levels, especially the city governmental departments, domestic and foreign enterprises, relevant research institutions and the public.