Conscious city brands

I've chosen to show you two of the things that I'm actually writing about in the Brands with a Conscience book. My chapter is on city branding and conscious city brands and it follows quite nicely some of the things that Monica has been presenting. So the question I was thinking about, actually I work mostly with companies and brands that are corporate or organizations and then over the past five, six years I've been working with a few primarily Danish cities and regions, mainly actually helping them define their vision, their political vision but that oftenly has a close connection or at least I've been trying to connect it closely to their brand and how they create an image and an identity towards the outside world. So when we talk about city branding I think a lot of people think about the logos and the graphics and the image created by cities and this logo or this graphic made by Milton Glaser quite a few years back is probably the most famous one and it conveys the culture and the attitudes of the New Yorkers because I think New Yorkers are some of the people who would say that they love their city. That's not a very Danish thing. I don't think any Danes would say that they would be a bit more constricted or confined when they talk about their city. And then I'm sure you know tons of these because you can't go to any destination today without them having adapted the I love whatever town or city or country it is. I'm sure some of you are going to make I love the EU soon, Simon Patterson maybe when you move to Barcelona. And then actually a young graphic designer some 5, 6, 7 years ago I think made this graphic. So it's not I love Copenhagen but it's I bike Copenhagen and I think that quite nicely reflected on a tendency or a trend that was going on. We've been bicycling for many, many years so it's not a new thing and I think Denmark as a country is very good for bicycling because it's flat. So there's an obvious good idea in bicycling. And then over the past I mean we've had bike lanes for many, many years but over the past 10, 15 years especially the larger cities like Odense and Copenhagen has been investing quite a bit in bicycle lanes and trying to figure out how can we help people better bicycle around the city. I brought this picture. I used to live right next to the Dronning-Luises bridge, Queen Luises bridge. And at one point they paved the road or designed the road so that the part of the road that's made for bicycling is now wider than the part for the cars and the buses. And they've also restricted a lot of the car traffic on the bridge or on the entire street. So I think that was quite a shift in the thinking about bicycles that now we prefer the bicycles over the car traffic. And I was involved in promoting Copenhagen as a candidate for the European Green Capital Prize. It's both a prize and it's a role that a city plays within the EU every year. And you have to sort of sign up with all your good ideas and your initiatives to show the rest of Europe how you can be a Green Capital. And Copenhagen won that a couple of years ago. And being in that process I learned a bit about how do we think city planning and how do we think solutions in Copenhagen. And I thought that was quite interesting because it's actually a process that's been given a lot of thought how we create a better place to live and a better city to live in. And one of the economists in the municipality of Copenhagen was talking about a Copenhagen model. And the idea is that you combine several problems and several solutions into one. So that rather than solving a problem one by one you try to think of solutions that will solve several problems at one time. And the bicycling is a really good example of that because when you get more people to ride their bikes in a big city then you solve several problems at one time. First of all the air pollution is starting to become a problem in the city center of Copenhagen. There are a lot of other cities where it's a much bigger problem but it's starting to be a problem here as well. Traffic congestion also a general problem in all big cities also starting to be a problem because people spend more and more time in their cars waiting in queues rather than going to work or having free time with their families and friends. And finally public health across the world there is a problem of obesity and disease coming from obesity. So making sure that people actually exercise physically every day is important in order to have a good sustainable life. And so by making it easier to bicycle you actually solve all of these problems and that has an advantage in terms of cost and it also have an advantage in terms of healthiness and the quality of life. So Frank Jensen the Lord Mayor of Copenhagen I was interviewing him for the book and he said we continually have to invest in making our city more efficient by using data and developing more innovative solutions. One of the ways we can do this is by thinking more holistically and this is a good example of thinking holistically that we try to think about both business and the green environment and people's quality of life and housing and so on. I think these are some of the images that are quite typical for Denmark. Some of you may know the Little Mermaid from Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale. You may have seen Nyhavn. I've promised some of the mating members to just quickly walk by Nyhavn. We are not going to spend time there. You can do that on your own. But it's a very typical image of Denmark and I think a lot of Danes and businesses are trying to create another image of Denmark which is not the old cozy Denmark but also something else. And this is one of the images that I think we are quite proud of because we are creating a new skyline that involves the wind turbines on the sea. Some of the companies, especially Vestas, are producing wind turbines in Denmark and they are one of the world leaders in renewable energy and that's certainly a part of the story that we want to tell about Copenhagen. And I was interviewing our friend Frank who is the mayor about what is it, how did this come about and how have you worked on creating the way that we work with becoming a better place to live and also a better city brand. And he said, this city has always been known for tolerance, openness and collective social responsibility. You have to remember this city hall was the first in the world to marry a gay couple in 89. I'm very proud of that and I think it's a very good example of the identity that we've continued to build on. So and I was actually quite surprised by him bringing such an old example into the conversation because I would expect him as a politician to take credit for all the things he has contributed to. And I think it's true that there is an inherent strength or potential in the culture of Denmark and in the culture of Copenhagen. And I think he is especially referring to the culture of Copenhagen rather than other parts of Danish culture when he talks about this. And I thought you should see the picture. This is actually the couple he's talking about. So that's the first couple being married in Copenhagen. And this is the U.S. ambassador recently also getting married in the same city hall. I think that was just last year. So I think that's also a part of Danish culture and a part of the Danish brand. We were also the first country and especially centered around Copenhagen to release the pornography and allow pornography to be something you could see and use. And one of the things that Frank Jensen is also promoting when he talks about the Danish image and the image of Denmark is these two things. So one of them is Oprah Winfrey visiting Denmark and making a TV program. She's visiting several Danish families and seeing our small flats and how you can live in a relatively small space, a family of four, and still have a very functional design helping you to have a very good level of livability. And then the other thing, as was mentioned before, Monocle has several times pointed out Copenhagen as a very livable city. And that means that the Copenhagen brand is certainly focused also on livability. And a big part of the work that has been done in order to create the image and the city brand is actually not promoting the city but rather creating a city that has a good livability. And by doing that we have created a brand and an image that is quite positive for the Danes. So that's the first good example that I'm also writing about in the Medinger book. The other one, and I thought I'd show you a part of the process that I'm describing and also Nicholas Indt recently wrote a book where I also contributed with this example. And I think Nicholas was quite curious about the process of which we helped the city of Colling create a new political vision and also create a fundament or a basis for creating their city brand. So Colling called me up a few years back. I think it's now three or four years ago, four years ago. And they had actually formulated a new political vision in 2008 and this was only three, four years later that they wanted help and wanted consultants to help them figure out a more focused and more clear vision for the development of the city and for the image building and the brand building of the city. And they had several problems there. A lot of the people and the politicians in Colling had a hard time saying what their vision was even though it was quite recent that they formulated the last vision. It was very clear that it was sort of a mainstreamed city image. People had a hard time saying what's the special thing about Colling. And as a study that had just been made before I started working with them showed that a big part of the Danish population, 57 percent, said don't know when they were asked what is particular or special about Colling. And then a couple of the other statements, for instance this one, 25 percent said that it was a city or municipality that was close to water, beach and nice nature. Now the fact of Denmark is that about 50 percent of the Danish regions and municipalities are close to beach, water and nice nature. So that sort of doesn't say anything about a municipality. Then there's down here 9 percent saying that it has a strong profile within design, art and architecture. So the design of the questionnaire already had this idea of some sort of strength or potential and 9 percent of the Danes answered that they thought that was right for Colling. So what we did was do an anthropological study of the strengths of this place and we looked at their literature, their reports, their strategies. We made interviews with a wide range of people in Colling and participated in different activities that they had and our aim was to find out what are the different alternative stories or narratives of the place and find out what are the potentials of Colling. And I developed a few years back a model that tries to help us just make sure that we have looked sort of 360 degrees around a place or a company or organization to find out what are the potentials or the possible stories and strengths of the place. So we look at history and heritage. We look at their purpose and their ideas about the future and how they act on implementing those ideas. And on the right we look at how they promote themselves, what sort of passionate people are at play and who are promoting what ideas and how they're able of relating around those ideas and those types of communication. So in this case we talked to almost 40 people, long interviews and participatory interviews and tried to find out what are the different potentials and strengths and we found these six strengths or potentials that we wanted to work with. So top right, education and knowledge is one of the cities when you look at the size of the population they have a very big representation of education. One of the biggest business schools and they have a university campus and different other educations. Then they are quite good at entrepreneurship so there are a lot of small companies starting up in Colling. They have several cultural institutions and attractions among them at design museum called Trappholt. Then they have the, they do have the nature and the water and the fjords and it's a very nice area in that sense. They are the municipality in Denmark spending most money per capita on volunteerism so if you want to do a voluntary project helping old people or something like that then they support that very much. And finally they have some design companies. They have a design school and they have as I said a design museum. So design is heavily represented in Colling. Obviously Copenhagen has a lot more design like the Danish Design Centre. We have the Danish Design Museum and so on. But if we look outside the capital of Denmark then this is certainly the place where you find a lot of design and design activity. The funny thing was that in the vision they had from 2008, design was represented but not very well formulated and if you ask people they didn't recognise design as an important part of their identity or their brand. We thought it was quite distinct and so we thought we are going to work with that no matter what and put it in the middle of the strategy that we want to make. We also said nature is not so special because there are a lot of nice places around Denmark and around Europe where you can see beautiful nature. So we are not going to and the other thing is it's quite hard to sort of make nice nature even nicer because the very thought is that it's just there for you to go and enjoy and look at. So it's hard to sort of design it to be an even more important factor. So we had these four other sort of directions and chose to work with them and then we did what I think is also sort of a Danish way, a democratic way of working with your vision and your brand design which was to involve a lot of people in the local community in participating, in choosing and designing what are we going to focus on and how are we going to come about this. So the first thing we did was invite some of the most important stakeholders from the community which was managers from the businesses, people who run some of the communities and ask them to help develop the brand. So we designed a time travel towards the future where they would sort of travel through different situations of their society being the schools and the kids being the elderly, being businesses and sort of think about how would that look in the future if we were to imagine that we would be in one of four different scenarios, each using their strengths to develop what calling would be like. And they presented their results as if they were the mayor of 2022. They even got the nice chain made of pure gold around the neck and made a speech about the future that they would imagine. So we did that and then we did what we called a vision forum and asked some 600 participants from the community to come and join us for a discussion of the scenarios that we were developing. At this point three future scenarios. We also made films that would show the different scenarios so you actually had a representation of what is it going to look like and what do people talk about in each of these three scenarios. So the vision forum and it's saying we are designing calling and we got the local press and quite a bit of press to cover the event and sort of show that this is a bunch of politicians and a mayor and a city who wants to think about the future and develop a better future. As you can see we're in the biggest space we could find in the city which is sports arena and then we've actually designed, you can see one of the scenarios up there, scenario C and outside of the picture are the two other scenarios and this is a point in the process where they're actually choosing between the three scenarios. So the first one is based on design and knowledge and education so we call that the learning design city. The other one is design and volunteerism so that's the voluntary design city and the third one is the industrious design city because they're good at entrepreneurship. So they're each based on different values or different strengths or potentials of calling and we got locals to represent each of these scenarios and sort of explain what would it be like and it would be people, for instance this one, if it was people who were working with voluntary projects then they would represent that scenario. Then we involve people on text message because when you have 600 people and they all have ideas and opinions then it's a good idea to work digitally. So we had a panel discussing the scenarios and then people could sort of ask questions and give in ideas as the discussion was going along. We also had them discuss different questions in small groups. So at the end they were choosing the scenario that they liked the most and we asked them which scenario is better for living, which one is better for business, which one is better for attracting people to move to the city and so on and we had a debate about that. And what they chose was to use design to create a place or a city that was good for entrepreneurship. So they wanted to use design and create an identity that focuses first of all on entrepreneurship, secondly on social development being the public development of innovation and new ideas and thirdly on education. So the sentence that we created for the vision is that we design a better life through entrepreneurship, social development and education or in short we design life. So that's sort of the foundation for their political strategies and it's also the foundation for the brand and how they develop the brand. And as you know sometimes you can write a lot of reports and papers and you can have all these ideas but the question is really how do you act on it and how do you develop the brand in practice so you can actually see the brand and live the brand and understand the brand in practicality in your everyday. So some of the suggestions we made for developing and living this brand was first of all to use design methods and design thinking in the political process and in the public office so that when they would do different things they would actually use design thinking and design processes for their development. We also suggested them to make something that was very visual and public which was a design festival both one for professionals and one for locals or just people who are curious about design. Then we suggested quite a bit like the project that's running right around the corner to make a design laboratory in their city and suggesting to companies that companies could use the city and their institutions for developing design projects. So if you are in the health sector and you have a service or a product you want to test you can call Colling and ask them to make a design or test project in their city. And then one of the things I think that we came about quite nicely was to teach all leaders and all employees in the municipality to work with these things. And there are about 10,000 employees in the municipality of Colling being in the schools, being in the offices that give permissions and so on. And I think that's one of the things that has really worked well because what they did and what we suggested was to make an office that had all the communications employees of the municipality and who would hire in designers to actually show how do you work with these things throughout the municipality. So they got their own house next door to the city hall. It's like around the same square. And today they have like a design manager who is spending a lot of his time and they actually have several designers employed who is spending their time teaching the employees how do you bring in design thinking and design processes no matter what you're doing. So if you are a kindergarten teacher, they will teach you how to use these thoughts and processes. One of the problems that I find when working with the development of visions or strategies or brand strategies for cities is that they are led by politicians. And I think we would all prefer to be in cities or countries that are democratic. And that means that we've elected people to lead the city and we've also elected them in such a way that they have distinct opinions and they have very different reasons for sitting in the city council. And the problem is that I always have the idea of a brand being something distinct, something very focused and something that differentiates from other brands. So when I talk to these city councils, I tell them that we have to find sort of one idea, one brand idea that we can focus on and that means that they will have to focus on that activity or that way of thinking or that culture in order to build the brand. And then the problem is that they say, well, one part wants to do more of one thing, one part wants to do more of another. So basically what's possible is to do a little bit more of everything which is difficult because they don't have the money for doing a little bit of everything or actually just mellowing out and having sort of a gray zone where we are doing several things in order for everyone to be happy with the solution. So the question is, should city and region brands be defined in such a way that you have one distinct brand idea? Is that even possible? Is it a good idea? And the other question is, how do you come about persuading a group of leaders who are very different in their opinions and their preferences into thinking, okay, we have to actually choose one idea because if we want to communicate and show the world that we are one brand with one idea, then we actually have to agree on one idea. And that's two questions that I'm struggling with or find particularly difficult and that I put a lot of energy into working on. And that's the presentation I have. So with these questions I'm opening up for any thoughts or opinions or questions to the two case studies I was showing. Thank you. Yes, that's Michael. Thanks Nikolai, once again for a great story. You say city and region brands, so it's about scaling up and the example about Copenhagen is very interesting but it's the capital of the country and attractive to a lot of people and it does have scale. Yes. Copenhagen is smaller and Leire. Yes, and Leire is even smaller. So can you explain something about when city branding or region branding or nation branding, what is the difference or when you even make a difference? Good question. I think nation branding is a thing of its own because definitely because of scale and because of course there are some distinct notions and distinct ideas about countries but that's even more difficult than on a smaller scale. On the other hand I think a lot of us have a good idea of nation brands and how they are distinct. We feel that they have a different culture, a different mentality in each of the nations. The reason that I actually mention both city brands and region brands is that at least in Denmark they are often intertwined or sort of the same. So for instance when I worked with Kaling that's the main city and the biggest city of their municipality but that's also a rural area and small towns and cities. So they are thinking that it's the area of Kaling also being the rural area. So by definition the project was for the whole area but then our suggestion was to actually focus on the big city and say if it goes better in the big city then that's going to have a positive effect on the smaller societies around the big city. So that's actually why I mention both in order to really I would almost say politically correct. Other questions? Philippe? Yeah, I'd just like to add that maybe the approach that you're having is most difficult because you're going top down and I think that some of the best examples we've seen are place branding already bottom up or the top make it facilitate things to happen. So if you take Silicon Valley they facilitate that to happen. Hollywood, it's the people themselves that make that happen. That could be Champagne region, it could be Geneva for watches. It's not the politicians that are really going to make it happen but just make it facilitate it. Kind of attract the people that will make that happen. So if you kind of force it down their throats I'm not too sure it can go that far. I think the Kaling example and actually also the Copenhagen as a brand has a very good balance of those two things. Some of the city brands I was actually mentioning at Copenhagen Business School yesterday. No, the last time we saw each other in Medingen when I was talking I was mentioning Klid Møller also called Cold Hawaii. So it's a very small fisherman's town on the coast and over the past 10 years it's become famous for being Cold Hawaii because it's like Hawaii only colder and it's a surfing paradise and one of the best places to windsurf in Europe and especially in Denmark. And that is definitely created by locals who love to windsurf and they've been doing it for 15, 20 years so there's a community around that. So that's a really good example of bottom up. Their problem is that they are struggling each year to get the city council and the local municipality to support them with just a little bit of money and a little bit of resource. So you could say if you do it top down as you're asking then you have the problem of getting people involved and you have to facilitate and so on. If you start bottom up then sometimes you actually have the problem of getting the city council, the politicians, whoever to actually realize that they have something strong that they need to build on and support and get involved in. And I think sometimes it's actually provoking politicians that something is happening for itself that they have not created and not mastered. So I think either way you have sort of a difficulty in making it happen but obviously there's an enormous strength in realizing what is already happening in the city or region and sort of emphasizing that and helping that along. And that's actually why we do the anthropological study is that we want to find those people and find those tendencies and then bring that out. So we're trying to teach the leadership or the politicians that there's already something happening being designed in Colling and we need to support that and sort of find out how do we bring that to life. So that's the idea. Yes please. I sort of want to combine your presentation together with the question earlier you just asked how the initial Scandinavian is perceived by outsiders like me. And I would like to say actually it's a lot about scale. Let's take a little moment. I'm from China but I live in Finland and I've been living in Denmark now. And in Asia we have some new things that we have. The new concept nowadays is to Copenhagenize or sort of Scandinavianize a part of village or part of space. In Japan there's a really good example. They have a village which is called Swedish village. Swedish village? Yeah. People there learning Swedish. Dressing as traditional sweets and they celebrate Swedish festivals instead of Japanese. And I mean I've never been there myself but it sounds really awkward to me. Back in Shanghai where I come from we have actually a newly developed project not quite newly it's a couple of years ago and I was still living there. It's called Tiger's Town which was copying of course from the UK. And I've been there. It was like a girls' town. It was designed for rich people or for people who want to take nice pictures for their weddings or something like that instead of travelling all the way to the UK. So it's an interesting combination. Just wanting to try to bring it up because you as living up your name so well in Denmark it actually gives a lot more inspirations to people outside much more than what you could imagine. And yeah it's kind of interesting. Well that's good to hear and interesting about those examples that there are also places there are also there's especially one place in Sweden where they're actually sort of staging a specific way of life or a special look. And I think those sound quite extreme. In Sweden there's a place called Jakriborg which is only about 15-20 years old. There was just a field nothing there 20 years ago. And then the brothers Jakob and Krister wanted to create a town. And so they did and they made it look old. So it looks like it's 200 years old but it's recently built. And then they designed the name Jakriborg from their two names and sort of made a city. And that's very unusual for Scandinavians that you sort of design and create a town in that way. So we see it a little bit but less in Europe as you would see it in the US or in Asia. But it's a very so for me that's like a really weird thought but it's going on everywhere. Yeah or in a lot of places.