Marketing management

A good brand strategy and a marketing activity programme
do not suffice to be successful in place marketing.


Once the strategic assumptions for place marketing have been adopted, the local stakeholders like self-governments (and their various departments/bureaus), non-governmental organizations, companies and various forms of the community’s representation need to approve and implement these assumptions. Hence internal communication (on the part of a city, municipality, region) is a must and its goal is to reinforce the sense of local identity by resorting to the place’s rich and diverse offer. Another prerequisite for successful place marketing and creation of a robust place brand is developing a network of partner relations around the place brand and reinforcing the sense of being part of its development and decisions made about the brand’s future. Various tools may be employed in the process, including promotion campaigns, elite clubs, projects/programmes encouraging to intensify efforts in order to build up a shared brand.

The process of creating and promoting a place brand is never fully controlled: a region’s image and its attractiveness to various groups of people and institutions of importance to a place’s growth are affected by a number of events, decisions and people beyond the local government’s control. Think of hooligans during football matches who may tarnish a municipality’s image. It is therefore very important to establish a local network of cooperating partners who pursue the goals of the place brand or are capable of influencing it.

The role of the brand management system consists in establishing the rules of organization and communication to make the process of place promotion more effective and rapid by better organizing marketing efforts (from the planning to the control stage) and defining the rules of cooperation with the other entities.

It is also very important to simultaneously enhance competences in the realm of planning, organizing and controlling marketing efforts.

Areas of specialisation

  • Training and consultancy in organizing marketing processes in local governments
  • Creating marketing management systems encompassing the rules of cooperation of various groups of entities with effective and efficient place marketing in mind (close cooperation with the local governments)
  • Support for the planning, execution and control of public procurement including content-related supervision of public procurement in place marketing (taking care of the process at the administrative unit’s request)

 

Our experience

  • Developing a “System of managing Lesser Poland brand” for the Lesser Poland local government
  • Developing “The Lesser Poland Brand Architecture” for the Lesser Poland local government
  • Best Place Institute representative’s participation in work on the Poznań Brand Consortium
  • Best Place Institute representatives’ participation as experts, consultants or appraisers in public procurement procedures in the realm of place marketing (analysis and research projects, marketing strategies and programmes, promotion campaigns, events etc.) for the local governments in Łódź, Warmian-Masurian, Sub-Carpathian, Greater Poland, Silesian provinces as well as the city of Radom (support granted in developing specifications of important terms of reference, selection of contractors and evaluation thereof)