City city brand brand

What goes into making a city a brand? Its people, its sights, its culture, its history and its present, which can include a range of factors – educational institutions, industries, localities, public transport et al.

I (heart) NY is probably the most familiar example of city branding there is, with its red heart and black letters splashed across T-shirts, mugs and other memorabilia not just in the Big Apple but encountering us all over the world. Apart from being a logo designed to promote New York tourism in the 1970s, it is also a song and later was adapted to promote tourism in New York state as well.

There’s now a move in India to design Brand Agra as a destination for tourism and business. Brand Dialogue, a consortium of Dutch branding and design firms, associated with the ‘I Amsterdam’ city campaign is involved in this venture through Fabrique, one of its agencies. The Uttar Pradesh Government had organised a ‘Meragra’ design competition too, in which the Dutch group was a jury member.

Ask them why it’s important for a city to have a branded identity all its own and Jeroen van Erp, Co-founder & Creative Director, Fabrique, says city branding ensures that you tell the same story. If there is a central identity, it can communicate across a range of fields economic and cultural, making the brand stronger.

Cities are becoming more and more important, for many reasons, he says. “They are strong magnets for companies and people, and they are more agile in comparison to countries. They have the lead in new developments (of infrastructure, economy, education, entrepreneurship) compared to countries. It is easier to innovate on a city scale because local governments have become more important in the last 2-3 decades, and this has seen a rise in the number of cities profiling themselves with an identity and a quote.

Swati Aggarwal, Operations Head at The Design Village, an Indian firm that curated the project, says the intent behind branding Agra was to speak about its multiple facets – “not just the Taj but also its rich culture, monuments, industries, food and crafts that constitute and bind the city”.

“Agra is simple by nature and strong in appearance, that is what we want to achieve with the visual language for the brand Agra,” says van Erp, adding that branding for the city will redefine its existence and it is to watch out for.” There’s a lot happening but if you don’t tell anyone about it, no one knows. An asset scan of the city revealed that there was a lot of ‘red’ in Agra and that it had a strong shoe and crafts industry as well, which was not branded as Agra-origin. A lot of the entries for the Meragra design competition were based on the history of the city. “Our challenge was to come up with an identity that retains the roots but heads for the future,” he says, adding that using a new identity expresses ambition.

The designs are built into a logo that is a stylised A. “They are just examples of how the framework can be applied. They show aspects ranging from history and romance to future aspects as new forms of public transport. The biggest challenge for Agra is to make sure the new developments are implemented as soon as possible,” he adds.

Lucknow, Noida and Varanasi are next on the UP government’s city branding agenda.

Why is such specific city branding barely visible in India, a country replete with several cities that are as modern as they are historic? Piyush Pandey, who has handled tourism campaigns for States such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, not to mention Incredible India, says it’s not really true that cities have not been branded in India. He points out that the Gujarat tourism campaign had branded as many as 20 destinations including Gir, Somnath and Ahmedabad. “Can we do more? Yes, we can always do more. When you have funds, then you can promote individual places, otherwise you can drive people to other cities through the Web site.” He points out a lot of States are now waking up to branding efforts, including Rajasthan, Odisha and Diu. However, Pandey believes tourism and business development cannot be combined in a single effort.

The appeal of a state-of-the-art airport or educational institution is not the same as that of a monument or a beach; they have to be addressed separately, he says.

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