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PROMOTING “THE CITY THAT LOVES YOU”
“The City that Loves You” is now an ubiquitous part of Tbilisi life. Investor.ge charts the history of creating Tbilisi’s city brand, its current state and prospects for success.
Lizaveta Zhahanina
Branding Tbilisi
Paris may be known as “The City of Love,” but Tbilisi is betting that soon the world will think of the Georgian capital as “The City that Loves You.”
The process of creating a brand for Tbilisi started in September 2009: focus groups working for six months to capture the city’s unique image in a succinct and memorable slogan. |
Tbilisi City Hall, via its investor service and marketing department, decided to create an identity for the city that would stretch past its Soviet past and reach a new audience several years ago, according to Bacho Dolidze, the head of the department.
The Investor Service and City Marketing Department at Tbilisi City Hall’s Economic Policy Agency announced a tender for Tbilisi’s branding, aiming to attract a company that would have both the experience in creating marketing campaigns for a city and a willingness to share that experience with a Georgian company. Around 10 international companies participated in the tender.
The 40,000 Euro contract went to Brandflight, a Swedish company run by Thomas Gad, and its strategic partner in Georgia, Branding.ge.
Thomas Gad, the author of “Nokia connecting people,” has created a four dimensional branding model, which generates a brand operating from four different directions: functional (perception of a brand), social (its identification with a societal group), mental (its support in assessing products and services) and spiritual (its local/global responsibility etc.). Branding.ge acquired the exclusive rights to use this model in the Caucasus and became the first Georgian company to conduct city branding.
The process of creating a brand for Tbilisi started in September 2009: focus groups working for six months to capture the city’s unique image in a succinct and memorable slogan.
“We were trying to find the concept which would cover all the stakeholders: local citizens, investors, the government and visitors,” said Tea Lominadze, project manager at Branding.ge.
Lominadze said that the company worked with all strata of the population to create a brand that speaks equally to Tbilisi residents and visitors alike.
One of the most important features of city branding is that it must appeal not only to tourists, but also to the city’s population. “City branding goes far beyond the obvious goal of attracting tourism. It has the ability to unify a city and the people living in it,” said Oriane Schwartzman and Barbara Fiala, managing partners and co-founders of FullStop Consulting in an e-mail interview.
Catchy Slogan
The result – “The City that Loves You” – is now the core of a wide scale branding campaign to unify the city and its public image at home and abroad.
Focus groups, according to both Lominadze and Dolidze, returned again and again to the city’s affect on its visitors: experience it once and you will be back for more.
Focus groups, according to both Lominadze and Dolidze, returned again and again to the city’s affect on its visitors: experience it once and you will be back for more. |
The slogan originated, in part, from the comments of one participant who recalled a friend who regularly comes back to Tbilisi from the United States, describing the capital as “a city that is in love with you.”
Where the phrase lacks originality, it might score points for tenderness according to Schwartzman and Fiala.
“Being located in a widely unknown part of the world, it can come across as the ‘Wild East’ to many foreigners,” Schwartzman and Fiala said. “‘The City that Loves You’ is a warm concept that might very well be just what Tbilisi needs.”
But the slogan’s real impact greatly depends on how it is interpreted in different languages and by the various segments of the target audience.
“Georgians might interpret this tagline as ‘Tbilisi is very hospitable or more hospitable than other Georgian cities,’” said Elizabeth Zaldastani Napier in an e-mail interview, an advisor for Fortune 500 companies, non-profit organizations and entrepreneurs in both Georgia and the United States.
“Americans who have never been to Georgia may ignore the tagline finding it unoriginal, cliché or not credible, e.g. vis-à-vis ‘I LOVE NY.’”
Walking the walk
Now Tbilisi Hall is focused on bringing the slogan to life.
“A message and beautiful words by themselves do not mean anything because if the slogan is not visible in reality it won’t work; it would be wasted money and time,” Dolidze said.
The marketing strategy for Tbilisi includes seven focus areas for the department. They want Tbilisi to be regarded as a spa center, an international meeting place, a center for wine, the heart of the Georgian kitchen, a beacon for the youth and healthy living; for its green space – a garden of Eden and, as the home to the unique Finger Theater, a finger-puppet theater.
While wine and cooking seem like obvious choices, others – like the Finger Theater – are not.
According to Dolidze, his team wanted to avoid mimicking the Georgian national marketing campaign so they tried to find Tbilisi-centric specialties.
“In the sphere of culture Georgia is very rich, there are many good representatives, and we were thinking that the Sukhishvili [ballet] and other such attractions should be associated with the whole country,” he said.
The Finger Theater, however, became one aspect that could work well in a framework of city branding. “Our aim is that wherever Finger Theater appears, there should be an instant association with Tbilisi,” Dolidze said.
The marketing strategy is scheduled to start at Tbilisi International Airport. Dolidze would not release details, however.
Regardless of its immediate impact, marketing professionals like Zaldastani Napier believe “The City That Loves You” campaign should be positive for Tbilisi and Georgia.
“Ultimately good strategic branding will benefit all of Tbilisi and the country, and it is worth investing the time and money to do it well,” she said. [top] |
