Using Social Media To Re-brand A City

September 2, 2010 Written by History , Social Media

Maybe you’ve heard that Dunedin (NZ) is rebranding, perhaps you were part of the #NewDunedinSlogan hype on Twitter, or maybe this is the first time you’re hearing about it. Regardless of whether you’re in the know or not, this is a campaign you should be following – it’s city re-branding with a difference.

Firstly, there’s no search for a gimmicky tag line.

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Many cities re-branding efforts only go as far as creating taglines like…

Hamilton: City of the Future   or Timaru: Feel the Heartbeat

You’ll see no such tagline in Dunedin. Like all good things in social media, it starts with getting the concept right. Prior to embarking on their quest to re-position the city the DCC (Dunedin City Council) sought out wisdom from branding experts from all over the country.

The advice was simple, the brand is “Dunedin” – not the tagline underneath. This is quite a big step for city branding. Especially as Dunedin was the first NZ city to introduce a tagline – now it’ll be the first city (in NZ) to remove it.

But the big difference in this campaign is the community engagement…

The Insiders Dunedin Community site was launched just under a month ago…

The concept is simple, share your Dunedin stories and go in the draw to win a whole swag of great prizes.

image thumb Using Social Media To Re brand A City

The idea is to gather a whole range of Dunedin experiences from Dunedin people. These experiences are then to be used as stories to re-brand the city and also form an Insiders Guide To Dunedin. The masterminds behind this campaign have also ensured that the stories are being replicated on the Otago Daily Times’s website under Citizen News so that the not so web savvy Dunedinites can also share in the experience.

So where is this going?

It’s still early stages in the life of this campaign. iThink the concept is great – the idea of “Dunedin People Rebranding Dunedin” is inspired!

There are a few possible reasons that it hasn’t gone crazy busy just yet:

  • It could just be lacking a critical mass engaged and proactive fans – more time and promo should fix this…
  • It could also be because the rebranding aspect of the entire campaign has been kept pretty low key (true Dunedin style at it’s low key best).

I personally thnk that if more people knew it was a rebranding exercise it would have a greater emotional pull. I know that I’d love to participate in something that had epic meaning (like rebranding my own city). So as more and more people find out that they’re actually able to help re-brand the place where they live I’m sure that this campaign will go nuts .

I’ve been told that there’s a whole load of crazy goodness planned for the site going forward so I’d encourage all the Dunedinites who read this blog to give the site a visit and anyone who just has a whole lot of love for Dunedin to become a fan on Facebook.

If you’re not a Dunedinite and you don’t have insane love for Dunedin I’d still keep a close eye on this campaign anyway, it could be a social media best practice case study one day.

What do uThnk?

Do you like the concept of participative city branding?

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  • http://twitter.com/andrew_bidese Andrew Bidese

    Outside of us marketing folk, does Joe Blow really care about the tag line for a city? I love the concept, but is Dunedin big enough to pull off the critical mass needed to make this a social branding case study?

  • Anonymous

    Oh no you didn’t….iThnk in the space of two and a half lines you may have just offended all 120,000 Dunedintes.

    Does size really matter….????

    I understand questioning the ‘value’ of the campaign because of Dunedin’s lack of size…most campaigns are measured on stats rather than engagement. Therefore smaller target audience equals less success – perfectly logical.

    It’s still early days so you’re right it’s quite a big call to say that this could be a social media best practice case study…but from what I know about what’s in the pipeline for this campaign it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on…

    Oh and you can always use the amount of engagement vs size of target audience as a measure of success…it‘s probably a more accurate measure than share mass.

  • http://twitter.com/andrew_bidese Andrew Bidese

    I agree, most campaigns are measured on size rather than engagement. Not that this is right, but it is the easiest to measure. A smaller target audience will not equal less success, but what you have to look at is its statisical relevance. Is the social engagement through online mediums stastistically relevant enough to drive a crucial branding decsision? Next Thursday I will be 283km from Dunedin, does that grant me temporary Dunedinite status?

  • http://twitter.com/Mike_McQueen Michael McQueen

    Yeah I agree with @Andrew Bidese, Dunedin is small and internally it will struggle to pull off critical mass……that is needed……..but…

    there is a big BUT….It’s the OUTSIDERS that will make this work. From experience with social media in Dunedin it’s a slow / small area. So your local stats will not look good.

    You need to find a way to hook into Bigger catchment area outside of Dunedin, where people engage with social media….Push your idea on people who have visited Dunedin and have stories / pix.

    So I think the “Brand” and there is one. Should read…OUTSIDERS DUNEDIN.

    One thing I know about success in social media, is you can’t just talk about your self, It just won’t work.

  • Anonymous

    Andrew you’re absolutely right….iThnk Michael’s comment below is on the money. If you open it out to everyone you get a wider perspective of Dunedin stories – which gives you a more accurate picture of the sort of stories that really should be used to re-brand the city + you get that all important statistical relevance.

    I’m not sure if you’ll gain temporary Dunedinte status but you’ll be close enough to get a taste of the scarfie life. Just drink some speights, burn a couch and make sure you do something stupid and it’ll be just like being in Dunedin.

  • Anonymous

    Hi Michael

    I wholeheartedly agree with the “BUT” – opening it up to a wider community of social media savvy kiwis, ex-pats would most probably boost number and help gain a critical mass of content producers…I know the reason I don’t contribute is because you need to be a Dunedin resident – which is a category that no longer applies to me.

    I also think that if it was fun low involvement then that would help…I’m pretty sure that’s why the #NewDunedinSlogan went crazy on Twitter a few months back.

    I know one of the people who is putting this campaign together – I’ll make sure they read you comments.

  • http://twitter.com/andrew_bidese Andrew Bidese

    Spot on Michael, the people to best tell the Dunedin story that will attract others to Dunedin is people who had positive experiences. Tourisits, Internationsl Students, Business people. Michael and Sam, great to see sommentary on social campaigns and not critisim. We are all learning this exciting medium and kudos to those people giving it a RHG(red hot go).

    • http://twitter.com/Mike_McQueen Michael McQueen

      After thinking more about this…It has nothing to do with critical mass and running a successful social media campaign ..It’s about getting Rights Free images from photogs. I don’t agree.. As creatives you should be ashamed. Please read the terms and conditions of this competition.
      It’s our job to educate not to take advantage of less experienced creative people.

      • http://twitter.com/Mike_McQueen Michael McQueen

        Also see here http://bit.ly/dvvCPW

      • http://twitter.com/Mike_McQueen Michael McQueen

        Also see here http://bit.ly/dvvCPW

        • Anonymous

          Thanks for the heads up on the discussion on the “What if? Stadium of Dunedin…” Post…

          Was interesting to see all the different perspectives. I posted a pretty long winded response – tried to cover off all concerns.

          Oh and FYI – I chatted with Luke about attribution and you shouldn’t worry about it – quoting Luke:

          ” We have no intention of using the stories without crediting them.”

          Hope that helps put your mind at ease…

      • Anonymous

        @Mike_McQueen, firstly thanks for coming back to share your thoughts. Now I’m not sure if your comments are directed at us but just in case there’s any confusion – neither Andy or myself are in any way involved in the InsidersDunedin campaign we simply know people who are.Now on to your point, iThnk it’s a valid point to discuss. Do all people know what it means when they tick the box and accept the T’s & C’s – e.g. that facebook owns their content etc?iThnk you can look at in two ways….1) It’s a persons responsibility to take care of the things that they post online2) Organisations that ask people to give away their rights to a photo or other piece of work are not doing enough to warn people…I actually agree with both of these points of view, I personal post only what I’m willing to give away (which is quite a lot) but I also believe that companies could be doing much more to make me aware of what I give away….Now as for the InsidersDunedin issue – my personal take on it is that if you’re a creative – then the exposure that you could get from having your work used in a high profile branding exercise would out weigh any one off payment that you would receive from your work & in some cases would also outstrip any royalties….Just Google “Who designed the fail whale” to see this theory in action. Would love to hear what uThnk about this more detail…

        • http://twitter.com/Mike_McQueen Michael McQueen

          Just a quick note on this…more later….
          If an image was used. It may and may not be credited. So how would anyone know who made the image. So not benefit to the creator.

  • Johngrant

    http://www.dailydo.co.nz/dunedin has been running some pretty cool deals for Dunedin people – have bought at least 5 of them – they are pretty cool – I think they have potential to be the Dunedin difference!!