The [be Berlin] campaign by |Global Citizens|
We are a three-member team of Cultural Management students, interested in Athens’ regeneration through culture and co-creation. Within the context of the workshop “Athens Co-Creation City Branding Project”, hosted by Betty Tsakarestou, we took a journey around the world to explore initiatives, campaigns and cases that apply to vibrant cities and have a message to communicate to the world.
*Global citizens a.k.a. Eva Anagnostaki, Ourania Mavriki & Anastasia Rizou
After our initial journey to Africa, we came back to Europe and travelled to the capital of Germany, to examine the interesting case of the city’s marketing campaign, which aims to highlight Berlin as a unique, open-minded city.
Twenty years after the fall of the wall, the German capital tried to re-establish its presence in the modern world. In March 2008, Klaus Wowereit, Berlin’s mayor, presented a new campaign with the slogan be Berlin, followed by an open call for ideas -launched by the Mayor’s office- in search for a new ‘brand’ for Berlin.
The primary vision for the campaign has been to transform Berlin’s strengths into opportunities and let Berliners themselves speak on behalf of their city. Consequently, this would attract more tourists, talent, investment, while boost the citizens’ sense of pride and belonging.
The campaign’s language has been chosen to be english, as a conscious decision to transform Berlin into a global player in the citiness race. In a country still trying to heal wounds of the past, the exploitation of its assets and capabilities, in order to redefine its image through city branding and citizen engagement, had spectacular results.
From 2008 to 2012, the campaign focused on the city’s unique features and represented itself as an alternative, open-minded city, full of opportunities. Interestingly, the regional level was the starting point of this effort, building on a strong sense of identification. By achieving a high level of brand recognition, the campaign was ready for take off!
During these four years, the campaign succeeded in creating a strong relationship with Berliners, through actions that involved them to its evolution process. Some examples of such actions were “Longest love letter to Berlin”, “Berliversum”, “Berlin, Show Your Colors” and “be Berlinternational”.
Furthermore, the campaign launched the Berlin days, an international event travelling all over the world and promoting the city. New York, Moscow, Tokyo and Shanghai were only a few of the capitals or metropolises that “Berlin days” visited. Additional to Berlin days, the campaign’s participation in international trade events highlighted a consistent presence and built an augmented brand awareness, focusing on the industrial potential of Berlin.
Each year, the campaign’s aspiration was reflected on the “title” that [be Berlin] had. For example, in 2009, Berlin was promoted as City of change, an art and cultural metropolis, an important location for science and business and a leading international city to live and work in. In 2012, with the campaign A great place to live, Berlin managed to overcome the negative side-effects of a large urban area with millions of residents by setting natural counterpoints. Furthermore, the City of opportunities theme, expanded on the liveability factors of the city, adding extra aspects to the equation. This theme emphasized on additional motifs that focused on wide-ranging opportunities in areas like science, entrepreneurship, ideas, culture, nature and business.
At the same time, various actions and creative projects enhanced the whole effort, such as “be Berlin” citystore in 2009 and Berlin Box which contained free information and advertising material for easy access, all over the city. Those creative tools increased the campaign’s brand recognition, built an international “audience” and made a buzz over the case of Berlin.
Monocle’s ranking shows that Berlin rocketed up the charts to come in as the 3rd most liveable city in the world, in 2015. The Economist Intelligence Unit places the capital at the 7th place of its liveability index. At the same time, Reputation Institute places Berlin on the 7th place, in terms of effective administration (2015). But the city’s progress in rankings can be seen through the Mercer Quality of Living Survey, as Berlin managed to move from the 17th position in 2010, to the 13th, in almost five years (2015)!
Every success has a good recipe, although it should not be considered as a panacea.
If there is one thing to keep in mind from the case of the “be Berlin” campaign,is that Berlin’s brand was built from its own material, the Berliners, while all partners were highly committed to the goal. The campaigns were playful, interesting and highly interactive. Through these characteristics citizens were encouraged to express their opinion and vision about their own city.
Furthermore, the campaign’s presence in all major city’s events built a concrete brand image and strong brand awareness. At the same time, the focus was put in organising small-scale events instead of spectacular ones, an approach which invests on long-term results, instead of a one-off buzz. In other words, the concept behind each action didn’t have a “one hit wonder” style but focused on an incremental evolution, something that is in line with the “citizen in the centre” goal. A result the way that the campaign was built and communicated, was simultaneously a top-down and bottom-up approach, connecting the city’s past and history with its contemporary face and most importantly, building on its best asset, its people.
The presentation we made for [be Berlin] campaign is here
Our next European travel is at Lyon to explore the ONLYLYON case
