Athens Co-Creation City Branding Project, 2019
Fotini Maltezou Achilles Panagiotou Marianthi Lazou Marina Mouka Vassia B
City Branding is not about the logo
City Branding is about understanding, measuring, influencing and managing the way in which cities are admired and recognized by foreign, domestic and internal audiences. This is important because awareness and reputation are essential prerequisites for attracting and retaining tourists, traders, investors, students and residents.
The Journey
Workshop #1
Athens, as a promising European capital, is realising that, in order to create a successful branding, all the main “protagonists” of the city needs to join forces. And this is how our “Athens Co-Creation City Branding” journey began, with our first workshop in March 2019, at Serafio (a new urban destination highlighting the importance of innovation and the benefits of creativity and networking)..
The purpose of this first meetup for us, as postgraduate students within the course “Cultural Marketing and Communication” | “Athens Co-Creation City Branding Project, 2019”, with the Municipality of Athens and the teams of “This is Athens” and “SynAthina”, was to get to know each other and to exchange thoughts and iideas. We had the opportunity to learn more about our new “partners” (Municipality of Athens, “This is Athens” and “SynAthina”), to watch the city’s journey to become a European Capital of Innovation for 2018 and to discuss the challenges that this award brought into light.
Challenges
The first challenge we discussed was how we can impart the “change”, this “new culture” we call innovation, that brought Athens the winning prize among many European capitals, to the organization of the municipality of Athens. How the permanent human capital and the partners of municipal programs will become propagators of innovation and how they will successfully embrace and continue this vision when the next municipal government authorities takes over?
The second challenge was the communication between the municipal authorities and the “informal” innovative groups and entities that contribute to the local society. The real challenge in this case is not only to establish a constructive communication channel, but also to create a common narrative for the city of Athens.
The establishment of a common policy for Athens City Branding that gives prominence to innovation and combines the promotion strategy of “This is Athens” was the third challenge. In other words, what forms the “heart” of the city’s narrative.
Insights
From our very first meeting we all understood that the main problems we needed to focus on were the dysfunctional internal communication within the organizations and among them, the lack of continuity and the excessive focus on tourism. On the other hand, the encouragement of more public/private partnerships and the establishment of the feeling of belonging seemed to be the areas we could work on.
Athens among other cities worldwide
After this first very constructive meetup, the next step was to see what other cities are doing, what the term smart cities means, and also what we could learn and where is Athens standing among them.
We studied in depth city indexes from all over the world and the conclusion is that influential cities need to possess the right mix of factors such as business activity, human capital, information exchange, political engagement, and cultural experiences that help organizations and people to thrive.
We also studied what some of the top cities are practically doing in every field and tried to understand what of their examples we could apply for Athens.
Workshop #2
Our next meetup took place in May 2019 at Serafio. It was actually a workshop with participants from “This Is Athens”, “synAthina”, “This Is Athens & Partners”, “Technopolis”, “Athens Culture Net” and “Kids4TheCity”.
We have been split in three heterogeneous groups and had three different sessions where we could discuss and exchange ideas for the three challenges we mentioned above.
The purpose of this journey was to create together strategies that will encourage more innovative ideas to flourish, will engage more citizens in creative practices and actions that will bring life to all corners of the city, and will make Athens a capital that welcomes tourists and investors with the best prospects.
Throughout the co-creation workshops, we created canvases noting down the main ideas. Words or phrases that will become a base on which to build our strategy.
The Design Thinking Methodology
Moving on we took all the insights of the two workshops, the insights gained from studying cities and city rankings and applied a Design Thinking methodology in order to create a plan that will help us meet our challenges and create a common narrative and a branding strategy for the city of Athens.
The Design Thinking methodology is a Human Centered Design methodology that starts by empathizing with users — in our case the people that live or pass through the city. By understanding our users and doing the necessary research we need to define the existing problems, so that we can explore possible solutions that can finally be tested and implemented.
By researching our users, it becomes clear that we have what we call “the city stakeholders”. Those groups of people or organizations that are not only a part of the city but also are the ones that strongly influence the city and can shape its branding and image. The city stakeholders can be divided into groups based on their role being either business activity, human capital, cultural experience, education, political engagement, personal well-being, innovation or governance. Through its role, each one of the city stakeholders has a unique part to play in shaping the narrative of the city.
Some of these stakeholders have already formed a union, being members of “This is Athens & Partners” and already working towards the common goal of improving the city branding. Building on this partnership and taking into account the users who are the center of our research, we have placed the stakeholders in three concentric circles with the outer circle consisting of those that are not partners yet.
Empathizing
Since we are faced with a number of different challenges, by using the design thinking method (design thinking as an approach to problem solving), we have made an effort to empathize with the perspectives and needs of various stakeholders and end users of the city of Athens.
Through face to face interviews we have been carefully listening to various problem categories in order to define the most important of them and ideate towards cultural creativity and innovation among diverse groups of people through a collaborative approach. We summarize our interviews and main findings here below:
Athens International Airport (AIA) is a Strategic partner to “Τhis is Athens and partners”. Our meeting with the CEO and executive members of the company (Ms Papadopoulou and Mr Kontaxis) took place on June 4, 2019, at the headquarters of the AIA. They presented a full account of their strategies as well as their efforts to reveal many aspects of the city through targeted destination marketing and various campaigns worldwide, since the beginning of the financial crisis. They have also developed a network of collaborations with other major airliners to promote Athens. (There is a considerable improvement as Foreign Arrivals: +19.2% JAN-SEP 2018 vs JAN-SEP 2017, and
City-break Arrivals: +32% JAN-SEP 2018 vs JAN-SEP 2017).
70% of total arrivals are for leisure and only 30% for business.
They have stressed the strategic importance of ‘This is Athens and partners’ and underlined their interest towards the expansion of the current scheme by including new members such as Banks, Credit Cards, Cosco, etc.
A new City Card (to update the previous card Athens Spotlighted) is now planned. A relevant proposal was submitted (11/6/2019) for funding through an ESPA grant mobilized by the prefecture of Athens. There will be two different types of city cards, mostly for tourists, that will be charged differently depending on benefits and offers.
There is a Quarterly Journal “2board” which is the official magazine of the Athens International Airport and “reflects its prestige, covering at the same time, all the services and activities of AIA”.
New Airline connections are planned. AirChina established a direct connection Athens — Beijing since 30/9/2017. Upon arrival, digital smart phone applications (AIA — Toorbee WeChat Miniapp) provide information about the city of Athens and various other services to Chinese visitors, since many of them are willing to become foreign residents. There was a significant (70%) rise of Chinese arrivals in 2018.
The AIA considers itself as a Responsible citizen for all its CSR activities in neighboring municipalities and also for its commitment to protect the environment.
AIA participates in a global industry initiative led by Airports Council International (ACI) Europe, aimed at managing greenhouse gas emissions under the control of airport operators. Since 2009 AIA updates its annual accreditations and in 2019 ΑΙΑ has become carbon neutral (only 28 airports worldwide), aiming to become net zero carbon by 2050. So far it has managed to significantly reduce its carbon footprint, and offset its remaining emissions. At present they buy carbon permits (for 84% of emissions) and also have a photovoltaic park in place (for 16%).
Recently the AIA concession agreement has been extended for the next 20 years which enables the company and its management to prolong their engagement with the city and its development plans. Overall the AIA sets up an example of what a powerful partner can do for the city of Athens and, as Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Cultural entities
Athens is a city with cultural history, beautiful ancient and modern sites and future dynamics. This creates positive and negative perspectives as the increasing flows of tourism, Airbnb rentals, commercialization of cultural heritage, and inadequate infrastructure, perhaps need to be rebalanced.
There are some cultural networks such as the Athens Culture Net and significant new museums such as the new Acropolis Museum. Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center is also a new “entry” in town with a vital green space. The Onassis Stegi is the place where contemporary culture meets aesthetics and science. Stegi hosts theatrical and musical productions, film screenings, art and digital shows. Nevertheless, there is a need for additional new museums and the reopening of the National Museum of Contemporary Arts (EMST) as well as The National Gallery.
Partnerships will enhance the visibility of sites and improve participation in cultural events through a single museum ticket.
Many more international joint productions are needed with the participation of Greek producers and artists.
There is need for redefining the relationship between the citizens and the public space and provide wider access to cultural events.
Athens must find a way to integrate its population.
The various departments of the municipality should work more closely to achieve long term cultural unification solutions.
There is a widespread feeling that the prize (Athens Capital of Innovation 2018) has not been communicated adequately to the public.
Innovators
Athens is not ready to become an innovation hub yet but under certain conditions, more innovative activities and startups could be developed. There are some promising features of growth and innovation:
Accenture Analytics in Athens is a global analytics center for Accenture and acts as a center for research and innovation introducing and implementing new techniques in customer and marketing analytics. The center is serving more than 30 markets, doing analytics in many developed and developing markets, such as, US, UK, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Middle East, Japan, India, China. The unit in Athens employs 90 professionals with very strong academic and professional qualifications. What we have also learned from Accenture is that many professional freelancers come, stay and work from Athens because they like the city, the weather, its vibes etc.
Innovathens with 800,000 visitors a year provides Informative (information and networking among citizens), Educational (digital & soft skills) and Startup support and solutions. As they also claim, this is the only initiative that survived among others (11 teams have been supported initially by the City of Athens). Innovathens managed to achieve its initial objectives, and not only, also through its cooperation with Samsung. It provides open innovation services to the start-up community (young people of the City of Athens, and beyond, who have the ambition to create an innovative enterprise) and encourages joint projects with ICT solutions. Young entrepreneurs and creative people mingle with experienced businessmen, academics and researchers, for the entrepreneurial ecosystem to flourish and develop.
From Innovathens’ s perspective more actions are needed to improve innovation in the city of Athens:
1. There has to be an expression of will from the relevant Ministries, or by the Prefecture of Athens. The previous scheme did not achieve as much. There will be new funding, of about 20 million euros, coming soon. Let us hope that there will make a better use of this budget.
2. The municipality should aim at providing smart solutions about data collection, recycling, traffic etc. By these means new businesses and new jobs could emerge from within these areas.
4. Finally, “All interested parties should look and exploit new opportunities”.
5. In their view, Athens won the prize (Athens capital of Innovation 2018) due to its collaboration strategy, which is pretty much true.
Universities
Cities should develop around and in connection with universities (e.g. London, Silicon Valley). Up to now the universities have not been connected with the local communities and the labor market. They have to adopt a new approach without altering their educational and research character. But what holds them back is the tyranny of the institutional framework and bureaucracy. Emphasis should be placed on research, and the need for new applications.
Incubators will greatly benefit from being attached to universities.
New Technologies and training for quality services will improve tourism.
Emphasis on digitalization of the civilization, mapping of new cultural segments and routes will provide a fresh look and experience.
Few more (2–3) modern projects of global impact (eg. A naval museum, an antiquity theme park) will make the city more appealing to Greek citizens and foreign visitors.
Future continuity and lasting of good practices are needed regardless of governing political parties, their serving periods and people in charge.
Entities representing business interests
Greece’s Competitiveness Index is low compared to other European countries. This together with local Bureaucracy are discouraging factors for new investors. The long investment disengagement period (sometimes up to 20 years), instead of fail fast and fail cheap, is also a problem. There should be many more cooperative schemes to produce economies of scale. So far and despite investment interest, this does not translate into an active participation unless the above problems are solved.
In our view there are positive signs of new business investments in the center of Athens. A series of new investments in the hotel industry, such as the 5star Academia of Athens (Autograph Collection of Mariott, launched by the Yazbeck Group). Gallerie de Beaute Cosmetics and the Danish accessories Flying Tiger, both opened new stores in a neoclassical building, near Omonia square. These movements are attributed to the rise of the tourist flows. For the same reason big supermarket chains (Masoutis, AB, LINDL) intensify their operations by opening new stores in the center of the city. In addition, the initiative ‘This is Athens-Polis2’ (coordinated by the Athens Development and Destination Management Agency and implemented in collaboration with SETE’s Marketing Greece and Athens Partnership) provides small financial grants and development support to residents, practitioners, formal and informal civil society groups to advance collaborative interventions in the city. Through the “Shop in the Center” the program provides for the exploitation of abandoned shops in the center of Athens and aims to give impetus to the degraded areas.
Benefited residents and investors
Everybody would agree that Athens is a beautiful and vibrant city. People like Athens for its lifestyle, the vibes, the weather etc. In the last few years foreign freelancers chose to move in town and work distantly enjoying a better lifestyle.
German interest for luxury apartments in Athens has been recently expressed. In a similar way there is increasing demand for housing by Chinese people (a 70% increase of Chinese arrivals in 2018).
Unfortunately, the constant expression of investment interest does not always translate into action due to certain obstacles, mainly tax and bureaucracy. But where there’s a will there’s a way: Ministries and Prefectures should join forces to overcome these hassles. Citizens must develop initiatives too.
The municipality should announce and implement a new plan to improve pavements, access for disabled people, playgrounds, right lane, traffic lights, city lights etc.
Common Findings
A number of innovative Municipal initiatives have emerged in the last few years with noticeable results.
‘SynAthina’ (under the Vice Mayor’s Office for Civil Society and Innovation) aims to improve the quality of life in the city. Among other practices, the digital platform of synAthina offers citizens’ groups the ability to significantly enhance the prominence of their activities and to contact possible sponsors.
‘This is Athens’ is the official visitors guide for each neighborhood in Athens. Initiatives such as ‘This is Athens & Partners’, a unique public- private partnership aiming to bolster the city’s visitor economy and establish Athens as an attractive destination for visitors, residents, professionals and investors, have resulted in winning the prize of European capital of innovation in 2018.
A new Resilience 2030 Strategy is planned for the city in order to be proactive, setting forth concrete actions that address issues of maintenance, safety, efficiency and accountability, crisis preparedness and management in order to face the challenges of the:
• Sharp decline in the population
• Large influx of refugees
• Increasingly aging infrastructure
• Threat of earthquakes, violence, and civil unrest
• Fragmented government structure and overlapping jurisdictions.
According to statements and opinions expressed by many interested parties, the major threat to past and current strategies is the lack of consistency and continuity. Big partnerships (between public and private entities) will improve engagement and commitment. ‘This is Athens and partners’ is a very promising first step forward.
Value proposition canvas / Business model canvas — process
The Value Proposition Canvas is a tool which can help ensure that a product or service is positioned around the customer values and needs.
The Value Proposition Canvas was initially developed by Dr Alexander Osterwalder as a framework to ensure that there is a fit between the product and market. It is a detailed look at the relationship between two parts of the Osterwalder’s broader Business Model Canvas; customer segments and value propositions.
The Value Proposition Canvas can be used when there is a need to refine an existing product or service offering or where a new offering is being developed from scratch.
This is what we did for the City Branding of Athens:
The business model canvas is a shared language for describing, visualizing, assessing and changing business models. It describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers and captures value.
The Canvas has nine elements:
1. Customer Segments: Who are the customers? What do they think? See? Feel? Do?
2. Value Propositions: What’s compelling about the proposition? Why do customers buy, use?
3. Channels: How are these propositions promoted, sold and delivered? Why? Is it working?
4. Customer Relationships: How do you interact with the customer through their ‘journey’?
5. Revenue Streams: How does the business earn revenue from the value propositions?
6. Key Activities: What uniquely strategic things does the business do to deliver its proposition?
7. Key Resources: What unique strategic assets must the business have to compete?
8. Key Partnerships: What can the company not do so it can focus on its Key Activities?
9. Cost Structure: What are the business’ major cost drivers? How are they linked to revenue?
The Canvas is popular with entrepreneurs for business model innovation, because it delivers three things:
A. Focus: Stripping away the 40+ pages of ‘stuff’ in a traditional business plan.
B. Flexibility: It’s a lot easier to tweak the model and try things with something that’s sitting on a single page.
C. Transparency: It’s much easier to understand the business model laid in on page.
To understand the City of Athens as a brand we found that business model canvas and value proposition canvas is the best way to create one common strategy.
After all this process and all these insights we ended up to the motto of our proposition: This is Athens a great symphony of strategies
Our Strategic Proposal
Οur strategy consists of 2 parts that emerged after the journey of co-creation. Firstly, we propose the expansion of “This is Athens & Partners” with additional partners in strategic areas for the city. The team of “This is Athens” is oriented in this direction, which is the first step for expansion to take place. Secondly, the user-centric approach led us to the following proposal: the creation of 3 teams based on the 3 personas that we stood out. Οur reasoning is: 3 personas — 3 teams — Multiple organizations — 1 strategy. So the teams will be: 1. Citizens, 2. Investors-Innovators, 3. Tourists. In detail, the team of citizens’ will consist of ministries, hospitals, universities, volunteer teams, Serafio, cultural organizations. The team of investors-innovators’ will consist of Embassies, the Foreign Ministry, Startups, Innovathens, ImpactHub, Serafio, Chambers of commerce & industry. Finally the team of tourists’ will consist of the Airport, Embassies, EATA, SETE, cultural organizations, Airlines. Αll the above is an indicative way of building and organizing the teams.
The features of the teams will be: a relative financial independence from the municipality, long-term design thinking of their actions and plans, specialization of the strategy in their field, annual reports for the progress of their projects, user-centric design and transparency in their operation.
Once they have been formed, their first actions have to be the cooperation and communication with other European cities with emphasis on Mediterranean cities, the design of cultural projects of a global scale (e.g marine museum, theme park of antiquity). Furthermore the teams and the municipality should try to find smart solutions about recycling, circular economy, traffic congestion. They must consider action plans about the digitization of Arts and Heritage to preserve and share cultural resources. Over the past years almost everywhere in Europe big efforts were put in place by public institutions and private bodies for converting the “physical cultural heritage” into “digital”. Monuments, landscapes and ancient routes would be a priority for Athens, which should also become available for search and retrieval through digital applications.
The impact of the wider circulation of information will bring new opportunities and a positive progress, not only for tourism, but also for the different communities by enlarging existing networks and establishing new relationships and synergies.
The advantages from all the above could be the improvement of citizens’ psychology and engagement in significant city activities. The brand name of Athens, community well-being, creation of new jobs, mobilization of grassroots innovations and innovation driven inclusive growth will be greatly acknowledged.
“Facing” our Challenges
As we bring our strategy to a close, it is time to answer the challenges we were given at the first workshop. As mentioned above, the challenges were 3.
The first challenge is about the “change”, this “new culture” we call innovation and how it can impart to the permanent human capital and the partners of municipal programs. Our strategy suggests that the “new culture” has to be tested in practice without any further delays. The best way to achieve this is through the exploitation of human resources by improving the internal communication and by organizing seminars and workshops for the employees.
The second challenge concerned the communication of the “new culture”- “innovation” to all the forces of Athens. After the journey of co-creation and the discussions with stakeholders we believe that the innovation to communicate and to be perceived must engage all the city’s forces. Only if innovation solves problems and facilitates day-to-day life in the city then the WOM mechanism will be activated between its forces.
The third challenge is about the establishment of a common narrative for Athens City Branding. According to our strategy there is no need for a common narrative. We would rather rephrase the statement of the challenge by addressing the following question: “How users can make their own stories?”. It is time to change the way the city’s narrative from storytelling to storymaking by including all its interested parties: citizens, investors, innovators, tourists.
All things considered, the creation of the 3 teams based on the user-centric approach that we adopt, can unlock the capabilities of the municipality and engage the stakeholders in a more productive way. Also, we believe that what has started through “This is Athens and partners” should be extended and include more key partners.
The city is first of all its people.
The city has many faces but one voice!
The municipality should be in charge and become the principal conductor of the orchestra coordinating and executing its unique symphony.
“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” — H.E. Luccock
