The DiverCity Athens Re-Branding

During the easter semester of 2018–2019 we had the opportunity to join our forces with the Municipality of Athens, This is Athens, SynAthina and the other members of the Partnership for a collaborative project regarding the re-branding of the city of Athens. The following story follows our journey from our first meeting in Serafio to our final presentation of our strategy.

On the 12th of March 2019 we visited Serafio, the Sports, Culture and Innovation center of the Municipality of Athens in the context of our MA Cultural Communication and Marketing Course under the lead of our tutor, Betty Tsakarestou. During our visit we discussed with Evita Kalogiorga, Director of Marketing and Communication of This is Athens, Amalia Zepou, Vice Mayor for Civil Society and Innovation, as well as synAthina team. Mrs Kalogiorga informed us about This is Athens campaign which aims to attract tourists and investors as well as to create experiences both for the aforementioned categories and the inhabitants of the city of Athens. From her part, Mrs. Zepou spoke about the Social Innovation Award, which was awarded to Athens in 2018, as well as about some of the successful programs of the City of Athens, such as Polis2, the Open Schools program and the reopening of the Municipal Market of Kypseli. The Synathina members spoke to us from their part about their actions that are primarily of a social character, such as Curing the Limbo. The central theme of the discussion was the need to exploit the Social Innovation Award, but also the challenges Athens faces after its award as European Capital of Innovation.

At the end of the meeting we were given three challenges regarding

a) the ways in which the change/new culture (i.e. innovation) will be imparted to the permanent personnel and the partners of the municipal programs so that they will become partakers of the innovation, in order for the new municipal authority to continue this culture

b) the ways of communicating the narrative of innovation with all the forces of the city and

c) the ways to design a single policy for Athens City Branding that will highlight innovation and will combine the projection strategy This is Athens as well as the search for the heart of the narrative for the city of Athens.

Our next target after the meeting was the Re-branding of Athens based on the Social Innovation Award. In this context, we proceeded to a debriefing of the meeting at Serafio, during which some issues were emerged that require improvement so that we can succeed to remove the obstacles for the exploitation of the Social Innovation Award. These issues concerned

· the internal organization of the City of Athens and the necessity for a single strategy to be designed by all the involved members of the Municipality’s programs

· the need to communicate the actions of the Municipality to its personnel and to the inhabitants of the city

· the continuous replacement of local authorities, resulting in the possibility of non-continuation of the actions of the present municipal authority from the next one

· the need to set long-term objectives in order to ensure the continuity of the municipality’s programs

· the creation of a more flexible institutional framework so that we don’t waste time due to bureaucracy

· the need for the Municipality to “open up” its actions to other areas besides tourism

You can read the whole story here and here.

AAfterward, under the supervision of our Associate Professor, Betty Tsakarestou, we started our research by examining the rankings of the world cities index. The initial step in making our strategy plan was the study of various surveys on successful cities around the world. These surveys not only gave us a more complete picture of the ranking of different cities worldwide, but at the same time they were the trigger for identifying and further exploring the factors that make a city suitable for investment. To be more specific, we studied the research of the American consulting firm A.T. Kearney because of its great recognition in this field, its active role in conducting these surveys over the past 10 years as well as the large amount of information it offers.

The statistics resulting from the 2017 and 2018 reports were crucial for our project as they indicate the activities and sectors that make a city more competitive and thus more profitable for investment, attracting human resources and building innovation. The indicators that were examined in these studies are divided into categories which in turn incorporate several sub-categories for the detailed recording of the corresponding data. In particular, the degree of entrepreneurial and business activity (e.g. capital markets, sea and air transport for goods, top global service firms), human capital (the percentage of international students, expatriates, people with a degree), the possibility of exchanging information (the existence of news agencies , internet presence, access to media platforms, freedom of expression), cultural experience that is being offered in the city (museums, visual performances, destination for tourists and / or gastronomy enthusiasts) and political participation (international organizations, organization of conference politics, number of embassies and thinks tanks). Other indicators that are measured are related to the welfare of the residents (stability and security, health system, healthy environment), the degree of innovation that the city incorporates in its narrative (private investment, universities-funded research, Sillicon Valley in San Francisco) and finally its financial data/economics (per capita GDP, infrastructure projects, fdi flow)

Researching the above indicators as well as the cities that hold the highest rankings in the ranking lists of the 135 cities that participate in the aforementioned survey, it appears that a theoretically “perfect” city collects high rates on all the indicators.

Nevertheless, the combination of innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as the coexistence and blending of diverse cultures, are extremely important for attracting both investment and highly talented individuals. New York, London, Paris, Tokyo and Los Angeles can only confirm the findings of the survey and based on these essential facts we then started thinking on our strategy.

We focused on the Scandinavian and the Asian Cities. Stories upon our research can be read here and here.

After studying the cities’ rankings and understanding the factors that make a city sustainable and resilient, we organized a second meeting in Serafio with the municipality’s program managers. More specifically, a workshop took place during which we tried all together to find answers to the three challenges that were given to us. Having in mind the need for Re-branding of the city of Athens, the following questions were emerged:

· What is the identity of Athens?

· How will there be a common way of thinking between those involved in the municipality?

· How the diffusion of innovation is accomplished?

· What else can Athens be apart from a tourist destination?

· Can there be a common narrative that will not limit Athens to a tourist destination?

To answer these questions, we first had to define the city users and develop a user-friendly approach. To achieve this, we followed the Design Thinking method, an innovative process for problem solving. We followed the first four stages of this method. In the first stage (Empathy), we defined the stakeholders and the users of the city (cultural organizations, universities, businessmen, residents, immigrants, etc.) and talked with them in order for us to listen and understand what they believe and feel about Athens and what are their expectations for and from the city. We then defined the problems and challenges that emerged from these discussions (Define) and each member of our team suggested solutions to these problems (Idealize). Finally, we ended up planning and proposing a strategy for the City of Athens aiming to exploit the Social Innovation Award (Prototype).

Our research has led to a listing of the stakeholders who are active in the following fields:

1. Entrepreneurship: Athens International Airport, Hellenic — German Chamber of Commerce & Industry, innovative Start-ups, Impact Hub and Innovathens.

2. Culture: Cultural institutions and universities, especially the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, the Οnassis Cultural Centre and Panteion University.

3. Projects under the aegis of the Municipality of Athens: Polis2, focusing on the city’s redevelopment (as part of a general project of urban renewal), Curing the Limbo, involved in the education and integration of refugees who have been granted asylum and MyCheckpoint, a healthcare structure.

The other part of our team went out on the street, aiming to meet some of the city’s users, trying to catch “the city’s vibe”. Starting from Metaxourghio, we met a Chinese supermarket owner. She was not speaking Greek, but we finally managed to communicate just to learn that she doesn’t live in the center and that she doesn’t care to have other customers than Chinese people.

We then met Mr. Nikos who owns a rather hip accessories shop. He was rather gloomy, not really optimistic and complaining about the city center’s situation, especially the Metaxourghio area. He told us he was born in Athens’ center, but now he just works there, commuting every day and trying not to look around him, in order not to get disturbed by what he would see.

Our next stop was the Athens Municipal Gallery — an exposition of Japanese art. Many visitors. The guardians pride to talk about the exposition and the city’s festival changed our mood.

Crossing Pireos Street, the ambiance changes: we exit Chinatown and enter a South-Asian one. We talk to a greek restaurant owner. They are happy there, they ‘ve been running their business in the same location for 40 years, they live in the center, they look rather tolerant.

Moving on, we are in “Plateia Theatrou” were the municipality’s initiative Polis2 takes place: giving life to stores that were closed due to the crisis by letting groups of social activists use them on a short term basis. We enter in another art exposition whose subject is “the book”. It’s beautiful, but empty. We meet Mrs. Plaitaki, an artist who exposes some of her work there. She is in her fifties, born in New York and living in Athens by choice. We talk about the city; she stresses the fact that the city’s urban past is rather recent.

Up next, we reach the Psiri area where we are welcomed in a beautiful house. Its owner, Mrs L. used to work for the Athens Municipality. She says that one’s identification with their city begins in school, and that there is where a policy should aim. On the other hand, she stresses the importance and urgency of passing to the municipality the legal authority to use and dispose abandoned Athens Center buildings. She also reminds us that the word Athens is in plural!

The idea of Athens’ Center as a complex of islands emerges: many different realities, one step away from one another.
Athens’ Islands:

Why changing them instead of building bridges?

As far as personas are concerned, our fieldwork and the interviews we carried out with the aforementioned stakeholders highlighted the following ones:

1. Investors

2. Institutions

3. Entrepreneurs

4. Residents

For our strategic planning we used Business Model Canvas which helped us define our clients — stakeholders (Customer Segments), the channels through which we can approach them (Channels), the way we can manage them (Customer relationships), for what value are the stakeholders really willing to participate (Revenue streams), what key resources do our Value Propositions require (Key resources), who are our key partners, who could become future partners and which key activities could partners perform (Key partners), what key activities do our Value Propositions require (Key activities), what are the most important costs inherent in our strategy and most importantly what value do we deliver to the stakeholders (Value proposition).

Our suggested strategy is summarized in the following title: DiverCity: Engaging all the Athenian Identities — Neighborhoods as Hubs of Resilience. Our main goal is to engage with all the identities of Athens, a city which is characterized by a population and spatial diversity.

When looking at the map of Athens from This is Athens website, we realized that a large part of the historical center is not within the proposed routes for the visitor of Athens. Yet, these neighborhoods that stand “in the darkness” are vibrant and full of colors and people who are ready to tell their own stories. Our goal is to integrate all the Athenian neighborhoods into the “Never Ending Stories” marketing strategy and actually expand the narrative of Athens, and ultimately create powerful communities in every neighborhood and through it, integrate all dark areas into map.

By setting a long-term goal, we wish upon a policy that will be followed in the long run. The main idea on which the Residential Neighborhood Plan can be developed, is based on the long-term plan for the expropriation of abandoned buildings by the municipality through a new institutional framework that has been pushed to be legalized many years now. Focusing on our proposal, we suggest that the expropriation plan will be implemented by the Municipality to make use of the real estate to attract innovative start ups. By providing these buildings to companies through a public competition, companies will be able to set their business activity in each neighborhood and finally contribute to the management and improvement of the quality of life in the neighborhoods. This plan could be powered in cooperation of the start-ups with the Municipality and in the context of the corporate social responsibility. Through the development of start ups, we believe that it will be possible to attract other companies, resulting in the creation of a hub in every neighborhood. We also consider the return of part of the revenue to the Municipality in the context of the creation of rewarding financing for the needs of the City of Athens. We consider that this plan will initially help to upgrade the individual neighboring regions and attract the necessary technological innovation in each one of them. At the same time, the whole map of Athens will be exploited as the neighborhoods will develop and become active, taking action at both collective and individual level for an optimal quality of life. Most importantly, it’s the well-being of the inhabitants that we want to achieve, the basis and the goal of every Resilient City.

Our strategy is based on the Social Innovation Award and places Citizens at the center. By creating neighborhoods that serve and involve its citizens in the community, in terms of innovation and city planning, we believe there can be a tolerant and resilient city, where every voice can be heard.

Regarding the narrative of the new neighborhood-based Athens, the idea is to expand the attempt to create a city’s narrative in “One city — never-ending stories”, by using the city’s multi-cultural profile instead of just tolerating it. Creating the narrative of a city for everyone, where applying social innovation (something that Athens recently won a prize for) is on the top of the agenda. By putting the citizens, the real users of Athens, in the narrative’s core, alongside with the respect and cultivation of the different neighborhoods’ identity, we aim to make Athens a resilient and tolerant city for everyone.

Having explored the aforementioned, we examined how our strategy could respond to the demands of the Municipality of Athens.

Challenge #1 developing a common culture in the employees of the municipality

Our tactics included

· You did it, which concerned the provision of feedback to the employees about their work

· Thought box, where the employees could deposit their ideas for implementation,

· Sharing the knowledge, which concerned the adaptation of a successful model of common organizational culture from one of the municipality’s partners?

· the importance of seminars and training of skillful leaders.

Challenge #2 communicating the innovation with all the forces of the city

For our second challenge, we considered that the mapping of the city and the spatial definition of neighborhoods with the help of the universities would be crucial. After that, the engagement of the communities would contribute to the emergence of the identity of each neighborhood. Info points, Though boxes and an open space for the meet-ups of the citizens would also contribute to the reinforcement of their relationship. Start ups could play a key role to the organization of the aforementioned actions which could also be reinforced by the partners of the Municipality.

Challenge #3 one main narrative

Consequently, our proposal also keeps the “one city — never-ending stories” campaign slogan, but expands the “stories” idea, by including investors’ stories, immigrants’ stories, cultural identities’ stories, neighborhoods’ stories, in order to engage all the Athenian neighborhoods, not just the touristic ones or only the ones we are usually proud to show. To put it in another way, we also propose to engage the “dark side of Athens”, seeing each neighborhood as a hub of resilience and innovation. If a new narrative was to emerge, that’s how, in our opinion, could be made possible.

To implement the strategy we propose, each involved member can help in a different way. It is proposed that the existing actions of the Municipality of Athens should continue, while the Municipality should additionally change the institutional framework of expropriations, making it more flexible, build bridges with all the communities in Athens and open up to new investors and Start ups. Moreover, the existing partners of the Municipality are proposed to develop business action in favor of attracting new investors. Cultural institutions and universities can contribute by providing workforce and research potential respectively. Thus, cultural organizations are called upon to carry out actions that will enable residents to feel that they are part of the city, while universities to conduct research into the neighborhoods of Athens, but also to take on their mapping. In addition, universities may have an advisory role in hubs. Finally, Start ups, having resolved the issue of housing through the provision of space by the Municipality, will be called to contribute to neighborhood management by offering a part of their annual profits to upgrade the neighborhood in which they are based. By doing so, they will perform social work and, in addition, will contribute to the transfer of innovation and technology.

Our strategy aims at the following results: The exploitation and renovation of the abandoned buildings will enliven the neighborhoods and will contribute to the Re-branding of Athens. The Athenian citizen will become a more active member of his neighborhood while his quality of life will be improved on multiple levels. The activation and participation of the citizens will assure at the same time the continuity of the strategy and the implementation of the actions. Consequently, by bridging the different neighborhoods of Athens, a new narrative will emerge based not only on our strengths but also on our weaknesses. The aforementioned actions will bring new investments and new partners which could participate to the development of further actions in the center of each neighborhood.

Of course, by defining a new strategy there are always rising risks that must be overcome:

First of all, the spatial definition of the term Neighborhood and its Cultural Identity are considered essential in order for our strategy to be achieved. A key prerequisite for making the plan sustainable is also the attraction of investors by creating attractive conditions for them. Moreover, the numerous user features their interests and needs diverse, and often conflicting therefore it is vital to find a balance in handling them. Given the empowerment of the neighborhood, it is essential to understand the needs of the different communities and micro-communities in each one of them. Finally, the synchronization of all groups of the municipality and Start ups as well as the coordination of the individual groups will be the critical point for achieving the strategy.

It was an exciting experience for all the members of the team. When presenting our proposal to the partners, we were glad to receive a very positive feedback on our project, and with the supervision of our professor, Mrs Betty Tsakarestou made the most of this academic experience.

You can find our presentation on Slideshare.

The team members: Ilias Stathopoulos | erifili.dionisopoulos | Marilena Katsarou | Nikos Yalelis | Maria Kourmoulaki