Uniting our forces! Facing the challenges for a better Athens City Branding
erifili.dionisopoulos — Maria Kourmoulaki— Ilias Stathopoulos
On the 12th of March 2019, we had the opportunity to visit 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, Associate Professor at Panteion University.
During our visit in Serafio, we had the opportunity to meet with the Vice Mayor for Civil Society and Innovation of Athens Municipality, Amalia Zepou, the Director of Marketing and Communications of This is Athens, Evita Kalogiorga, and the SynAthina team in order to discuss about Athens’ challenging efforts to remain The European Capital of Innovation (Athens won the iCapital Award for 2018) and investigate ways to enhance and continue the successful This is Athens project.
Firstly, Mrs. Kalogiorga presented us the project of This is Athens and the main strategic plans of the Municipality for the attraction of tourists and the reposition of Athens as a city break destination. As she explained to us, the main goal of This is Athens project is to create a story telling for Athens, a common narrative for tourists, investors and citizens. The tourists should experience the city as a real citizen of Athens, discovering all the hidden treasures and not just Acropolis or the National Museums, while the investors should be informed about the great opportunities for innovation and investment. For a better living experience of Athens, the Municipality has already put in practice several projects, such as the creation of Info Points for the convenience of tourists and the volunteers project who offer willingly a guided tour to the tourists who arrive in Athens. During the presentation we discussed about the importance of creating synergies with the private sector, such as the alliance of the Municipality of Athens with Aegean Airlines and Athens International Airport.
After the enlightening presentation of Mrs. Kalogiorga, Mrs. Zepou took the lead and presented us the innovative projects which established Athens as the European Capital of Innovation for 2018. Some of the most successful projects are the Kypseli Municipal Market, the Athens Open Schools, the Polis2, the anti-graffiti project, the Victoria Square Project etc. As Mrs. Zepou pointed out, the innovation of these projects was based on the fact that for the first time the citizens assumed an active role and expressed their ideas about how they would want their city to look like. More specifically, the Municipality has already started developing new ways of communicating with the citizens who take the city in their hands by proposing solutions and creating new projects that will improve their quality of living. Finally, Mrs. Zepou informed us about all the actions that we can undertake and the opportunities that we can take as citizens of Athens in order to make our city a better place.
At the end of our meeting, after being fully informed about This is Athens project and the iCapital award, we had the opportunity to make a more spherical talk with the members of SynAthina, Mrs. Kalogiorga and Mrs. Zepou about the challenges of the Municipality.
We discussed about how we can actually pass this new culture of Innovation of Athens to the employees of the Municipality and the citizens, so that it can be continued with the next Municipality authorities. The second challenge concerned the communication with the volunteers and the active members of the society and their integration in a common narrative of the city. Finally, we discussed about how important it is that we establish a common strategy between Athens City Branding and This is Athens project.
Following our first meeting, a debriefing was essential in order to specify the points of improvement with a clear thought and to start planning our strategy. On the 19th of March, we were gathered for our MA Cultural Communication and Marketing Course with Mrs. Betty Tsakarestou in order to discuss about what had been said in our last meeting in Serafio. During our meeting, we pointed out the significance of keeping up and covering all of the aspects of any initial strategy. Another important aspect is the organized internal communication and the continuous contact between the people who work on the same project and for the same goal. The continuous change of administration prevents the organization of a strategic design and the achievement of continuity. A long lasting positive impact is always substantial. Furthermore, a re-branding of Athens by creating a common narrative, based not only on tourism, but on a moto that brands Athens for what it really is, was considered critical. Moreover, we discussed about how nowadays the development of synergies is becoming more and more essential for the preservation of what has already been made and how these synergies are example about how we can lead Athens to a further growth. Finally, we underlined the great role of the citizens as ambassadors of the new changes and as co-creators of a new common narrative of Athens.
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