WELCOME TO THE NEIGBOURHOOD OF ATHENS
A quick overview of our journey
This year, we most gladly took up a challenge posed by our professor and mentor Betty Tsakarestou: to create our own branding campaign for our city, the city of Athens.
First step was a self-brainstorming session, where we answered different questions with regards to Athens by putting on words on posts-its and then re-organising them to shape small stories, one of which was the essence of the neighbourhood. Right from the very beginning of our journey, the notion of the neighbourhood came up in our team’s discussions and brainstorming outputs. Not in the sense of a certain geographical area within defined boarders but in a nostalgic sense of altruism, friendliness and safety.
Second step was research. We reviewed branding and resilience reports from countries all over the world as well as Athens’ official resilience strategy including a SWOT analysis. Similarities with regards to the issues Athens and other cities are facing were evident and so we managed, besides getting a clear image of Athens’ current condition and challenges, to identify best practices that other cities had successfully implemented.
We, also, analysed the media coverage for the city in national and international media. Athens seemed to have become an autonomous attractive touristic destination over the recent years, leaving behind its role as a three day stop before hitting the islands. In addition, art initiatives and collectives have rejuvenated the city with an air of creativity and collaboration. However, environmental threats and disasters took up most of the coverage in local and foreign media: the fires burning up the few green spaces of the city, floods following the fires during autumn and winter, the Sahara Desert dust covering the Athenian sky and the air pollution created by the traffic, among others. Furthermore, Athenians were presented more and more as an unhospitable population with rude behaviours towards co-locals and visitors and lack of solidarity towards migrants, homeless and other vulnerable groups of people. The articles referring to the reasons why the Great Walk initiative failed, were also enlightening for our later on strategic choices.
Finally, we interviewed several Athenian locals or temporary residents (citizens, NGO members and hub employees, urban architects, entrepreneurs in the touristic domain as well as Erasmus students and foreign interns) to attain their likes and dislikes with regards to the city and what is important for them while living in the city. Words that most commonly came up in these interviews were not far from our previous findings: safety, green spaces and environment, housing, inclusivity, culture and creativity, community.
It was then that our initial story of the neighbourhood’s essence came back to our mind as if it embraced all these words under its notion. And this is how our narrative and vision began to shape.
Welcome to the neighbourhood of Athens
From our research we realised that people in Athens are isolating more and more. They have lack of trust towards politicians and co-citizens as well. They have become rude, unhospitable, selfish and racists even. They care about their own progress in expense of the others’, creating significant inequalities.
But a city’s improvement cannot come from individuals. Improvement comes from the society as a whole, from working together in a common cause, caring for one another and for the environment that surrounds them. Improvement comes from joint effort and Athens cannot meet its challenges otherwise.
The word neighbourhood in Greece has a strong meaning that surpasses the literal geographical area, a meaning that brings people and co-existence into the spotlight. By bringing the neighbourhood’s essence in the centre of our campaign, lead for all our actions, we aim to prioritise human relationships, solidarity, consideration for the other and for the local needs. We also give a familiar image of future Athens for people to dream of and motivate them to participate.
Therefore, our vision for Athens is to reinstate the neighbourhood’s essence of altruism, hospitality, kindness and friendliness. Re-unite people in a hospitable and sustainable city where they can work together, co-create, meet and have fun; people that care for the environment and the next generations, who care about one another.
Putting our vision into action
For creating our pillars, we focused on the main ingredients that constitute a neighbourhood: the outdoors environment, the houses, people’s co-existence and friendliness.
a. Towards a greener and walkable city
With this pillar, we promote and facilitate walkability with focus on accessibility, pedestrian streets and maintaining our streets clean. Taking into account the recent heat waves, we, also, plan to add drinking water fountains for the pedestrians, as well as to collaborate with cafés all over the city to serve as water refill stations.
Furthermore, we aim to increase green spaces with new parks and playgrounds but, also, by improving the state of the current ones. Aiming to motivate people into caring for their city, we, additionally, plan to launch the Community Gardens initiative by ensuring soil spaces in each neighbourhood for citizens to garden. But none of this would count, if people did not feel safe in the public spaces. For this reason, we will include feminist urban design in our strategy, increase lighting in public spaces, nurse homeless people and shelter stray animals in order for citizens to be able to enjoy the city carefree.
b. Endorse sustainable housing
This pillar focuses on restoring abandoned public classical buildings and putting them in use to serve other goals, such as creation of new social housing, cultural centres and co-working spaces. Private initiatives are also very important for us and for this reason we aim to give motives to private owners to renovate their properties when characterised as landmark buildings and funding green housing initiatives like energy insulation, roof gardens installation etc.
Last but not least, following our ancestors saying of the importance of “having a roof above your head”, we aim to shelter people in need, by increasing the number of social housing and promoting volunteerism.
c. Encourage co-creation
This is our cultural pillar that engages community and focuses on people’s co-existence and joint accomplishments. It includes creation of cultural centres and co-working hubs, hosting of European exchange programs, promotion of alternative education, liaison of artists and mediators with investors and officials as well as concerts, bazaars and other community events that are destined to create memorable joint moments in the city.
d. Establish a culture of welcoming
Finally, our last pillar aims to (re-)establish the welcoming nature of the Athenians towards everyone; from attracting digital nomads and foreign entrepreneurs in locating themselves in Athens to assisting migrants into becoming valuable members of the society. We do that by providing all necessary information for both groups in accessible websites but also by providing facilities and by liaising them with the right people in the city.
Ensuring engagement and support
In order to be able to implement all the above, it is necessary to ensure support, resources and funds. through valuable alliances. For this, we carefully identified all stakeholders, with citizens being our core and most important one, placed in the centre of our attention. We want to make sure that what we do inspires people and that change will be welcomed. It is actually a project generated by the citizens and destined for the citizens. However, to achieve our goals we need to make sure that public authorities, like the municipality of Athens and the Greek Government as well as Civil Society support us. We, also, need insights, expertise, funds, promotion by several other groups of people like academics, media, architects etc.
To ensure their engagement, we follow a six-step strategy that includes them throughout our entire journey and establishes long-term relationships with them.
Planning and monitoring
In order to successfully implement our project, we assigned different project teams per goal with specific governance, which report regularly to our Board and stakeholders. We, also, created a feasible plan demonstrating all interdependencies between project deliverables, as well as all major milestones which are always a good occasion for celebration when reached.
We, then, made sure to monitor both project efficiency and quality of deliverables. With regards to project efficiency, we set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) goals per pillar along with specific KPIs for each goal in terms of achieving targets, delivering within timelines and keeping budget in track. To evaluate quality, we included, in our strategy, satisfaction surveys, as well Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys to be conducted for specific deliverables. This way, we make sure that the outcomes suit the citizens’ and stakeholders’ expectations.
Putting our message out in the world
Much attention was given to our communication strategy as getting the message through to the audience is vital for the success of any branding campaign.
Our brand name and logo
We decided to name our team WE ARE ATHENS to emphasize on our people-centered approach. WE ARE ATHENS, because people are Athens; people make the city.
Our logo was created with modern and playful look n’ feel: edgy font, playful arrangement, modern shapes and fresh, vibrant colours. Our colour pallete was inspired by the Athenian blue sky and the brightful orange sun. White was chosen to represent our clear and transparent communication and the intense colour contrast to represent diversity and inclusivity.
Our personas
In order to further engage our diverse audience and stakeholders, we decided to create imaginary personas with specific and representative profiles that will accompany our branding material. Personas representing different gender, age and nationality groups, activists and members of the civil society, minorities, temporary residents and visitors, they all take part in our actions. At the same time, the cheerful personas give a positive spirit in our campaign.
Our communicational events
To pass our message through, we plan to organise all types of events: strategic ones to ensure and discuss progress with all involved parties but also with the public, stakeholder events to form and maintain a meaningful relationship with them, community awareness events like exhibitions or guided walks in the city, press events aiming to earned media and visibility and last but not least promotional events like concerts and festivals where we can all meet.
Our owned media
Our owned media are our website and social media along with a podcast.
We designed a user friendly and interactive website where users can share stories from the city, enroll as volunteers or request action for issues that are not yet in our agenda. It is also transparent with regards to our project goals, progress and collaborations and informative in respect of city insights and events.
Our social media strategy is consistent throughout all the chosen media: Instagram, Facebook, X (twitter) and Tik-Tok. However, according to each media’s style, tools and users’ demographics, focus and content may be slightly altered. Generally, our goals are to increase Athens’s visibility, engage communities, attract digital nomads and foreign entrepreneurs, enroll volunteers and inform on project goals.
We will also host a podcast in which we will present interviews with stakeholders and volunteers and also features on Athenian neighbourhoods, artists, art expositions and events.
Paid & earned media
Our paid media will focus on TV and radio campaigns, online and social media ads as well as posters in public spaces.
Finally, we aim to acquire earned media by organising press events and focusing on maintaining a long-lasting relationship with journalists but also through likes and reposts in our social which we will target through meaningful content and collaborations with influencers and ambassadors.
Don’t forget to like us as well! 😊
