15 Aug 09 How to Brand a Place

You probably know important a brand can be. It helps mark a product or service with a seal of quality and assurance. It also helps customers feel confidence with consistency, making the item worry-free. And let’s face it, who wants to worry?

You can also brand the places where you want to send your clients. Some places already have some strong branding going on. However, remember that a brand is only an interim step, a visual metaphor for the item on which it resides. To choose visual metaphors that will link your clients to destinations, think about how you would create a logo for the country.

Begin with a mind map. What words remind you of France? Great food, gardens, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and maybe a few other things pop into your mind. Keep that list handy and collect images that match those words. Then when you have a client who wants a European destination, get that file out and see what images and words match your client’s business or vacation desires.

Create a brand especially for that client. Let’s do one together. You have a client who owns an architecture firm. She wants a destination with culture and variety where she can take a short company meeting. You check your files and come up with art and music, then realize that a river cruise down the Danube may be exactly what she is looking for. You were able to go there based on that little bit of information because you took the time to brand the destination.

Branding is not only a way to match clients with destinations, but more to make your job easier. You may have gotten to the Danube cruise anyway, but you saved yourself a lot of work be branding. That’s time you can spend on other things.

Tags: Architecture Firm, Branding, Collect Images, Confidence, Consistency, Culture, Danube Cruise, Eiffel Tower, European Destination, Food Gardens, Handy, Interim Step, Job, Little Bit, Louvre, Match, Mind Map, River Cruise, Vacation Desires, Visual Metaphor, Visual Metaphors