City Branding Event in Liverpool Looks to Stockholm

How do global cities set themselves apart from the rest?

The Heseltine Institute for Public Policy and Practice in collaboration with Liverpool Vision will be hosting an event to look at the increasing importance of strong global city brands.

In an era of unprecedented competition for knowledge, talent and resources, the best global cities have succeeded in creating consistent messages about themselves, which permeate the full breadth of their ‘offer’ from business and commerce through to culture, heritage and housing. 

To achieve this, cities like Stockholm have identified and coordinated the critical elements that have an impact on their image as a destination to visit, invest, live and study and are able to articulate the quality of what the city offers to the right markets locally, nationally and internationally. 

In 2014, the International Festival for Business will generate an unprecedented level of global interest in Liverpool and its City Region. With the festival now entering a critical stage of its planning, this session will ask how global cities tell the world that they’re a unique destination and reflect on what Liverpool needs to do to be competitive in the global market place. 

Contributions from brand strategist Julian Stubbs, who was responsible for the branding of Stockholm, and Professor of Marketing, Gary Warnaby, will lay the ground for open discussion, chaired by John Flamson. We would be delighted for you to engage in the debate. 

About Julian Stubbs

Julian Stubbs is a brand strategist, writer and presenter who has worked with developing brand strategies and identities for a wide range of organisations and places. From Technicolor, the Hollywood movie company to the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, to the city of Stockholm, in Sweden. 

His first business book, titled ‘Wish You Were Here’,explores the branding of places and destinations as well as his work for the city of Stockholm, where Julian created the brand positioning and tag line ‘Stockholm, The Capital of Scandinavia’. Today Julian is working with a number of place branding projects at city and municipality level. He has most recently been involved with the municipality of Utrecht, the city of Amsterdam and has most recently been involved with the branding and positioning of the city of Oslo, in Norway. 

He is a founder of UP THERE, EVERYWHERE the global cloud based consultancy group which today has over 130 people based in 19 cities around the world. 

About the session

The session will be taking place at the Hub Lounge in the University's Foresight Centre from 5.30-7.30pm on Thursday 12 September. 

Julian Stubbs on YouTube: Place Branding Stockholm