AS PPAS 4110

REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

FRIDAY 7TH AUGUST 2009.

Give me a slogan: Comparing U.S. and

MAURICIO LOPEZ

206925267
ABSTRACT

The branding process is a very complex method that involves many factors such as

economic development plans, marketing strategies, and social—cultural factors. Although,

the branding process is an essential method to boost the economy of a city, many people

misunderstand the whole process.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the taglines of 10 U.S. and Canadian

cities. A.I.D.A model was used to compare the effectiveness of the taglines. Also, the

economic development of the cities was reviewed.

The cities were chosen from the list of top cities to make business, from INC (U.S. Cities)

and Canadian Business (Canadian Cities). In total 20 taglines were reviewed, 8 of them

corresponding to large cities, 6 to mid-size cities, and 6 to small-size cities.

The large U.S. cities taglines were more appropriated than the Canadian Cities. In the case

of the medium and small cities, the results were similar.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction …………………………………4

Review of preceding research……………….4

Methodology………………………………...5

Analysis……………………………………...7

Conclusion…………………………………...12

References…………………………………...13


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Introduction.

Branding a city is an essential process that helps a particular city to show the audience

important facts such as economic development opportunities or tourism potential. As

Gardyn [11] expressed, for all consumers –from skilled workers looking for new digs to

CEOS choosing business sites- a city’s image has become an important dealbreaker. The

purpose of this paper is to compare the “taglines” or brands of 10 U.S. and Canadian cities,

and to measure its effectiveness and appeal to the audience. Also, the general process

municipalities use to develop and approve taglines will be identified. A.I.D.A. (explained in

more detail in the methodology part) is the form of measurement that was used to evaluate

the brand of the cities.

Review of preceding research.

Although there are many literature and research about the branding process and marketing

strategies, many researchers have stated that there is a relative lack of data relating to city

branding [9]. One possible explanation is that city branding is a complex process that

involves capturing the essence of the location. The complexity comes from the nature of the

cities. Peel and Lloyd [9] mentioned that cities are highly complex entities, which juxtapose

nature, people, things, and the building environment. Moreover, sometimes the effort is

focused in marketing the city periphery than its streetscape. Trueman and Cornelius [16]

stated that this method elevates the negative perception of the brand and fail to define the

true environment of the city. Other researchers have focused on practical examples. They

have studied how the cultural environment affects the brand of a city. Pryor and Grossbar

[10] studied how some socio-cultural features of some places affect the development of


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place brands. Hankinson [4] reports on a qualitative study of 12 cities in the UK which goal

was to explore the role of branding in the marketing process. Figure 1 shows an example of

how a city image is created and the factors that are involved.

Figure 1. From [9]. A city image process

Methodology.

We choose 10 Canadian and 10 U.S. large, mid-size, and small-size cities. The Canadian

cities were chosen according to the Canadian Business magazine’s “The best places to do

business in Canada” annual ranking [13]. The U.S. cities were chosen according to the

Inc.com´s “The best cities for doing business” annual ranking [14]. We decided to use the

best cities to do business because it is interesting to investigate the level of effectiveness of


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the top cities marketing strategies and how well they are taking advantage of all their

economic potential. The ranking of the cities was done according to five social and

economic factors: Annual variable operating costs, cost of living, average unemployment

rate, non-residential building permits, and crime rates. From the 10 cities of each country, 4

represent large cities, 3 mid-size cities, and 3 small-size cities.

As a form of measurement, we use A.I.D.A, which is an adoption model. A.I.D.A. stands

for four critical consecutive steps in the marketing process: Attention, Interest, Desire, and

Action.

Table 1 shows the selected cities.

Canadian City U.S. City Size

Quebec City, QB Raleigh, NC Large

Edmonton, AB Orlando, FL Large

Toronto, ON Austin, TX Large

Charlottetown, PEI San Jose, CA Large

Abbotsford, BC Provo, UT Mid-Size

Red Deer, AB Tacoma, WA Mid-Size

Saanish, BC Savannah, GA Mid-Size

Levis, QB Midland, TX Small

Prince Rupert, BC St. George, UT Small

Niagara-on-the-lake, Couer d´Alene, ID Small

ON

Table
1.
Selected
Cities
and
their
size.



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Analysis.

Large Cities

The first impression of the taglines of our selected cities was that the U.S. cities invested

more time and effort in the branding process. For example, San Jose motto: “The capital of

Silicon Valley” clearly tries to use positioning as a factor of attention. As Hankinson states

[4]: Introducing the notion of positioning a brand in the consumer’s mind helps

distinguishing it from the competitors. Many people know the location of Silicon Valley,

but the status of San Jose as capital of this region is unknown to them. By adopting that

tagline, San Jose is marketing itself as the capital of one of the most world-renowned

technology regions and by consequence drawing interest and desire. Quebec city case is

quite different. The city tagline “I shall put God's gift to good use", is not positioning the

city at all. This is an example where the tagline tries to keep the tradition and the historic

heritage, and by doing that, the city is losing a great opportunity to draw attention. Another

excellent example of innovation is Austin. Although its tagline: “Live Music Capital of the

World", is using positioning as an effective tool in terms of cultural promotion, the city is

doing an outstanding job to increase the interest and conviction of the audience in other

fields. Hospers [5] found that Austin is a leading innovative and cultural centre. The city

has been able to combine a high-tech, academic, and cultural centre environment. They

have achieved the diversification of the city and positioning as an example of a modern

innovative city. On the Canadian side, there is a different case study. The city of

Charlottetown obtained the last place in the MacLean’s survey of worst run cities despite it

has a high potential in terms of economic development [12]. The article mentions that the


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city does not even have a business plan or a clear economic development plan. There is also

an issue with the vacancy problem since there are nearly 45 vacant buildings in the

downtown core. The city has the highest per capita economic development and

infrastructure costs in Canada, making even more difficult to attract investment. The tagline

of the city is not useful at all. Like Quebec City, Charlottetown is using a tagline that refers

to historic events rather than positioning as a modern innovative city. Other cities take

advantage of their current economic situation. That is the case of Edmonton, which like

other cities like Calgary, are experiencing an important economic boom thanks to the oil

industry. The tagline of the city of Edmonton is “Industry, Integrity, Progress”, which

reflects the commitment of the city to position itself as an innovative city. The tagline is

appropriate since it draws the attention and interest of the audience by stating that the

economy and the future of the city are clear. Raleigh uses the same approach, since the city

is part of the high-tech North Carolina's Research Triangle; its economic prosperity is very

high. Its tagline tries to draw attention and intention of the audience by positioning as an

important city. Other cities have challenges in their marketing strategies and branding

process due to the diversity of its population. Orlando is trying to move to a more

diversified city and thus, creating a new branding process. Archer and Bezdecny [2] made a

study about the social changes that Orlando is experiencing and conclude that a new

branding of the city is required, partly because its population is getting more diversified.

This is an example of how the cities have to constantly revise their taglines in order to keep

a successful A.I.D.A process. Toronto is also experiencing a similar issue. As the economic

capital of Canada, the city has always been reinforced with large quantities of skilled-

immigrants creating a very strong diversified community. The problem with Toronto is that


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the marketing process sometimes is not related to the actual situation of the community.

Many people do not know the current tagline, which is “Toronto Unlimited”. This tagline

fails to position Toronto as a diversified city. There have been efforts to come with a new

brand for the city. For example after experiencing a civic workers strike, Toronto Tourism

is trying to promote the city with the slogan: “Toronto never smelled so good” in order to

attract tourism from Southern Ontario [15]. Orlando and Toronto represents an example on

how the cities must try to rebrand themselves according to the social changes that they

experience.

City Tagline
Quebec City “I shall put God's gift to good use"
Toronto “Toronto Unlimited”
Edmonton “Industry, Integrity, Progress”
Charlottetown "Birthplace of Confederation"

City Tagline
San Jose “The Capital of Silicon Valley "
Raleigh “You Can See the Whole State from
Here!"

Orlando "The City Beautiful"

Table 2. Canadian and U.S. cities taglines.

Mid-Size Cities

Caldwell and Freire [8] mentioned that there are factors that influence the image of a

country that are different from the factors that affect a region, and a city. The same concept

applies to large and mid-size cities. Mid-size cities do not have the same potential as large

cities and they lack of extensive media attention. Usually they have to choose one

perspective to choose a marketing plan and a branding process. Hakinson [4] divides these


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perspectives in three different kinds: Tourism perspective, retail marketing perspective, and

urban planning perspective. Tourism perspective tries to position the city as a destination

and the majority of the economic development strategies are directed to the tourism sector.

Te retail marketing perspective focuses on commercial activities. The urban planning

perspective focuses on place marketing, which means that that the city is promoted

according to the available spatial levels (regions, towns, buildings).

Our selected cities share similar branding processes. The U.S. and Canadian mid-cities

taglines are similar, however their positioning and perspective are different. Provo is

focusing more on the retail marketing perspective. Many companies have established in the

city and they are rapidly growing. Provo’s tagline clearly makes reference to the Brigham

Young University, which is one of the most important private universities in the United

States. This greatly affects the position of the city as an emerging and growing city. Reed

Deer is also focusing in the retail marketing perspective. The city has a solid economy,

primarily because it has many important oil companies. Its tagline incites the audience to

discover the city and unlike Provo, it tries to position the city as a innovative place.

The cities that are focused in the urban planning perspectives are Tacoma and Abbotsford.

Most of the population of the two cities commutes to Seattle and Vancouver respectively.

That is why they are focusing more on the real state market and the development of spatial

levels. The taglines of both cities position them as emerging cities.

Saanich and Savannah are focused on the tourism perspective. Their economic

development plans are directed to this sector. Their taglines clearly try to draw the attention

and the intention of the audience by positioning the cities as a destination rather than a

place to live.


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 City Tagline
Abbotsford “One with the strength of two"
Reed Deer “Delight to Discover”
Saanich “Serving the People”

City Tagline
Provo "Home of Brigham Young University"
Tacoma "The City of Destiny"
Savannah “Georgia's First City”

Table 3. Canadian and U.S. cities taglines.

Small Cities.

As the mid-size cities, the small cities lack many important features of large cities. In our

case, all the 9 small cities rely heavily on tourism. Their taglines are trying to position them

as destinations. In the case of the Canadian cities, they have more advantage than the U.S.

cities since there are more world-renown nearby destinations such as the Niagara Falls

(Niagara-on-the-lake) and the Rocky Mountains Corridor (Prince Rupert). Niagara-on-the-

lake and Coeur d'Alene are creating more desire and action by having excellent economic

development plans. Coeur d'Alene is investing in major ski centres and resorts. Niagara-on-

the-lake is part of an economic plan called “Developing the Niagara Wine Corridor”, a

program created by NEDC (Niagara Economic Development Corporation). The goal of this

program is to create a truly world-class destination in the Niagara Region.


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 City Tagline
Prince Rupert Where Canada's Wilderness. Begins
Niagara-on-the-lake “Fruitful in unity”
Levis "Labor et Concordia"

City Tagline
Midland “The Sky's the Limit”
St. George “Utah's Dixie”
Coeur d'Alene “Your lakeside playground”

Table 4. Canadian and U.S. cities taglines.

Conclusion.

The branding process is a complex interaction between many factors. When the city creates

a tagline, it must take into account its current social situation. Of course, a tagline alone

cannot build a city [1]; a good economic development plan is also required to have success

in attracting investment and audience. Coming with a successful tagline also depends on

the size of the city, for medium and small cities; a perspective must be chosen (tourism,

retail, or urban planning) in order to capture the essence and the objective. In general, the

taglines were more appropriate for the U.S large cities than the Canadian large cities. In the

case of the medium and small cities, both countries share similar taglines and little

difference was found between them. The A.I.D.A. model showed that the large U.S. cities

successfully follow the model by drawing the attention and intention of the audience, and

creating desire and action with good economic development plans.


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References.

[1] A Tagline Alone Can't Build a City. (2001, June). PR News, 57(22), 1.
Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Global.

[2] Archer, K., & Bezdecny, K.. (2009). Searching for a New Brand: Reimagining a
More Diverse Orlando. Southeastern Geographer, 49(2), 185-199.

[3] "Branding cities; cosmopolitanism, parochialism, and social change.” Reference

[4] Graham Hankinson. (2001). Location branding: A study of the branding

[5] Hospers, G.. (2008). Governance in innovative cities and the importance of
branding. Innovation : Management, Policy & Practice, 10(2/3), 224-234. Retrieved
from ABI/INFORM Global.

[6] Karen Benezra. (2003, September). Have they got a brand (New York) to sell
you! Brandweek, 44(33), 6. Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Global.

[7] Myfanwy Trueman, Mary Klemm, & Axele Giroud. (2004). Can a city
communicate? Bradford as a corporate brand. Corporate Communications, 9(4),
317-330. Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Global.

[8] Niall Caldwell, & Joao R Freire. (2004). The differences between branding a
country, a region and a city: Applying the Brand Box Model. Journal of Brand
Management, 12(1), 50-61. Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Global.

[9] Peel, D., & Lloyd, G.. (2008). New communicative challenges: Dundee, place
branding and the reconstruction of a city image. The Town Planning Review, 79(5),
507-532. Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Global.

[10] Pryor, S., & Grossbart, S.. (2007). Creating meaning on main street: Towards a
model of place branding. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy: Special Issue: The
Role of Culture in Branding Places, 3(4), 291-304. Retrieved from ABI/INFORM
Global.

[11] Rebecca Gardyn. (2002, January). Packaging cities. American Demographics,

[12] Survey names Charlottetown one of Canada's worst-run cities. (2009, July 23).
The Times - Transcript,A.5. Retrieved from Canadian Newsstand Core.


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 [13] The best places to do business in Canada, Andy Hollowa, Canadian Business
magazine, September 29, 2008.

[14] The Best Cities for Doing Business By Joel Kotkin and Michael Shires | July
10, 2008, http://www.inc.com/bestcities/2008/

[15] The whiff of opportunity for Tourism Toronto, Aug 06, 2009, Toronto Star ,
John Spears

[16 ]Trueman M, Cornelius N and Killingbeck-Widdup A (2007) “Urban Corridors


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