Welcome to this special podcast series celebrating Bloom Consulting’s 20th anniversary. Hosted by Clare Dewhirst, Director of City Nation Place, this series explores the world of Nation and Place Branding, focusing on Bloom Consulting’s 14 key steps for building an effective strategy. Each episode highlights one crucial step.
In this episode, the focus is on Step eight: Audit and activate touchpoints. Clare is joined by Iman Almutairi, Nation and Place Branding Director at Bloom Consulting in Saudi Arabia, to discuss this important topic.
Clare: Welcome, Iman. Nice to meet you.
Iman: Nice to meet you too.
Clare: And, also, Daniel Cavero, who is head of the Image and Country Brand Strategy Office with PROMPERÚ, which is investment promotion, tourism attraction, all things Peru. Daniel, welcome.
Daniel: Nice to meet you too.
Clare: And it’s great because I don’t believe you two have met before. So it’s going to be interesting to kind of share ideas from the Middle East to South America and then back to little me in Europe. So I’m looking forward to the discussion. Can I come to you firstly Iman. So, when we’re talking about activating Place Brand touchpoints, how does Bloom set about defining what the touchpoints are? Can you give us an overview of how you map different touchpoints for a Place Brand?
Iman: Absolutely! Place Brand touchpoints are diverse in nature. They’re the platforms where the brand is experienced. I think the main elements that Bloom Consulting focuses on are the Spider Brand, and the Spider Brand is the actions, the activities, the policies, stakeholder engagement, digital identity, and marketing. This is the power to influence individuals’ image and national reputation. This approach to Place Branding touchpoints involves similar key elements that help create a cohesive brand experience for residents and also for visitors alike. There are so many, I’ll name some throughout the conversation, starting from the identity of the city or the place and the storytelling that helps cities articulate their unique identity and narrative, creating compelling stories that resonate with locals and visitors at the same time. This includes defining the city’s value, culture, and key differentiation.
Of course, a strong online presence is crucial for the brand to express itself, moving to the public relations, the events, activities, and so on, up to the hard part of the brand touchpoints, which is the wayfinding, the signage within the city. So, there are a lot of touchpoints that a brand of a place needs to focus on creating the same narrative. I would say, and also manage to say the same story.
Clare: Yeah, so having that core identity and then expressing it in different channels and in different activities, and of course, you can’t always just keep doing the same strapline or the same paragraph of copy because it’s going to work differently whether you’re creating an event or operating on a digital or social channel. But having those core values at the heart of what you’re saying so it’s easier to express them.
Iman: Absolutely, and consistency. So everything ties together in the end. This is where you express your value and your culture. And what makes you different as a place? What is your Central Idea that you actually communicate through these touchpoints?
Clare: Yeah, we’ve done all that other work before we got to Step 8, of course, as well. And having identified that Central Idea, having built your narrative, then it’s just making sure you’re consistent with the way you express it. You can’t necessarily be in control of all these touchpoints. Some of the touchpoints that are operated by stakeholders, whether that’s private sector or different government departments, the challenge is to get everybody on board with that core idea, and that’s also one of the other steps.
Iman: Absolutely. I think this is also the work that goes with Daniel from his old position, making sure that all the stakeholders are aligned and there’s a way to communicate the Central Idea to all of them. I mean, you always have stakeholders that are private sector, hotels, restaurants, tour operators that you need to be aligned with and also on board with you to tell the same story to make sure that there is a seamless experience either for the visitors or also the locals.
Clare: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s come to you, Daniel, then, because Iman has introduced you into the conversation. What do you think of as the most important touchpoints and how do you ensure that you have a consistency of approach in terms of this is the story we want to get across?
Daniel: As you mentioned, we at PROMPERÚ and with our Country Brand, we are responsible for promoting as an umbrella tourism, trade, exports, and also investment. So we have very different audiences when we target some campaigns or strategies to communicate with them. So we have very different touchpoints that we use in our day-to-day work.
For tourism, of course, well, in general speaking, and nowadays digital, it’s the key channel we use because then we can really measure the correct KPIs to know how effective our communication was with our audience. But in general, also, we participate, of course, in trade shows, salons, and many, many different opportunities we have to promote our products. Tourism, of course, is the one that directs its efforts to the final audience, on B2C, when we say, please come travel to Peru, buy your ticket here, book here.
For exports and investment, we direct our communication basically to a B2B audience. Digital is the one we use the most, but of course, face-to-face communication is always made in all of our campaigns. We are always in touch with the public, especially when we create a specific campaign for the Country Brand in general.
Clare: Can we talk a little bit about structure, just so that our listeners today can understand how you deliver this in a practical way? From Peru, you’re the Country Brand director, you have worked with everybody to come up with a narrative and an identity for Peru that you want to be expressed consistently across all of these touchpoints. What’s the key to ensuring that consistency? Have you developed a brand kit? Do you have a library of assets that your separate departments can access, so that everyone’s talking with the same voice in that way?
Daniel: To promote tourism, exports, investments, and the image of the country nationally and internationally. When we speak to our local audiences, we promote identity and pride. So we have a very clear target and message to share with our local audience.
Internationally, what we do is to position our country, contributing to its knowledge, through a unique, relevant, and consistent identity. We have three pillars, and our communications go through them in every communication we have. We say Peru is multifaceted because of our biodiversity, our gastronomy. It’s a specialist where you can find whatever you need; it’s in Peru. That’s one of our key slogans. And of course, captivating. People who get in touch with Peru, who have visited us, always find more than expected. So these are the three pillars we use to communicate to all of our audiences with all our campaigns.
And of course, depending on our target, we define different strategies. So the main budget goes through the tourism campaigns because it’s very expensive to be present in more than three countries, our key markets, which bring around 80-85% of all inbound tourism to Peru. With them, we focus on various different segments, whether it’s nature, adventure, luxury, leisure, gastronomy, and so on. Of course, with the team we have in our intelligence department, when they identify what message fits better for different markets and segments.
Clare: You mentioned you rely on digital channels for most of your communications. Everybody’s talking about AI and generative AI and using chatbots and putting together tools so that you can create personalised responses when people visit your website. Is that something that you’re looking at from Peru?
Daniel: Sure, we were already working with it. We have different channels, and when it’s referred to the country brand, we have Instagram at Peru, TikTok @Marca Peru, but for tourism, all the communications go through the official tourism portal, which is perutravel.com. So, when we’re using new technologies and new tools in the country brand promotion, we want to be on trend all the time. So, of course, we have used, for example, with AI, we have created some content with llamas from different professions. It’s a nice tool because sometimes we don’t have the picture for everything we want to promote, so sometimes we go through this tool to just get a way to show in a trendy way some promotional posts about coffee or alpacas or pisco, which are our main products of export and also bring identity and pride to Peruvians.
Clare: So tell me more about the llamas then. So basically, they’re kind of summing up the character and the fun of Peru, but they convey a serious investment promotion message. Is that how that works?
Daniel: Exactly. As I said before, when we address the local audience, what we seek is to create identity and pride for Peru. So, of course, this was a trend some months ago, and I think it was a capybara, or maybe a dinosaur, who had several offices or professions such as a journalist, or maybe a doctor, a plumber, etc. So we have created this, we adapted, we tropicalised this message with a llama instead of a dinosaur or a capybara. That was a huge success on our social media. And it’s a case that we share happily with other people.
Clare: And the other thing I’d like to ask you about, we talked about that at last year’s global conference with your colleague, that you have your place of origin, you have your major career brand, that you license the Nation Brand to certain producers. Obviously, that’s a great way because if you have exports, then these are tangible products that are coming from your country that carry your Nation’s Brand. Can you share a little bit more about how that works? Do your licensees have to meet certain criteria so that they’re representing the country in the way that you would like them to represent the country, for example?
Daniel: We created this licensing programme immediately after the Country Brand was launched 13 years ago. This programme seeks to enhance the knowledge of the Country Brand and its sectoral attributes at national and international levels. In this way, the public and private sectors join forces to promote the best of Peru. This is one of our main tasks with local stakeholders, companies, and the private sector. We identify where the Peru Country Brand logo can go. We have three types of licences. The first one is the institutional one for entities that promote Peru, either nationally or internationally. The second one is for products, which is the most popular use of our licence.
And, of course, in events, maybe some trade shows, film festivals, gastronomic festivals, or perhaps a congress in Peru that brings people from abroad, etc. So nowadays, we have more than 1,900 licences provided, and the validity is for two years. It’s at no cost, but we are very strict with the applications. We have managed to get a very good reputation for the Country Brand Peru, so we really look after every application to be sure that the company that wants to join our programme also has a good reputation. We provide the licence to use the Country Brand Peru, but also for our sectoral brands, which are superfoods Peru, or superfoods alpaca del Peru from our textile sector, Peru textiles as well, Lisco Spirit of Peru, our national spirit, and coffees from Peru, unique specialties.
This is one of the sectoral brands we also provide a licence to use for. Specialty products and for exports. The most companies that use these logos are already companies that export these products, so we can go together with them. We have conducted a survey with our licence holders in the programme, and what they recognise as the benefit of using the Peru Country Brand is that 86% said that it’s Peruvian, that it brings the origin of the product as Peruvian. They also associate it with quality, good reputation, and reliability. So this is, for us, a very successful programme. As I said, it’s at no cost. We are always looking for more companies in Peru, SMEs or big companies, to join this programme.
Clare: Sounds great. And it makes me think, Iman, we started off the conversation by talking about that challenge of ensuring that you have a consistent brand identity across all of your touchpoints, that you’re telling a consistent narrative. But the other challenge is to increase the touchpoints you have with different audiences. And working with the private sector is, I don’t know if it’s a shortcut, because it’s a lot of work, but it’s one way of increasing touchpoints, isn’t it? Do you have any comments on that, Iman? Any places or cities you’ve worked with who do a good job around engaging their private sector in building the Place Brand?
Iman: I think this is a challenge that will always be there, not only with the private sector but also the public sector. Daniel mentioned tourism as one pillar, but also attracting foreign direct investment, exports. There are a lot of entities, governmental entities, that actually do this job, and I think the alignment and the governance behind this takes a lot of work and a lot of time, especially when it involves policy-making to make sure that it’s consistent with the core idea or the Central Idea of the cities. I mean, technology, you mentioned, you touched on it, there’s always going to be a channel. There’s always direct communication. There’s always online. There’s always experience marketing. The challenge we’re facing now is what the main guidelines will be put in place to help the private sector understand that this is aligned with this city or not.
There’s a lot of great examples, but what Bloom Consulting does as part of its services is the Bloom Place Academy, where we try to bring all these stakeholders together and provide tools that make this easier in the long term to educate and align stakeholders. Customer service is part of it as well. Whenever this is due, the consistency of the feedback mechanism with the visitors and the locals ensures that these touchpoints are locked, and the feedback loop is actually studied very well. There are a lot of initiatives, and I think we’re seeing more and more innovative channels that a lot of cities are using.
Clare: Great, thank you. And Daniel, lots of people mentioned Peru as a Nation Brand that they’ve been watching grow confident and deliver a successful campaign for the country. What has been one of your key learnings along the way in terms of how you make sure that you’re consistently conveying the same brand story across different touchpoints?
Daniel: One of the key factors in the success of the Country Brand of Peru is that we haven’t changed our graphic identity ever. We have updated, of course, but the Peru logo, you know, it’s been the same since the very beginning. So, luckily for the Country Brand Peru, people who have been in charge of administrating it have had the clear idea to communicate that the Country Brand Peru is from the state, not the government. So I think this is one of the main successes of the Country Brand Peru, that whoever is in the ministry or in the government, the Country Brand Peru has always had the same key message, the same pillars, the same graphic identity, and this is actually a very, very huge challenge that we’re facing day to day. It’s very appealing to get closer to the country brand for many reasons in terms of politics, but we are always, of course, aware we belong to a governmental entity, but still, our main challenge is to be as apolitical as possible with our content. And by the end, what we see with a country like Peru is to bring more income and development for our country. So sometimes it’s not that strategic to be linked so directly with the people who are in power at the time.
Clare: I think that’s key. It’s a real challenge for places around the world to create that separation from politics and brand. The longer you stick with a narrative, the more it’s going to resonate with people. If you don’t keep changing it, then you don’t have to keep worrying whether you’ve got the right logo on the right channel. Because, you know, doing a brand refresh can be a complete nightmare from a practical level. Would you agree, Iman, that it’s not just the breadth of touchpoints, but the longevity and consistency of the message over a period of time that has the greatest impact?
Iman: No, absolutely. And there are a lot of external factors that sometimes affect the country or the city’s reputation. But I think effective PR strategies can enhance the city’s visibility through media coverage, influencer partnerships, thought leadership, showcasing what the city has to offer, and staying authentic. Make it all about the people and about the nation, not the country as a political territory. Making sure that there are experiences, heart to heart, something that connects nations rather than countries.
Clare: Yeah, that’s very interesting, and it’s interesting to get the city perspective alongside the nation perspective. Daniel, from our time when we did a conference in Latin America in Costa Rica about six years ago, all of our attendees were focused on the Nation Brand, so these are countries across Latin America and Central America. There was a lot of conversation about whether the cities of Latin America would start to emerge and develop their own Place Brand strategies. And I’m not conscious that I’ve seen that happening much. Within Peru, are your cities and regions looking to develop their own brand strategy? And how does that tie in with your Nation Brand?
Daniel: They have, actually already, we have about five to six regional brands. Sometimes we are involved with them, not in terms of participating directly in the construction of the brand, but as an external advisor for them. So they usually come to us for some advice to get to know how we did it, how we made it such a successful brand, and when we start to tell them it took us at least three years to create this through the Country Brand and the investment they have to have and all the teams they need to work with to get this promotion in an efficient way, and then they decide to do whatever they want, but at least we are advising them and sharing our experience to try to make this original brand, not only a logo, but also an identity that really differentiates with pillars and uniqueness and all that we know we have to make to create a national or regional brand.
Clare: Yeah, and it’s not really a question of politics because, as Iman was saying, you separate from the political position of the country when you’re looking at your Nation Brand or indeed looking at the City Brands, but it is about the values and the cultural identity. I was speaking recently with David Downs from New Zealand and Dan Terris from Christchurch in New Zealand. Dan worked on the City Brand for Christchurch. There is such a continuity between the way New Zealand as a country talks about itself and the way the cities of New Zealand present their brand. Having that extra connection means, at that point, your city becomes another touchpoint for you as a Nation Brand. I think that’s also worth bearing in mind. I can see that we’re nearly at the end of our time. I’ve been doing all the questions and connecting. Daniel, have you got any questions for Iman? Iman, have you got any questions for Daniel?
Daniel: On my side, I’d like to know, I mean, we’ve been asked just related to the last question, how do you work, what would you advise cities or regions to do to create the local branding? Sometimes it’s a matter of budget, sometimes it’s a very political issue that the new mayor, the new governor, wants to have the local brand. What would you recommend us to do or what can we do with that?
Iman: I think there’s a lot of ways to connect with local citizens within the city or the place. There are a lot of initiatives that can be done through small communication channels that usually bring people together and make them decision-makers when it comes to how they want their city to be perceived as well. So that is direct communication and making sure that they are aware of your plans when it comes to all the sectors you are trying to attract.
One part of the success for City Branding is how the nation accepts visitors as well. And I think we’ve seen recently a lot of protesting for over-tourism. You need to have the buy-in from the locals, and you can’t have it without them being part of the decision-making and seeing the long-term value of why we’re doing what we’re doing, why you’re doing all these promotions, why these visitors have to come and experience the culture, the place, and contribute to the economies. And I think this is also a touchpoint, Clare, of what you said about cities versus countries. I think we’re seeing more city-based economy building or nation building. Every city is now trying to have a diverse country, with different positioning that they want to communicate. And it contributes to the overall Nation Brand or Country Brand in general. So we’re seeing a lot of cities developing their own branding, developing their own culture and values, trying to position themselves differently, and they contribute to the bigger GDP of the country. And there is no right and wrong. There is top-down and there is bottom-up. Eventually, you’re going to reach there. Either you start with a Country Brand and then you see that all the cities and the places are adapting and tweaking it based on what they think is suitable for them. And it gets complicated the bigger the country is. I mean, bigger countries have different regions, different cities that you can slightly feel the difference in experiences and the culture wherever you go. So it’s a must to have their own identity and speak on behalf of that and have their own Central Idea.
But the smaller the country, the more consistent you want it to be, and you want to keep this authenticity around every part of it.
Clare: Yeah. I wonder, I suspect money talks, it’s a really interesting question. I’m going to go away and do a little research around it, whether there is anywhere a Nation Brand team providing funding, grants, support to their cities and regions to develop stronger Place Brands because all of those will add up to a stronger whole. And if it’s done with some consistency of finding the individual voice, but building to a Nation Brand whole, I think it would be really interesting to look at that. I’m thinking in the UK, the Great Campaign, which I think is more of a campaign than a Nation Brand, if I’m being honest, but it can be used by individual cities or regions or attractions within the UK.
It’s almost like the private sector licences the brand. They can licence the Great brand, they can cooperate with the Great brand. And Great and Visit Britain provide grants for that development in tourism, for example. So if two regions or two cities are trying to develop a joint marketing strategy or a tourism marketing strategy or something like that, they can get some funding from the central government. It means it’s all fitting in the message.
Iman: Private sector as well. Some big private sector companies who benefit from exports actually want to make sure that their Country Brand has a better value internationally so they can find markets for their products. So you see them sometimes supporting the image of the Country or the Nation Brand indirectly, trying to make sure that the country is perceived well so they can find markets for the products.
Clare: Absolutely. I mean, Daniel, you mentioned that nobody pays for the Peru licence, but in other countries, they have a licence fee to use the Nation Brand. And then that provides that additional funding, which creates the exhibitions, the trade delegations, etc. So many, many different ways, lots of things to keep talking about. And in the private sector, we have a research study coming out, which we’ll be talking about at the Global Conference this year. So that’s in November 2024 in London.
But for now, thank you both so much for your time. That was a really interesting conversation. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, Iman. And thank you, everybody, for listening. We look forward to coming back to talk about Step 9 on the next episode. Thank you very much. Thank you all.
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Published on 08.01.2025.
