What is Brand Perth?
The West Australian, 1 November 2018
Bindi Gove
Chief of Throsby park consulting & activate perth DirectorNow more than ever Perth is bursting with appeal.
Who knew? We have a stadium rivalling the MCG for hallowed-ground atmosphere where even those in the nosebleed seats can almost touch the performers, a highly “Instagrammable” waterfront, laneways bursting with art and ambience–abundant small bars, hatted chef restaurants, city parklands and islands blooming with ancient indigenous history and unique biodiversity, beaches all to ourselves, tech hubs in corporate buildings, cultural experiences every night, schools where people live, offering courses in jobs of the future.
And soon a train to the airport to fly direct to London, Singapore, Dubai, Guangzhou, Johannesburgs and other destinations.
These flights are filled with the plethora of homegrown entrepreneurs and those with oil and gas resources smarts who have quickly filled the Australian market and sought rapid global expansion.
The two million Perth residents know about this part of paradise, and the Government is making plans for a greater city of 3.5 million.
Why then are we still suffering the hangover from our lack of economic diversity — falling international visitor and student numbers, declining gross State product, commercial vacancies hovering about 20 per cent, underemployment and the growing reality of migration out of Perth.
Perhaps what’s missing is a distinctive Perth brand. A brand is not just a logo or a visual identity — a brand for Perth would independently validate the assumptions (good and bad) that residents, visitors and investor’s make about Perth.
Brand Perth would be a prism through which the city would determine its future, a filter to help identify what Perth stands for, what it is and isn’t and what it wants to become.
It’s the thing that would set Perth further apart, not only from Sydney and Melbourne, but also the 3,500 cities around the world.
It could, however, bring Perth closer to South–East Asia and illuminate our proximity to the globe’s future powerhouse trading hubs — Indonesia and India — as well as China, Japan and South Korea.
Brand Perth would highlight our point of difference, not just as a place to live now but for the future, a place to visit (more than once) and a place in which to invest easily and study.
A strong confident Perth brand is the shot in the arm regional WA needs because the regions are reached through the city gateway.
Singapore, Brisbane and Melbourne didn’t accidentally carve out the distinct economic and social identities they now enjoy. They embarked on deliberate long–term strategies where perceptions were married with hard evidence to arrive at a clear understanding of what would drive future prosperity.
Developing a city brand can be fraught, so the process is vital.
It will take a task force of influencers and thinkers to agree to the brand objectives and the problems we are trying to solve, who we are solving them for and why, and marry up desktop and community research to arrive at a brand which is fit for purpose and delivers against the agreed metrics and management outcomes.
This is not a set and forget campaign, this is about an enduring brand so when those things that are distinctly Perth show up in our visitors’ and investors’ stories, we will have reduced the uncertainty in our identity, increased clarity in our brand and found our fit and point of difference.
This is not something that can happen by accident.
No one owes us a living. We’ll have to work for it.
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