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0:03
A place branding approach is pretty fundamental,
because it isn't public sector-led, it is place-led.
Traditionally, the public sector have led on this work.
To be honest, it should never have been that way,
it should always have been about place,
and now it has to be about a combined approach,
because there simply is no money around to do this work.
Everyone has to own that story,
everyone has to feel it's their job to sell the place.
The places that are doing this successfully have moved on from that story to
use it to create often places on boards to be leadership groups.
So it acts on developing the destination in light of that story.
They have corrected ambassador groups to go out and tell and sell that story.
Because people are there,
if you give them the tools,
particularly businesses, they will go out and talk about that place, they will sell it.
They have the networks, the contacts,
and the credibility to tell that place story.
From the public sector,
place branding in this regard,
it's much more about driving from the backseat,
and that's really important in terms of a different approach to traditional marketing.
1:28
Perhaps it's worth considering an example now,
how a place brand comes together.
And for this, I wanted to talk about the South Downs National Park,
which clearly tourism is very important for but that's not everything.
Because for a national park,
there has to be stewardship and conservation, understanding and education,
and it has to promote economic and social well-being.
For the sake of the South Downs National Park,
we're dealing with a piece of geography 100 miles across, so quite a challenge.
Here, a story was created that was signed off by
the various stakeholders and members of the national park as the heart of the brand,
and that led to a whole host of things.
One might think about marketing the park,
and they're part of that experience.
So here we're looking at photography that animated the place,
that made it human, that linked people to the land,
and that comes directly from the story.
