In a world where the movement of people, capital and ideas is more fluid than ever, a strong place brand is more important than ever.

In the Resonance Report video, Resonance President Chris Fair defines place branding and outlines the Resonance process to help communities, cities, countries, and destinations distill and articulate their unique strategic positioning and differentiating characteristics.

“A strong place brand helps a place compete in the global marketplace,” he says. “A business or a potential resident or a visitor can go anywhere they want today, so articulating differentiating and unique characteristics is important to attracting investment, people and capital to your place.”

Fair says that a well-articulated place branding strategy strengthens a community’s sense of place, because it creates alignment between the language and messages created for and by business, community and visitors. “When those three are aligned, there’s true resonance,” he says.

Resonance creates place brands in a three-step process that starts with an audit of current brand perceptions and communications, then engages audiences – business, industry, resident, destination marketing organization – to understand their perceptions of the characteristics and attributes. “Then we look for common threads to help write a positioning and story that everyone’s on board with,” Fair says.

“A well-articulated place branding strategy should help a country, city or community better understand what industries and types of investment it’s trying to attract, and what kinds of people and markets it should be looking for, whether for tourism or immigration. Best of all, it helps destinations chart not only who they are but who they want to become,” Chris says. “That’s part of its power. A place brand reflects what a place currently is and inspires what it can be in the future.”

For more information about how Resonance can help your community, city, region, country or destination with place branding strategy, contact Chris Fair.