How to Brand a Product with a Voice: Marketing Amsterdam | Geerte Udo, I amsterdam | OnBrand '16

thank you so much my name is Pierre - you don't for Dutch people that's not a problem for the international people I think my parents never ever thought I would have any international ambitions by giving me this name maybe on the other side they had this crystal ball and thought okay we give it a try maybe within 40 years she will have a sort of career there will be a sort of digital era platform social mania we give her a name that nobody has if you look for me it's just me I want to tell you a little story about how to brand a product with a voice but let me start with a question who lives in Amsterdam ah there is my product who works a non-stem also my product yes great um who is here just for the business visit the conference on brand yes thank you and who has been or will be here as a visitor just a leisure visitor yes some people as well great I will tell you a little story but first let me start with a little bit of emotion so I work at the company Amsterdam marketing that is a public-private cooperation and it's a foundation so we work not for profit so every money that we earn we invest in place running in city marketing and I will tell you why we started 15 years ago because Amsterdam was going down on rankings we were less attractive as a city to live in that's attractive to do for business for visitors etc so we set these goals and we said we want to be an appealing City to living an international business city in Niek City for visitors and an excellent City for meetings and conventions and why did we choose these goals um first let me give you a sort of an insight in our product because of course we are an organization we got a product our product grew organically by itself they started already more than 900 years ago so what does it consist what are the ingredients of our product well we have more than 2.3 million people living in bigger Amsterdam area and more than 800 30,000 people living in the city we have 180 nationalities within the city of Amsterdam we have six universities 75 museums we have 55 theaters and concert hall we have twelve hundred and eighty-one breaches 1515 cafes and 1325 restaurants we have more than 300 festivals we have startups we have more than 2700 international companies we have more than 17 million visitors a year the people that live in the city know it we have more than 400 kilometer of biking paths and we have 880 1000 bicycles in town yes international people we have more bikes than inhabitants but at the end this our product is made by these people and that is why we said the core business of Amsterdam marketing in branding and promoting our city is focused on these three groups the base is our inhabitants they create the city but people didn't know a little bit about our history know that 400 years ago 500 years ago people travel to the city they came here they stayed for a while they added their value and it traveled along so we said the inhabitants nowadays 70% of the inhabitants is not born here they came they stick or they left or they come back so we said the inhabitants they are the city they are the brand but also the visitors because they were here already for a long long time and also the businesses the people that work here they add an extra thing to the city to the heart breaks in the infrastructure so they are the ingredients of our city but as a product you normally you just have consumers that have a voice you mainly have employees that have a voice you may be a press that says something about your product but what if your product has a voice our products talks every day about their identity and who they are and who their customers are or maybe even more detailed it's not a product that has voice in our case it's the ingredients they all have a voice the local people have their voice the visitors have their voice and they all have an idea who they are who the product is what the identity of the city is where it should be and nowadays we have a lot of tourists visitors in his city and we have a problem how to manage it so if one of the group of ingredients of our products it's actually complaining to the other part of the ingredients you're not part of my product to get out here so we try to manage and to brand this whole sphere because the strange thing is inside these products and angry they all have different opinions as well and the last circle we have to make around is that you are my target group I want you to live here to work here to visit here and as soon as I have reached my goals you become the most important ingredient of my product so how do you manage this whole story tell well we just started by small goals like I said we're a public-private organization so we just want to be realistic and we have a few goals increase the pride of residents sounds simple is not promote cultural participation the city is unique by the amount of culture and how it created it and we love the not only the visitors use it but also the local people because it's the breeze of a city we say and discover your city touch people are just normal human beings when you go abroad on a city trip you go around in three days and you find all the areas and cultures and cafes and restaurants when you're at home you stay in your own area and that's fine it's not a problem but we think it's interesting for other Amsterdam people if you live in the South go up north and discover what you can do over there I will show you an example later on what are the goals for visitors it changed big times last ten years ten years ago we said the more the better come to her city how many Dutch people said to their international friends ten years ago if you come to my city rent a bike it's the way to discover it and now in the local city see all the tourists on the bikes going oh my god this is becoming a problem but it's still the idea that the combination of inhabitants visitors and business is our product the only thing you have left to figure out right now with the city is how to manage all these target groups so for the goals for residents shifted Toby and I'm very proud of the work that we did but it's not because of the city branding and plays branding that we have all these visitors here it's just a trend in the economy around the world they're way more people than have money the cost of airplane tickets are going down still so there's just a lot of people traveling so Berlin look Berlin Barcelona they all have the same programs as we trying to deal with so for visitors we said we're not gonna make the wareness anymore we're not doing anything of coming over here and doing the marketing thing the only thing we do try to get better visitors and that's a horrible word but the thing we mean is we like people to come to our city to add value to the city and I'm sorry to say but not the English stack parties that come over just drink just to puke and pee everywhere and then leave that doesn't add anything to my product so we prefer to attract a lot of people that just like the city and create in the energy so the city keeps what it is so that is why we try to get another other kind of visitor and we try to distribute them more even over the city center what do we do for business we just work on the image to be frankly there are not many international headquarters that look and relocate their European headquarters in Amsterdam because of the red-light district and the coffee shops so we have to tell them another story yes we have them but that's because of our culture what is the reason why we have them there and we start in telling the story so we try to attract them but also retain them so we work public/private so 40% of the income we have comes from the city home but we do cooperate with 32 other city halls and 1100 partners and that's really gone from the big companies like Calum Heineken PwC avian mrow till the little guy or girl around the corner who has a cafe or a little shop we said to City Hall we can do marketing but if you don't keep improving the product keeping the city livable keep it clean keep it safe keep enough space there's no way of using us as a marketing team so we're constantly negotiating how to work and where to invest first we strengthen the image of the area we branded with the logo of I am certain I'm slam had more than 25 logos we focus on icons and we try to charge the brand for three core values why because this is our idea about branding and marketing what's very happy with actually from Twitter saying it's not science it's just a concept and we work with this concept because it works best for our target groups we say branding is in the mind if I say the city of that mr. booth you all have pictures in your hat that is branding if it comes to place branding if you go there in the social media or a website or whatever says maybe you should go left instead of right or maybe some in another season the new ways in the spring for us that is the marketing part so first we go into the awareness and the reputation management and to me frankly we don't do awareness if you've never heard of Amsterdam I'm not gonna do my marketing there why am i branding because it's waste of money it costs a lot of money a lot of capacity and there are a lot of people that know the city but have a strange idea on what we have to offer that's for tourists but also for people who live and do business then we do the consideration maybe you should come over if it comes to sales and loyalty these are the partners for instance if we try to give Amsterdam a more image of a cultural City the seal stick thing of the Rijksmuseum is just done by the Rijksmuseum we don't have to do that so if you look at the bit maybe old fashioned customer journey it's just the example to show that we just part of a whole concept it's hard for me to go to the owner of Amsterdam discussing how we can improve the product there are a lot of people who own that and then if it comes to the plain idea of branding and marketing you have normally your core values or your DNA they make your unique selling points you select your icons and you can do this storytelling but when we started 15 years ago there were millions of stories already they were all about the product and how could we select the stories that really represent us because in place branding and storytelling the most difficult part is how can i seduce somebody and making sure that I don't tell something that sounds like Berlin or Barcelona because if I say wow it's a great city come over and live here we have a high quality of life etc etc they're going yes you have to see them in Berlin in Barcelona what's different so we tried backwards from storytelling and the icons to see if we could differentiate USBs perfect target group and if you do that and you do a lot of research you can find reaching the DNA of the city because Amsterdam is and will always be different than a Barcelona or a Berlin and what are these core values we think it's the combination of creativity spirit of Commerce and innovation and you probably say yeah right and I explicitly say the combination creativity go to Berlin spirit of Commerce the real hard one go to London or Silicon Valley the combination is unique in Amsterdam is it true I believe so where are you now in the birds from Birla hmm 1602 they started with securities here for the first time in the stock exchange they started the first multinational for 200 years it was the most the biggest multinational in the world it was just a creative business solution and do we still have this promise are there still companies that know how to make the crossover between creativity and spirit of Commerce I think so I think so that is the story we tried to tell but also the other way around Rembrandt one of our most famous painters knew exactly where the thin line was how to paint and how to earn money and doing still know how to earn money with creativity yes I think so we have Marcel wonders we have our man from Bueller really high professional creativity but it also know how to make business out of it and not mentioned before Amsterdam dance event we started already 10 years ago cooperating a City Hall set what do we need with this dance music I thought we hired you to improve economic effects and we said trust us this is the combination of creativity and spirit of Commerce it's a convention where they deal in music its unique it fits our identity and then we support it because we think these these events and these showcases embrace our brand and then the other problem is how do you tell all these stories to all these different target groups and how do I explain my 1,100 partners because they all say hey why am I not in your window because I pay you you should use me as a brand as well so we always use the metaphor that we say actually a place is like a big department store you can buy a lot of things this is the bag of just around the corner you can buy a iPad but also stockings you can buy a lipstick refrigerators or a Gucci belt and our task as a city marketing branding and ordering that marketing organization is the window decoration how to make sure to just attract people inside when they're inside they can see all the different functionalities and if you talk about decorating a window you have two options one is you do it like the blocker every product you have you put it in the window doesn't look nice but it's very functional this is a Dutch store but everybody goes there if you need something that you know they're having stock if I need candles I go because I never have that they never seduced me though to get in to get surprised to see and wonder around what's going on if you want to do that you have to use emotions don't talk about the product don't say like dumb - I'm so done because we have nice restaurants right you're a city every city has nice restaurants use the emotion to tell your stories and we believe as a marketing organization if we can do the window dressing so to say on emotion that we will attract people to look for further information what the city has to offer so our main strategy is we just connect within existing initiatives organizations and people we strengthen it and then empower it by marketing power and we make choices to make sure that we decorate the window well of course we have a website wherever social media and I'm happy that it was said this morning as well we'll use different channels for different target groups and we tried to get the same story to that but the right story to the right target group at the right time but what makes us unique in the world of place branding and city marketing is that we just have one logo I am stir down and that is because we believe we target people we are here altogether because we are in business and that brings us together but you are all visitors to some cities somewhere in the world and you're all inhabitants so the crossover we try to make if somebody comes here for a conference maybe they walk around and if a crew it's more than a red light district coffee shop maybe when they grow up and their kids grow up and the kid asks mom or dad hi I want to study abroad I want to go to Amsterdam especially at the new year at the American markets the people don't scare oh my god don't go there but think yeah I've been there once it's a great place and also if it comes to telling your story fire different target groups that are not so associated we for example try it in the startup market some of you will know star sir damn what was the biggest challenge every city is startup city just google it before startup she was coming up we were the global business hub every city in Europe is the global business hub so how to differentiate in these markets the good thing for us was after 10 years we said ok we go back to our DNA creativity in spirit of Commerce so if you have a startup but you're still in your creative process do not know what but I know it's there but I have to find it go to Berlin again it's much cheaper you have other creative energy if you already have a proven concept and you really need really neat big investors go to London in the Silicon Valley but if you are in the face of your startup on how to make money with your creativity getting the business going on then you should be here because we have to write breathing ground and yes it helps if you have companies like LinkedIn they tell the same story why are they here we are the Dutch are a really good group of testers so if they have new functionalities they test it in the Dutch market if it works here it works everywhere if it feels nobody knows it's very small country so this test in case we build on we also still do print why well cool blue if they really have an angry customer they write postcards so people still like paper we found with all this information on this beautiful product that people freeze if you ask people how many options do you want if you're looking for a restaurant or a cultural event they said give me everything I want everything if you look at psychological research we cannot handle 6 to 8 options maximum that is why top 10 runnings do so well on social media so we make for people they just are resting and having a coffee coffee break after work or a prof coffee because you're visiting the city making magazines you open it up we see you nice restaurant great I don't have to look at TripAdvisor and the consumer ratings so it's both ways I'm not sure what we will do with in 10 years but nowadays with our target groups that still use paper we make paper of course we have to spread some media and social media and the easy thing is our product has a voice so we can just use the voice so if there is positive news about binder getting more investments etc we can just retweet it like I said we do campaigns for local people 23rd of October go to Amsterdam North Park 80 things going on there everything for free just walk around you see a lot of things that the local people will never see or have seen before just to give you an other idea of your own city we do campaigns for visitors but like I said it's only about spreading we don't do campaigns like come to the Canal District we inform people though because you have to be honest the first time you go to the city you do the highlights but if you here for the second time you will find other things so we do a neighborhood campaign and other parties we have like I said 17 million visitors a years we really loved but to be frankly half of it is touch it's maybe you coming here for a concert or an event or maybe it's your mother or your father coming here for shopping so be a bit polite it's not always people that speak a different language that are the tourists that make the noise in the city we also for the Dutch people saw it Sunday with Luba on national television do a huge campaign on branding the bigger area and why did we do it because we think he would not shoot never bother our visitors with the stupid governmental areas that we created a long time ago when I'm in London and I know in 45 minutes of travel there's something worthwhile travel I will go there do I mind how many governmental bond boundaries I cross now I don't care so in the perception of the international visitor we never use this in touch we never use it to touch people we never say it to answer them people this is an international campaign but of course we're social so everybody can see it so we make the perception that is just around the corner and it helps we had on I am Sudan calm just an international beach party at Amsterdam Beach it was in Santa fort and all the sudden all the international students of Amsterdam went there because they check our website what is going wow great beach party only 20 minutes by tree Wow nothing to go there and then the local entrepreneurs go or adduce these kids come from and then they understand the concept and then they're not so angry and to be honest we believe that that is the way of storytelling it's not that Sandford doesn't have their own identity of course and we will never do this campaign in Dutch of course not we also do it in business marketing how do we do it we just used the People's Voice you already heard him we can just use it in ads in banners etc so actually last but not least we still also have visitor centers I'm not sure for how long but I heard they see one of the board members of Albert Heijn the lesson nowadays and she talked about the clicks and the bricks and maybe you will not understand or believe it but we still get families from Spain at her desk and saying hi can you book me in a hotel for six people that is still going on and we still believe also in the digital age that people can be inspired physically as well so what you see here for instance is we combine cheering the gay pride the gay bar by tawny charcoal only yes of course creativity with spirit of Commerce and we wrap it up in a total concept that we call it the Summer of Love with all the stories about the Europe right we do cooperate with milkshake that has the merchandise and that is how we connect all these concepts so to finalize how to burn the product with voice just use the voice at the right story at the right time at the right person by using the right channels and I want to close up with a project that were very proud that we worked on it's running right now we gave a platform for the 180 nationalities that make our city every day so we made a picture of them we first looked for them we port rated them by a very food good photographer they're in the parole already for 162 days now I guess we interview them we we make a film out of them and the funny thing is this morning I got this message and I said we still need one person so when you're on stage could you please ask local people from Amsterdam if the guy next door or your colleague is from North Korea let us know we use the statistics of city vole so there must be a person from North Korea inner city I will finalize by giving the voice to the product itself miss indicator and more patella but Mamoru will exact a mom given your feelings condo Amsterdam is a Amara is it lame are y'all feeling of easy Oh concluding on April 11 a mom who Drake feature it mark Lima falters on the feature becomes open-ended aerobic capacity sir Alice was over moon you know Alice Russell Hortons have are for you every bottle suffocated reasonable not a remark oh I'll call you doc and it was so packed the became the scary my respond okay this sees the perfect the bag this is right new was I'm a geek no corneal exceptional village momentarily minutes Romina over southern chef ricotta I really don't have a lot of friends yes if you manage to open that door and then they're really good and loyal friends and people and frank and honest with you he thought looking at Morehouse Prager you could ordered lucky for me hey mention thank a lot and coffee that is market really like Kingdom another mishap out looking the word is that each record is also from angle GA opiate on Easter that is a I'm jeanna as the hail apart another / hail upon a tract is his navel on near the base of the house on the link are who you couldn't see it they can easily say whatever people what they think or how they feel or neurotic to let my made so long as you need of lindane a hospital and after Laura coming out roses fantasies animal cell for th neighborhood world F - hey Phil Heiser Luneberg and venison are here for the practically all the reciprocal my nickname is hazard so thanks for inviting me and thank you all for creating the product that we are allowed