[Column] Creating emotional bond is key to city branding

Lee Chong-min
The author is chairman of the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Brand Development Advisory Committee and a professor of advertising and public relationships at Kookmin University.

The renewal project of the Seoul Metropolitan City’s brand is approaching its final stage. The goal is to find a new alternative to replace the brand, “I SEOUL U,” introduced by the last mayor. The key is developing a new slogan and designing a new logo to compactly represent the values Seoul is promoting and the city’s identity. Those factors play a role in establishing the city’s unique image and strengthening its competitiveness and charm. But it is not easy to find a distinguished characteristic of the city. Why is it so?

First, the identities that cities are promoting are growing increasingly similar. In the Sustainable Cities Index 2022 announced by Arcadis, a Dutch consulting firm, Oslo of Norway ranked first, while Sweden’s Stockholm and Denmark’s Copenhagen ranked second and third. Those cities focused their investments on improving bicycle roads, increasing the use of renewable energy and expanding green spaces to be recognized as sustainable cities. As a result, they succeeded in improving their reputations as sustainable cities, but ironically, they failed to establish unique images of their own. Efforts to keep up with the standardized evaluation system eventually lead to the opposite results in building a unique image of a city — the ultimate goal of creating a city’s brand.

Second, there is a gap between the ideal identity and the identity that reflects reality. If an ideal identity reflects the vision and values a city promotes, the actual identity reflects the city’s current situation and characteristics. For instance, as Berlin has a history of division between the East and the West and between reconstruction and reunification, the city has many historical heritages, related places and architectures. They are important factors that form the actual identity of the city.

But recently, there was an attempt to redefine Berlin as a city of creativity. Berlin’s innovation and creativity were stressed in order to attract start-ups to the city. While the actual image of Berlin stressed historical heritages and cultural centers, the image of a new city of creativity is an ideal image, which is contrary to the actual image. Such a strategy can bring about a difference in perceptions and confusion by creating a gap between the ideal identity and the actual identity of the city.

Third, the Seoul Metropolitan Government needs to decide whether the target audience is Koreans or foreigners. This problem is related to the tension between a brand’s attractiveness and pursuit of authenticity. As messages targeting foreigners may look overly simple — and commercial — to the eyes of Koreans, there is a risk of damaging their authenticity.

In contrast, meticulously formed messages for Koreans would look too complicated to the eyes of foreigners, so they won’t be attracted by them.
“Gimbab,” a uniquely Korean food, has various ingredients rolled inside steamed rice and seaweed. It is distinctively different from Japan’s sushi. Simplifying details about gimbab and branding it as a similar dish to sushi can be charming to foreigners, but Koreans won’t accept it because it damages the authenticity. The reverse case is also possible.

“Building a relationship with a brand” can be a solution to the problem. It is aimed at forming a friendly relationship based on trust between people and the brand. When this effort succeeds, the people and the brand can maintain a stable and continuous relationship like family or lovers. The key to this strategy is allowing individuals to accumulate good memories from using a brand and reinforcing the emotional bond.

A successful case of this strategy is New York City’s “I Love New York.” In this branding strategy of the city, no distinctive factors such as the Statute of Liberty, Broadway or Wall Street are used. A simple message and a universal heart shape logo are used to allow the people to maintain their emotions toward the city. I hope Seoul to use this strategy during the brand renewal process to secure stable and continuous support from the people.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.