miércoles, 18 de marzo de 2015

As a fashionable cultural destination with the Pompidou Centre about to open, this is the ideal time for Malaga to build its city brand. But does it know how?

It is one of The Guardian’s top 40 places in the world to visit in 2015. It is in the Daily Telegraph’s Top Ten Spanish Cultural Destinations. It is the Spanish city that has attracted the most visitors in the past decade, and is mentioned in international culture and trend magazines for important happenings such as the Pompidou Centre and the graffiti of Obey and D*Face.
Yes, Malaga is definitely in fashion. After decades of being eclipsed by the Costa del Sol brand, the city is finally shining with a light of its own and is currently attracting extra media attention because of the arrival of the prestigious contemporary art centre, the Museum of Saint Petersburg and the re-opening of the Caminito del Rey (which is also being highlighted in guides such as The Lonely Planet). This is the perfect way to project its image abroad. In marketing language, now is the time to wrap the product and sell it. Obviously, to do that, it needs a brand.
Cities, and in general all regions, have a brand of their own. ‘Place branding’ or ‘city branding’ is on the increase. As Jordi de San Eugenio, a professor at the Universitat de Vic and academic director of the first Spanish post-graduate course specialising in this concept explains, “The competition between countries, nations, cities and regions to capture resources, talent and events has created competition for the unique, for recognition, for being different. That is why a place brand is necessary, because it implies a reinvention of those places through a process of brand construction based on highlighting their individual and collective identities.”
This brand should not be confused with a logo or a slogan: it is much more extensive than that. “It is something that comes to mind whenever you think of certain places: Italy is design, Germany is technology, Barcelona is modernity,” explains publicist Fernando Ocaña.
Does Malaga have a brand which is sufficiently powerful to attract tourism, talent and investment? One tool to help answer this question would be the ‘European City Brand Barometer’ drawn up by British consultancy firm Saffron.
It aims to measure the strength of the brand of each city and position it in relation to its real attractions, to determine to what extent the brand helps a city to sell itself or, on the contrary, results in it being undervalued. In the brand strength ranking, Malaga appears in 21st place, equal to Leipzig in Germany. It is the fifth Spanish city to be classified, after Barcelona, which is third, Madrid (seventh), Seville (16th) and Valencia (18th). On a European level, the winner is Paris.
In the category of ‘strength of assets’, Malaga is also 21st, but this time it is above Seville. But what type of ‘assets’ does the study mean? The authors refer to historic and artistic monuments, gastronomy, restaurants, the nature of the people, good places to shop, low prices, good weather and the ease of walking around or taking public transport.
Beyond the position of Malaga in these two rankings, which could be described as medium-high in terms of size, it is a good idea to look at a third comparison table produced by Saffron: the use of the brand. In this table, which is headed by Berlin, the European cities are positioned according to how well they sell themselves, in other words those cities whose brand is capable of sublimating its attractions.
Malaga is in 16th place, equal to Valencia and Zaragoza and behind Barcelona and Madrid. It shows a positive level of efficiency, but perhaps the most interesting conclusion is that there is still a large margin for improvement: the Malaga brand reflects 91 per cent of the city’s real attraction, while Berlin scores 137 per cent and Barcelona, the best-placed Spanish city, 112 per cent.
The creative director of the Sra. Rushmore advertising agency, César García, says Malaga is not doing badly: “A few years ago Malaga wasn’t even on the map, but it now has some very attractive features: the Film Festival, a football team in the First Division, the Picasso Museum, the AVE high speed rail service... And the Pompidou Centre is fantastic; they need to make the most of that to organise a good brand campaign.”
As an example, he refers to Bilbao and the miracle of the Guggenheim. “That was such an amazing move: it turned an industrial city into a place of pilgrimage for modern art,” he says.
For Fernando Ocaña, the capital of the Costa del Sol continues to be “a great unknown” and now is the time to sell it all over again. “Malaga has made a fantastic commitment to culture and its city centre has been completely transformed. It is now a very ‘walkable’ city, it is modern, and people need to know about it,” he insists.
One special focus
The question is, what should the Malaga brand be? Experts agree that there needs to be one special focus. “You can’t just say ‘Malaga has everything’. That is like not saying anything at all,” says Jordi de San Eugenio, who warns that building a brand means giving something up.
“You have to focus on just one point,” he insists. It is clear that the powerful legacy of Picasso and the city’s commitment to museums and films push it towards a focus on contemporary culture. “It lacks a direction, a focus, to stop it going in different directions. You get the feeling that Malaga wants to be many things at the same time. If it wants to be seen as a ‘cool’ and modern city, it can’t use Easter Week as a reason to visit,” argues César García.
Fernando Ocaña has his own recommendation: “I would define the Malaga brand as relaxed culture, culture to be enjoyed. A city in which you can visit museums but where you can do a lot more than that: walk, eat well; live, in other words.”
This idea of the good life would fit in with a brand concept that goes beyond tourism, given that the city also wants to attract talent and entrepreneurs. This is compatible with another aspect which Malaga is also making efforts to promote, that of the so-called ‘smart cities’.
Jordi de San Eugenio points out another important aspect when building an efficient brand: local people have to believe it. “Place brands have to be built from the bottom up, taking into account what the people of the city think and want,” he explains. When this expert is commissioned to design a place brand, he stresses that it will take two years: the first year is to find out what image local people have of the place, and the second is to work on a proposal.
The coherence that is demanded in building a city brand involves a complicated challenge: the different administrations need to agree to push in the same direction. “That is why Barcelona’92 worked,” says Jorge de San Eugenio, who believes the “major drama” of place brands is that each institution normally wants to go its own way.
In its favour, Malaga has some powerful ambassadors. The Goya awards are one example: Antonio Banderas and Dani Rovira took the opportunity to sell their city to an audience of nearly four million.
Dani García and Pablo Alborán are other celebrities who praise Malaga wherever they go. Experts say this is very useful, but there needs to be a clear strategy behind it. “These are valuable messages as long as the personalities are in line with the values the city wants to transmit,” says Fernando Ocaña.

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Malaga’s luxury seafront hotel receives planning permission.


A green light has finally been given for work to continue on what will be the first large-scale luxury hotel in Malaga city, the Gran Hotel Miramar. Hoteles Santos will fund the renovation at a cost of 65 million euros and the creation of 200 job posts.
Architects hope to have to the project completed by the end of 2016. The five-star hotel, located on Malaga city’s seafront, will consist of 196 rooms, 11 suites, a nursery, a capacity to hold events for over 1,000 guests, a spa, swimming pool and car park with 109 spaces.
“Obtaining planning permission has been difficult due to the strict regulations on this building,” said chief architect, José Seguí.
The news has created much excitement among locals who expect the construction to contribute to urban development within the area, with many checking progress daily as they pass by.
The hotel was originally opened in 1926. Seguí said the plan is to mix the past and present to create a “surprising and magical” result.

http://www.surinenglish.com/