I've been fortunate enough to meet and become friends with some of Canterbury's leading marketing minds. A few of these folks meet semi-regularly to chat about life and business.
Most recently, over a few drinks and pizza, we robustly discussed the new brand narrative developed for Ōtautahi Christchurch. That was then published online/printed for The Press today.
Read the article here.
Economic Development is one of those un-sexy topics that I really care about and the region/city having a credible, and consistent, reputation globally helps with that.
We all know that, like any business, the public sector has limited resources and personally, here in Christchurch, I wish (cue contrarian moment) we would stop the intense focus on tourism and put the same level of investment and publicity that’s given to the city’s brand, into both meaningfully supporting the amazing array of existing engineering, manufacturing, agri and tech businesses across Waitaha Canterbury, and to continue to develop and attract more sustainable, scalable organisations.
Aligned with this, I note in the Press today an opinion piece by Ben Kepes, challenging us to not just follow the yellow brick road to Silicon Valley, or adopt their models, but to instead consciously design our economic structures.
It has been stated that the new Ōtautahi brand piece was done first, so as to then underpin more tourism campaigns. In 2021 for the first time in 15 years, Aotearoa switched to being an importing nation. Our imports outweigh our exports and in the past two years that gap has gotten wider. As an island nation now reliant on global supply, our economy is more vulnerable than ever.
Of course, it’s an ‘and’ conversation – we need to feel proud of our region, connect to the story, and have a strong international reputation that is meaningful. Jobs drive economies so having a resilient business community creating high-value jobs is important (with a local and international talent pipeline adding their smarts), and we need experiences, events, and communities that help us enjoy downtime.
So therein ends my opinion piece on the collective ‘marketing contrarians’ opinion piece!
The opinion piece can be read here.
- - - - - - -
Photo taken by me May 2023, at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens after the Icehouse Ventures investment event.
References:
https://www.stats.govt.nz/topics/imports-and-exports
https://www.thepress.co.nz/a/nz-news/350009269/what-s-wrong-with-living-in-a-garden-city-
