Posts Tagged ‘city reputation’

  Do cities and countries recover their reputations after their images have been tarnished or damaged by natural disaster? This question is bound to be answered as we see what happens to London after the August riots.  A market research firm analyst Simon Anholt studies the reputation of cities and reports on them annually for Gfk Roper.  When asked what he thought about how much cities are affected by reputational issues, Anholt said “not much.” He thought that if it did, he would have seen more change in reputational perceptions of New York, London and Tokyo than he has seen so far. Essentially, memories are short. Some proof of what he says comes from The European Tour Operators Association who report having only 0.2% cancellations on visits to London immediately after the riots. Additionally, property prices have not seen any negative effects among investors or large real estate firms.  There always is a silver lining when it comes to politics, however. The mayor of London said that the riots this past summer showcased London’s resilience. There is no doubt that city reputations get bruised when these types of events occur but the impact does not seem long-lasting. Is that a sign of the times? In the aftermath of Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear accident, the city of Tokyo has seen no significant erosion to its city image according to the 2011 Anholt-GfK Roper City Brands Index^SM just mentioned above. Among the top ten cities in the 2011 survey, Paris ranks as the top overall city "brand”, and  Tokyo ranks 10^th among 50 cities measured. There you go. But I must add that there was one thing that truly saved London’s reputation and set an example that may have lasting power -- the “broom armies.”  Groups of people took to the streets afterwards with brooms, dust bins, cleaning gloves and garbage bags to sweep away the broken glass and debris left after the looting.  As someone said, it was the “perfect symbol for the civilised majority.” And another said it was a “shared response” to fear and uncertainty. Best of all, it started with a simple Twitter campaign among stranges, #riotcleanup.  Twitter again comes to the rescue to mobilize people to do the right thing, not just the bad. We can expect to see more of this in 2011 and 2012.  People will fight back to reclaim their shared decency, city citizens will mobilize to stabilize their home streets and reputations will repair themselves through the deeds of ordinary people who barely know each other.

  I have to take a break from work and post something. I think my mind is going to explode. So I thought I would post about something fun and different that has to do with improving your city reputation. And also about reputation retaliation.  Apologies for being a few weeks behind. Newsweek wrote a story profiling the top 10 dying American cities [I should add that Newsweek says it appeared pursuant to a content-sharing agreement with a site called Main Street, and that the magazine didn't produce it]. Grand Rapids, Michigan was included in the list of slow deaths which certainly does not do anything good for its reputation, attracting new residents or new businesses to the area.  Hasn't Michigan had enough grief? So instead of taking the criticism lying down, 1,000 residents of Grand Rapids raised about $40,000 and  fought back. And fought back they did.  Check out this video.  It is delicious to see how cities can redeem their reputation.  Nearly 4 million people have watched the music video, referred to as one big block party,  that lip dubs the classic song American Pie. It is a great diversion and a smart strategy. And falls into my advice about going rogue when it comes to reputation warfare. This made me think about the article I read awhile back about Detroit needing a statue to repair its reputation and efforts to raise funds for a Robocop statue. I loved the idea but I think it was squashed. (See picture at the start of this blog)