BRANDOPIA

Britain's 10 Most Romantic Destinations

'Brand' the Marketect says:

"One of the destinations featured in the above video has the opportunity to 'own' the powerful 'romantic' brand category."

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World's 10 Most Romantic Getaways

'Brand' the Marketect says:

"The 'romantic' category is one of the most powerful destination branding strategies."

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The Gold Jurassic Coast: A Big ThreeG Brand

A creative conversation between Des and Tina, Brandopia's mythical brand developers

DES: England's Jurassic Coast, the fabulous virtual destination brand straddling two counties - Dorset & Devon - suffers from three major problems.
TINA: Firstly, one of its county brands - Dorset - lacks a future-focused big brand idea to drive both sustainable tourism as well as inward investment. And if that wasn't bad enough, its regional brand - South West England - also lacks a coherent brand strategy.

DES: And finally, Jurassic Coast itself is locked into its 250 million year glorious history with no prospect of a contemporaneous future.
TINA: OK DES, let's see if we can conjure up a future-focus for this great historical destination brand.

DES: By studying its brand category: Natural World Heritage Site, you will discover the brand leaders - America's Grand Canyon and Australia's Great Barrier Reef - both with G-prefixes.
TINA: Well Gold or Green or Good are all possible alternate prefixes to consider using, with perhaps Gold shading it a touch due to the golden hue of the rock formations during spectacular sunsets.

DES: Then, with co-branded coalitions in place with its fellow-ThreeG sites, Gold Jurassic Coast could start to lead the world in saving the 15 or so natural world heritage sites on the danger list based on a campaign branded S-O-S: Save-Our-Sites operated by a new WHO?: World Heritage Organisation.

TINA: Finally, in tandem with its core-market - the school trippers - The Gold Jurassic Coast and WHO? can start to build a worldwide social and cultural media network based on its ThreeG core values: Grand Visions, Great Projects and Gold Standards.

DES: Mary Anning (1799-1847) of Lyme Regis, arguably the greatest fossilist who ever lived, your legacy now has a great future - worldwide!
TINA: DES, let's take a break now while I put on the Jurassic Park movie. We can then tackle the next big brand problem facing the Gold Jurassic Coast: One of the two counties in which it is primarily located - Dorset.

'Brand' the Marketect says:

"Living in your past - no matter how glorious - is like trying to drive a car by just looking in your rear view mirror. But ignoring your past, is like trying to sell your car with no ownership log book or service history. You need to invest your past by designing and creating a fabulous future  - a future that's focused on your primary asset and cultural source code."

Note: The "Jurassic Coast" has not always been known by this name. It only gained this title after a 1994 competition that was jointly held by Devon and Dorset councils. The name "Jurassic Coast" was the winner of that competition, presumably inspired by the (1993) success of the Steven Spielberg movie, Jurassic Park

Part 2 - The British Riviera: Castles-on-the-Sands

Part 2 of a Q&A session, facilitated by Alan 'Brand' Williamson, Destination Brand Developer, on co-branding products and places, at Morpeth, Northumberland, England on 22nd February 2006.

Q: What about Northumberland's other strengths such as its fabulous coastline and its unspoilt landscapes?
Alan: This is where destination sub-brands should be brought into play. Instead of trying to make the county brand stand for everything and thus end up standing for nothing, let's see if we can concentrate on Northumberland's coastline and create a destination sub-brand but within a new exciting category.

BBC TV's Coast series described the Scottish Borders-Northumberland-North Yorkshire coastline as 'The Bleak, the Black, and the Beautiful', providing an opportunity to create a new category within the overall European Riviera category comprising the French Riviera, Italian Riviera, Spanish Costas, and the English Riviera located on England's south Devon coast.

By combining the Scottish Borders coastline representing the Celtic nations with the northeastern English coastline representing the Angles nation (from Angleland to Engaland to England), Northumberland can now create a new coastal category branded 'The British Riviera' - with its Castles-on-the-Sands as a potent symbol and image inspiring generations of sand sculptors, artists, poets, writers, photographers and film makers.

'Brand' the Marketect says:
"Take the perceived negative of the British coastal weather - wet'n'windy - and turn it into a powerful positive."

 

Footnote:
The image above is of Bamburgh Castle painted by local artist Alan Reed.

Please click here to read Part 3 - The English Regions - Compass Names or Culture Names