An investigation of the strategic city branding, the study of its effectiveness and its visual identity design

While some cities have created characteristics feature and attracted audiences with their positive image over time, others are attempting to use strategic plans to improve their image in a short time.Nowadays governmental institutions in cooperation with urban administrations are developing strategies to turn their city to where people are attracted to work, live, educate or invest. In this paper efficacy of urban strategic branding, and visual identity as part of these strategies have been explored, also key opinions of theoreticians such as Anhalt and Cavartziz and basic concepts of the discipline has been investigated. Common strategies used for urban branding during the time, gathered and effectiveness of these strategies has been the subject of investigation. Another goal of this study was evaluation of importance and impacts of strategic city branding in contemporary globalized world. In this interdisciplinary study two different discipline which closely related to the issue, marketing, and design had been used; Research Methodology was descriptive, and in terms of data collection, information from authoritative databases centers, libraries and websites had been used. The results of the studies showed that Magnificent cities are not only remembered by their logo, but some important characteristics such as reputation gained by representation of city identity through advertising campaigns and social networks, presence on the international scene by hosting large events, having unique symbolic bulding and structures, potential capabilities such as economic, education, lifestyle and etc. This article also esplains how one of the most important strategies employed for urban branding is working on image of the city, its visual identity and others representational activities. John Urry explores effects of representational material of a place on choosing that place as our tourism destination in "tourist gaze" theory and this theory was described in this article. Study of statistics suggests that urban branding can not only come off by designing a sign and visual identity, but a comprehensive plan, cooperation and attention of a wide range of people and institutions is needed. For example, looking at top ten city logos and comparing them with the Anhalt city ranking shows that the three world''''''''s top cities, Paris, London and Sydney, do not have well-known visual identity, while New York with a remarkable logo rank Fourth in this table. Another example is Melbourne logo, which leed to identification of citys among others, and has identified it as a single voice; frequent use of the sign in different organizations and situations has created a unified and memorable image of a city, which caused an increasing of 5% visitors numbers a year after its release. This effectiveness was accomplished while other plans and strategies intended; The Olympic Games in 2000 A.D. took place in this city and grew tourism by 6.7% a year later. Finally, it is concluded that if a city could get global attention through mentioned strategies and being remembered as a unique brand, it benefits different premium such as increasing gross national income through attracting tourists, attracting the creative class and other benefits consequently.