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Sydney is region’s third strongest city brand, Melbourne is fifth – marketer survey

Sydney has the third strongest city brand in Asia Pacific, with only Singapore and Hong Kong ahead of it, according to a survey of senior marketing and advertising executives by Ogilvy PR. 

Melbourne, which retained its status as the world’s most liveable city in an Economist study last month, ranked fifth.

The survey asked 300 ad folk across APAC to rate Asia’s top cities in terms of their overall strength as brands, with the ability to attract foreign investment, tourists and students from overseas key considerations.

Tokyo ranked fourth of the list of 16 cites, Manila came bottom.

Simon Webb, senior VP and director of Ogilvy Illumination Practice at Ogilvy PR Beijing, told Mumbrella: “Sydney and Melbourne show strongly in our city branding rankings – largely we believe off the back of strong and consistent investment over time in Brand Australia.”

“The real challenge for both cities is to develop relevant and distinctive reputations over the next ten years as Asia Pacific’s great cities emerge and start to aggressively compete with them for attention.”

“As tourist destinations, Sydney and Melbourne will be pushing at an open door – the real challenge is making sure that they develop a reputation as great places to do business, an underdeveloped facet of both cities’ brands,” he said.

In the survey, word of mouth was rated as the best way to develop a city brand, followed by PR and news reporting, then social media and digital channels. Advertising and marketing ranked bottom.

The survey was conducted between June and August this year.

Asia Pacific’s strongest city brands (mean score out of 10):

Source: Ogilvy PR/PublicAffairsAsia

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