Attending City Nation Place Global for the first time this year felt like stepping into the living heartbeat of the place branding world — a room filled with practitioners, policymakers, academics, and storytellers convening about identity, trust, leadership, and long-term national strategy — all wrestling with the same question: how do we build places people trust, believe in, and want to be part of?
Report by Nafisa M. Sharfi, Associate Editor at TPBO.
As someone who is fairly new to the place branding space I arrived curious and observant — and left with a renewed sense of clarity about what truly drives successful place brands.
Here are my highlights (apart from sharing our very first special edition publication with key partners!):
Nation Brands Are Built From the Inside Out
A major theme that kept resurfacing was simple but powerful: the strongest place brands are born from within. When a brand is rooted in the people, culture, and lived values of a place, it naturally becomes resilient.
Nations like Oman and Jamaica brought this point to life. Oman is courageously inviting its citizens to shape the country’s new national identity, choosing visuals that feel true to them. And Jamaica, with their CNP 2025 Award for Best Communication Strategy in Tourism: Yaad Luv A campaign by Jamaicans for Jamacians (together with Trove) is encouraging homegrown tourism solutions to strengthen the nation’s largest contributing sector to its GDP.
These examples reinforced a truth that feels especially relevant for emerging nation brands: when citizens recognise themselves in the narrative, they carry it with pride and become its storytellers.
Strong Brands Enable Bold Promises
One of the standout moments for me was the Greater Copenhagen Region’s “Life Quality Insurance” campaign — bold, unconventional, and yet completely aligned with the city’s identity. It drove home a critical insight: boldness is not a creative gamble; it is the reward of a trusted brand.
When a place has invested years in consistent behaviour, citizen trust, and strong brand fundamentals, it earns the right to make brave commitments. Copenhagen’s concept was a reminder that when your reputation is credible, you can confidently promise — and deliver — experiences that others might shy away from.
Strong place brands don’t retreat into safe messaging; they lean into who they are. And when citizens believe in the brand, they give it permission to take risks — and the world pays attention.
Reputation Security Trumps Soft Power
Professor Nicholas Cull introduced a compelling distinction: for most nations — especially those not yet global powerhouses — reputational security is more urgent than traditional soft power.
His argument was refreshingly direct. Sometimes improving a country’s image isn’t about showcasing how impressive it is, but about addressing what actively undermines trust.
Reputation is ultimately about credibility — not charm. He captured it in a line that stayed with me “If people don’t know about you, they won’t stand by you.”
This thinking connected seamlessly with Reputation Lab’s session, which unpacked how reputation is actually built through their developed Framework RepCore and its four interconnected touchpoints which are direct experiences, country communication, third-party communication and national stereotypes.
Reputation grows when words, actions, and experiences align over time. Direct experiences, such as tourism or cultural exchange, have a dual power: they generate immediate economic benefit and reinforce long-term credibility.
They confidently shared the metric that a 1-point increase in reputation score can correlate with around 7.2% (USD million) in tourism revenue and 1% (USD million) in FDI.
Together, Prof. Cull’s framework and the RepCore analysis made it clear that Reputational work is a pillar of national resilience — essential for protecting stability, opportunity, and citizen confidence.
Diaspora: The Sleeping Giant of Nation Branding
The diaspora emerged as one of the most powerful yet underleveraged forces in nation branding.
When a nation invests in emotional connection and intentional outreach, its diaspora communities can quickly become influential networks — driving investment, supporting export promotion, shaping cultural narratives, and amplifying global advocacy.
Moldova’s attempt to mobilise its diaspora was inspiring and I am personally excited about Rwanda’s first-ever Diaspora Homecoming Conference set for next year — a meaningful step toward activating a national asset with immense potential.
Diaspora engagement is not a nice-to-have or a peripheral activity. It is a multiplier tool!
Beyond the big thematic conversations, it became clear that place branding challenges are shared across geographies — bringing into focus a few practical takeaways that felt especially relevant for practitioners.
Quantifying Brand Value
One of the most refreshing trends across the conference was the growing use of data to articulate the strategic value of place branding.
Estonia and New Zealand demonstrated how putting a monetary value on the nation brand helps secure buy-in across stakeholders. When a place brand is presented alongside major corporate brands, its economic relevance becomes far easier to defend — and harder to overlook. This shift from purely narrative-led approaches to evidence-based, financially grounded strategy felt like an important maturation of the field. This is something that TPBO’s long-time partner Brand Finance keeps highlighting.
Focus on High-Impact Areas
Another practical reminder was the need for ruthless prioritisation. Most place branding teams are small, and budgets are tight. Global indices — when used well — help teams identify the three or four dimensions where targeted improvements can meaningfully shift perceptions. New Zealand’s focus on its “space program” was a result of that.
Identify the few things that truly move the needle, and invest your resources there!
Deep Immersion by Outsider Experts
Another insight that resonated with me was the responsibility of external consultants.
To contribute meaningfully to a place, you must first immerse yourself in it — understand its history, absorb its cultural rhythms, and internalise what drives local pride. Todd Babiak’s work with Brand Tasmania, and now with Gold Coast, is a masterclass in this kind of lived immersion. Not just shaping narratives but actually going the extra mile, meeting the people, listening to street talk, living there. It’s a reminder that authenticity in place branding is not only for citizens — it is just as essential for the experts who support them.
Final Reflections
After those two days, I finally put real faces to the names I have read, heard of, or exchanged emails with in my capacity as Associate Editor with TPBO — but more importantly, I walked away with a deep reassurance that I am exactly where I am meant to be. The collective passion in the room was wonderfully contagious and I left feeling affirmed and genuinely intrigued to dive deeper into what this profession has to offer.
The entire community at City Nation Place Global reinforced a powerful truth: place branding is no longer about campaigns or polishing perception. It is about alignment — alignment between who we are, what we do, and how we choose to show up in the world.
When nations embrace this mindset, place branding becomes what it was always meant to be: a strategic instrument for resilience, development and prosperity, and national pride.
For more about this and future events, visit CityNationPlace.com.
Nafisa M. Sharfi is Associate Editor and Project Lead for TPBO’s Places to Watch: Africa & the Middle East Special Edition and the Place Brand Leaders 2026 Yearbook. She attended City Nation Place Global 2025 in London earlier this month on TPBO’s behalf.
Based in Rwanda, Nafisa is a brand strategist with experience across the private sector, investment promotion, and economic development, now focusing on place branding and national positioning strategies across African countries. She holds degrees from the University of Khartoum and the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School and is currently pursuing a degree in Global Public Policy at SOAS, University of London.
Connect with Nafisa on LinkedIn.
