Over the last weeks we ran a survey via our newsletter, where we asked you what you like about The Place Brand Observer, which topics you are most interested in, and which services you’d like us to offer. Here is a short summary of findings.
Where we do well
First of all, do we meet your needs? Not too bad, judging by survey responses, where 14% answered this question with Extremely well, 60% with Very well, and 27% with Somewhat well.
95% find our articles interesting and 91% the case studies useful. 93% indicated that you learn a lot by reading our newsletter and this website, with 90% finding our articles easy to read. We are extremely proud about this!
90% of readers that took part in our survey trust The Place Brand Observer as independent website. This is good to hear and I’d like to assure the remaining 10% that The Place Brand Observer is independent, privately owned and volunteer-driven. We have no secret funders and pursue no hidden agenda.
Glad to hear that 8% of respondents attended an event thanks to The Place Brand Observer! Events are a key focus for us this year. Keep an eye on our Facebook page and the Newsletter for updates and notifications.
Quite a few of you use the case studies for lectures, as reading material for students, or as reference for team work and round table discussions. Excellent! But just remember that we have Copyright & Disclosure terms: All content on this site is subject to copyright, unless otherwise stated. Articles may be excerpted with attribution, but not reproduced in whole. Photographs may not be used without prior permission.
If you would like to reproduce our articles in full for lectures, please contact us. And of course we expect you to reference the source by linking to our website.
Where we can do better
“Only” 73% of respondents find our interviews inspiring and there were some calls for less interviews and more feature articles. We like interviews because they allow us to get to know the story, motivation and experiences of leading place brand(ing) practitioners and researchers.
The thing is, we have more than 100 experts in the “Waiting List” – academics, place managers and marketers who have been peer-nominated for the interview series. So we’ll certainly continue our interview series, but will add to those contributions by our Place Brand Observers, Editorials and case studies.
Topics that interest you most
City branding and destination branding are the two topics our survey respondents are most interested in, followed by place reputation, place branding research, city marketing and destination marketing.
Regional branding and country/nation branding are also “hot” topics, according to your answers, and I am happy to see that 41% are interested in sustainability, a topic on which we will publish more soon.
Your professional focus
Very good to know: Most of our readers (survey respondents) work in city branding (58%), and -marketing (37%), destination branding (51%) and -marketing (32%), followed by economic development professionals (29%), academic researchers (29%) and country/nation branding (27%).
24% of survey respondents work as consultants, 19% as university teachers, and 17% are students. In short: a very healthy mix of academics and practitioners.
What’s next
At the moment we are working on our Spanish version, which we will publish throughout the next weeks. Big thanks to our expert translators!
Our Place Brand Academy is taking shape: have a look here for an overview of seminars offered. If you’d like us to promote your training, seminar or course via the Place Brand Academy, get in touch!
We just published our first video interviews, available via our YouTube channel. More soon.
And: We’ve created this world map of place branding experts interviewed by The Observer so far, to help you find researchers or practitioners in your area.
