For decades, the story of a place has been told in pieces: one version for visitors, another for investors, a third for talent. A new piece of thinking from C Studios argues that a fourth and more mature phase is now emerging, one in which places present a single, integrated narrative to all audiences simultaneously.
Editorial Briefing
The Four Levels
Steve Duncan, talent attraction specialist and Managing Director of Amsterdam-based TPBO Insight Partner C Studios, proposes a four-level maturity framework that gives place brand teams a practical tool for locating their own practice.
Level One is the most common: separate organisations with separate mandates. Tourism boards, convention bureaus, investment promotion agencies, and talent teams each develop their own messaging and channels.
Level Two introduces a shared overarching brand while keeping campaigns audience-specific. “I Amsterdam,” “Pure Michigan,” and “Unbelievably Real” in Orlando are examples. The brand is unified; the executions remain tailored.
Level Three consolidates those mandates under one roof. London and Partners, Rotterdam Partners, and the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina all operate this way. Resources and brand platform are shared, but campaigns remain targeted.
Level Four is where the framework becomes forward-looking. Some places are now presenting the full value of a location in a single activation, with tourism appeal, innovation, business opportunity, and quality of life framed as reinforcing parts of the same story. Stockholm’s recent “30,014 Islands of Possibilities” campaign, combining nature, innovation, and quality of life across CNN International and BBC News, is the most current example.
Three Forces Driving the Shift
Talent sits structurally between tourism and investment. People discover a place as visitors, consider living there, and companies follow the workforce. As talent becomes central to growth, the separation between audiences becomes harder to maintain.
Storytelling travels across audiences in ways that feature lists do not. A compelling narrative about an entrepreneur can simultaneously inspire a visitor, attract a professional considering relocation, and prompt an executive to explore expansion.
AI changes the discoverability logic. If tourism, investment, and talent teams describe the same place differently, the location risks appearing inconsistently in AI-generated answers. Coordinated narrative is now a visibility strategy as much as a brand strategy.
Structure Is Optional, Alignment Is Not
Level Four does not require Level Three. Visit Orlando and the Orlando Economic Partnership remain separate organisations, yet their messaging increasingly reinforces a shared regional story. The most important variable is not institutional structure but the willingness to align around a common narrative.
Steve Duncan is careful not to over-claim: targeted campaigns still have a role. And a unified structure with a generic message delivers nothing a fragmented structure with the same message would not.
Why This Matters for Place Brand Teams
- Most place organisations are at Level Two or Three. Fewer than we assume are genuinely at Level Four
- Inconsistent descriptions across tourism, investment, and talent functions are now a discoverability problem in AI environments, not only a brand coherence problem
- Narrative alignment across separate organisations is achievable without merger, as the Orlando model shows
- The message quality matters more than the structure. Unified storytelling without a compelling story is just more noise with fewer channels
Based on this original article by C Studios.
C Studios is a TPBO Insight Partner. Explore more about the company, its approach and leadership team here.
To explore how place organisations are evolving their storytelling and strategies, visit TPBO’s Insights and Perspectives and Places to Watch showcases.
