Sheffield’s city brand is to be given a boost with the aim of supporting economic growth by attracting more tourists and trade to the city.
A city’s brand and identity play a crucial role in attracting visitors, investors, new residents and new talent by promoting a place’s unique assets to the world and giving a city a recognisable identity.
In turn, this helps drive economic growth, bring in business and makes a city a better place to live and work for residents.
Research suggests that by improving people’s perception of the city by just one decimal place, so for example, increasing it from 3.5 to 3.6, it is estimated this would equate to a rise in economic value of 5%. For Sheffield, this would mean an additional £70m for the city, in tourism alone.
City branding also helps to foster a sense of pride and belonging amongst local communities and residents.
Sheffield already has a strong visual identity, which has been developed over the past six years and has supported the city’s visitor economy by helping to raise awareness and profile of the city across the UK and beyond.
But by refreshing the branding helping Sheffield to ‘stand out’ and ‘stand apart’, the team at Marketing Sheffield aim to gain the city recognition as one of the UK’s top five most attractive cities for trade, tourism and talent.
Councillor Martin Smith, Chair of the Economic Development and Skills Committee at Sheffield City Council, said: “We know from research the impact of place branding and perception on an economy. It suggests that a positive shift in perception equates to a significant rise in tourism and economic value.
“The work to develop our city’s visual identity is nothing short of inspiring. I am confident this will have a positive impact on our city, local businesses and residents by helping us attract more visitors and talent and set Sheffield apart from the rest.”
The Marketing Sheffield team, part of Sheffield City Council, have been working on refining and developing the city brand over the past 12 to 18 months, alongside partners, businesses and organisations across the city.
The concept for the work is to highlight the impact Sheffield has on the world – how what has happened in the city over the years and continues to happen, inspires changes in the world elsewhere.
Louisa Harrison-Walker, Chief Executive of The Sheffield Chamber of Commerce, said: “The development of the city’s place brand goes beyond just attracting tourists and visitors to come and visit the city.
“One of our roles is to promote Sheffield as a place for investment. We want to promote the city to talent who might want to come and make Sheffield their home, to individuals that want to come here and open sustainable businesses that provide job opportunities.
“Every single one of our sectors here in Sheffield can use this branding as it applies to so many of corners of our workforce and industry.”
As part of the work, web content will be developed that will focus on a range of themes and messages that relate to how Sheffield has had an impact on the world. From Sheffield’s green credentials that have been recognised internationally, to Sheffield’s advanced manufacturing capabilities that have had a huge impact around the world.
There will also be a new video/animation to launch the city brand and promote these key messages, which has been worked on by local creative talent.
By commissioning local, Sheffield talent to bring the work to life, the team hopes to harness local pride and encourage the city and its people to get behind and support this proposition for the city.
It will also be delivered by a range of stakeholders across the city, who will act as champions of the branding.
At an Economic Development and Skills Committee on Thursday 6 February, Members endorsed the development of the branding work that had been completed so far and approved the ongoing work of Marketing Sheffield, alongside partners and stakeholders, to bring the brand to life for Sheffield through a range of campaigns and activities.
The new branding is set to be launched in the coming weeks.
