Rebranding of territories and cities: features and examples
Decorative approach versus systemic approach
In practice, administrations choose one of two paths, and the difference between them determines whether the brand will survive the presentation.
The decorative approach reduces to a technical specification such as 'draw us a new coat of arms and slogan for the city's anniversary.' Such a project fits into a state procurement, passes a tender within a couple of months, and ends with a press release. The systemic approach starts not with design, but with the question: what exactly should change in the perception of the city — among tourists, investors, and residents themselves — and through which channels this perception is transmitted. The difference is evident in figures: decorative projects in Russia cost 1–3 million rubles and are completed within 2–3 months, while systemic ones cost 15–30 million and take a year and a half, including field research.
How the process looks when done correctly
A telling example is the rebranding of Yekaterinburg, which went through five sequential stages instead of one technical assignment for a logo:
- Mass survey of residents — in the Yekaterinburg case, 1847 people participated, which provided a statistically significant picture of the city's perception from the inside.
- Benchmarking with competing cities — Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, and Novosibirsk, to understand how the city really differs, rather than how it would be desirable to differ.
- Audit of the information field — analysis of what is already being written and said about the city in the media and social networks, without illusions regarding the current reputation.
- 14 in-depth interviews with experts — urbanists, entrepreneurs, cultural figures who see the city from a professional, rather than a tourist, perspective.
- Validation of final ideas — testing concepts among more than 2000 Russians outside the city to check whether the idea works on the external audience.
Only after these five steps does the team move to the brand platform, and the visual identity is developed last — as a consequence of strategy, not as its replacement.
Why rebranding fails: analysis of typical mistakes
Irkutsk is a textbook example of how a failure looks like. The brand was developed in a rush through a government procurement with tight deadlines, without a proper research phase, and it was never implemented in practice: neither in navigation, nor in souvenirs, nor in administration communications. The project remained a pure art object — a beautiful picture in the presentation that nobody uses.
Suzdal is a different case: the agency did everything 'by the textbook' — 3 years of work, 33 in-depth interviews, several strategic sessions, analysis of 6380 tourist reviews. But the administration never adopted the final brand due to disagreements with stakeholders. A good research does not save the project if there is no political will to approve it at the finish line.
From these and similar cases a set of recurring mistakes emerges:
- Deadlines are dictated not by the logic of research, but by government procurement requirements — there is simply no time for a proper benchmarking and interviews.
- The decision is made by a narrow circle of officials, not by the residents and businesses who will live with this brand afterwards.
- The brand is developed, but no budget and responsible persons are allocated for its implementation after the presentation.
- Strategy is confused with design — people expect the logo to do what a long-term development program should do.
Budget and quality: where is the boundary
The difference between a cheap and an expensive city rebranding is not in the quality of the image, but in the volume of work done before it. A cheap project almost always skips field research and limits itself to laying out a new coat of arms. A costly one includes surveys, interviews, benchmarking, and testing hypotheses on a real audience.
| City/project | Budget | What was included |
|---|---|---|
| Armavir | 2,93 million ₽ | Development of visual identity without large-scale research |
| Krasnoyarsk | 5 million ₽ (start), 1,2 million ₽ (real price) | The final price dropped more than 4 times after the auction — a clear sign of cutting back on the research portion |
| Sevastopol | abandoning 5 million ₽ | The administration refused to pay the stated amount to Lebedev's studio, and the project did not take place |
| Yekaterinburg | 15–30 million ₽ (range of systemic projects) | Full cycle: surveys, interviews, benchmarking, validation |
A drop in the initial price by several times, as in the case of Krasnoyarsk, almost always means that the research block was removed from the project — the most expensive and important part of the work. A ready-made brand may look the same externally whether it costs 3 or 25 million, but a low price usually indicates an unverified hypothesis.
Who needs a brand — tourists or residents
This is where the main fork lies, which is rarely mentioned directly. Successful international cases like Copenhagen or Johannesburg work for the external audience: Copenhagen rose to 4-th place in the City RepTrak-2012 Reputation Institute ranking starting from 2009 year, surpassing Stockholm, Prague, and New York, and received the status of 'best city for cyclists' with an inflow of investments. Johannesburg, thanks to positioning as 'African city of world class,' became one of the leading economic centers of South Africa, making a significant contribution to the national GDP — this is probably the strongest economic effect among all known cases of territorial rebrending. New York increased tourist flow by 110% and tourism revenue by 70% over 20 years, up to $6 billion per year — but this is more of an exception than a rule, and relying on this case as a typical result is a mistake.
The problem is that all these stories are about the external brand. The internal, civic brand requires something entirely different: not a advertising campaign, but visible changes in the urban environment. When the administration changes the coat of arms and slogan, but does not remove broken sidewalks and does not open new parks, residents justifiably consider the brand to be a decorative story and do not perceive it as their own. It is precisely this gap between the picture for tourists and reality for locals — the main threat to the project's longevity, stronger than any mistake in the logo design.
Is it worth a city to even embark on a rebranding
Rebranding of the territory is justified if the administration is ready to see the matter through to implementation and there is a budget for the research component — without it, the project risks repeating the path of Irkutsk. Involving residents is not a formality and not a report item: without it, the brand becomes a project for a narrow circle of officials that falls apart at the first change of power. If there is no money or political will for the full cycle, it is better not to start rebranding at all than to order a logo for 2 million and hang it on banners that nobody will take seriously as a city image.
Decorative approach versus systemic approach
In practice, administrations choose one of two paths, and the difference between them determines whether the brand will survive the presentation.
The decorative approach reduces to a technical specification such as 'draw us a new coat of arms and slogan for the city's anniversary.' Such a project fits into a state procurement, passes a tender within a couple of months, and ends with a press release. The systemic approach starts not with design, but with the question: what exactly should change in the perception of the city — among tourists, investors, and residents themselves — and through which channels this perception is transmitted. The difference is evident in figures: decorative projects in Russia cost 1–3 million rubles and are completed within 2–3 months, while systemic ones cost 15–30 million and take a year and a half, including field research.
How the process looks when done correctly
A telling example is the rebranding of Yekaterinburg, which went through five sequential stages instead of one technical assignment for a logo:
- Mass survey of residents — in the Yekaterinburg case, 1847 people participated, which provided a statistically significant picture of the city's perception from the inside.
- Benchmarking with competing cities — Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, and Novosibirsk, to understand how the city really differs, rather than how it would be desirable to differ.
- Audit of the information field — analysis of what is already being written and said about the city in the media and social networks, without illusions regarding the current reputation.
- 14 in-depth interviews with experts — urbanists, entrepreneurs, cultural figures who see the city from a professional, rather than a tourist, perspective.
- Validation of final ideas — testing concepts among more than 2000 Russians outside the city to check whether the idea works on the external audience.
Only after these five steps does the team move to the brand platform, and the visual identity is developed last — as a consequence of strategy, not as its replacement.
Why rebranding fails: analysis of typical mistakes
Irkutsk is a textbook example of how a failure looks like. The brand was developed in a rush through a government procurement with tight deadlines, without a proper research phase, and it was never implemented in practice: neither in navigation, nor in souvenirs, nor in administration communications. The project remained a pure art object — a beautiful picture in the presentation that nobody uses.
Suzdal is a different case: the agency did everything 'by the textbook' — 3 years of work, 33 in-depth interviews, several strategic sessions, analysis of 6380 tourist reviews. But the administration never adopted the final brand due to disagreements with stakeholders. A good research does not save the project if there is no political will to approve it at the finish line.
From these and similar cases a set of recurring mistakes emerges:
- Deadlines are dictated not by the logic of research, but by government procurement requirements — there is simply no time for a proper benchmarking and interviews.
- The decision is made by a narrow circle of officials, not by the residents and businesses who will live with this brand afterwards.
- The brand is developed, but no budget and responsible persons are allocated for its implementation after the presentation.
- Strategy is confused with design — people expect the logo to do what a long-term development program should do.
Budget and quality: where is the boundary
The difference between a cheap and an expensive city rebranding is not in the quality of the image, but in the volume of work done before it. A cheap project almost always skips field research and limits itself to laying out a new coat of arms. A costly one includes surveys, interviews, benchmarking, and testing hypotheses on a real audience.
| City/project | Budget | What was included |
|---|---|---|
| Armavir | 2,93 million ₽ | Development of visual identity without large-scale research |
| Krasnoyarsk | 5 million ₽ (start), 1,2 million ₽ (real price) | The final price dropped more than 4 times after the auction — a clear sign of cutting back on the research portion |
| Sevastopol | abandoning 5 million ₽ | The administration refused to pay the stated amount to Lebedev's studio, and the project did not take place |
| Yekaterinburg | 15–30 million ₽ (range of systemic projects) | Full cycle: surveys, interviews, benchmarking, validation |
A drop in the initial price by several times, as in the case of Krasnoyarsk, almost always means that the research block was removed from the project — the most expensive and important part of the work. A ready-made brand may look the same externally whether it costs 3 or 25 million, but a low price usually indicates an unverified hypothesis.
Who needs a brand — tourists or residents
This is where the main fork lies, which is rarely mentioned directly. Successful international cases like Copenhagen or Johannesburg work for the external audience: Copenhagen rose to 4-th place in the City RepTrak-2012 Reputation Institute ranking starting from 2009 year, surpassing Stockholm, Prague, and New York, and received the status of 'best city for cyclists' with an inflow of investments. Johannesburg, thanks to positioning as 'African city of world class,' became one of the leading economic centers of South Africa, making a significant contribution to the national GDP — this is probably the strongest economic effect among all known cases of territorial rebrending. New York increased tourist flow by 110% and tourism revenue by 70% over 20 years, up to $6 billion per year — but this is more of an exception than a rule, and relying on this case as a typical result is a mistake.
The problem is that all these stories are about the external brand. The internal, civic brand requires something entirely different: not a advertising campaign, but visible changes in the urban environment. When the administration changes the coat of arms and slogan, but does not remove broken sidewalks and does not open new parks, residents justifiably consider the brand to be a decorative story and do not perceive it as their own. It is precisely this gap between the picture for tourists and reality for locals — the main threat to the project's longevity, stronger than any mistake in the logo design.
Is it worth a city to even embark on a rebranding
Rebranding of the territory is justified if the administration is ready to see the matter through to implementation and there is a budget for the research component — without it, the project risks repeating the path of Irkutsk. Involving residents is not a formality and not a report item: without it, the brand becomes a project for a narrow circle of officials that falls apart at the first change of power. If there is no money or political will for the full cycle, it is better not to start rebranding at all than to order a logo for 2 million and hang it on banners that nobody will take seriously as a city image.
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