Saffron launches city brand barometer

Saffron Brand Consultants today unveils The City Brand Barometer, a study designed to assess the strength of cities’ brands.

The matrix compares 72 of Europe’s largest cities and looks at their assets against the strength of their brands. The analysis is supported by a YouGov poll of 2000 consumers to understand what the public want from a city.

Saffron head of place branding Jeremy Hildereth describes the survey as a ‘qualitative approach underlying quantitative data’.

London and Paris come out on top and are shown to be cities with strong assets – in terms of what the public want – matched with strong brands. Berlin, Vienna, Dublin and Edinburgh fare well, as does Athens, which is believed to have profited from the Olympics in real terms and through its brand strength.

Former Eastern Bloc countries and Baltic cities like Sofia, Riga and Krakow show that they have the qualities to attract tourism and business, but are being undersold.

In other British cities, the North shows some interesting trends. Liverpool is seen to have a stronger brand than Leeds and Sheffield even though they have more assets. Bradford comes bottom of the table.

Hildereth adds, ‘We hope [the barometer] will be used broadly. The results will be published on our website.’ This can be found at www.saffron-consultants.com.