Russel Howcroft: Let’s show the world how good we are
Victoria is a brilliant place and if we want the world to know that, we should take a leaf out of New Zealand’s book to create a unified band where everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet, writes Russel Howcroft.
Future Victoria
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Every week, about three million people around the world move from rural and regional areas to cities, in search of better jobs and greater prosperity. While many find what they are looking for, accommodating such a massive influx is placing huge pressures on infrastructure and services and reducing liveability.
Imagine for a moment that there’s a place where a regional life is so appealing — with connected transport, high employment and a great lifestyle — that city people are itching to run against the global stampede and move to the country.
PwC’s new survey asked Victorians why they loved where they live and contains startling findings: in the next five years, 29 per cent of Victorians see themselves as potentially or definitely moving out of their area.
But only 3.4 per cent are likely to move from a metropolitan area to a regional one.
This has left me thinking: why wouldn’t you want to live in regional Victoria? Take Ballarat. It’s only 80 minutes from Melbourne by train. They play footy there. There is stunning architecture and great restaurants. It’s just one of a host of amazing regional cities in our state, many of which were built with gold rush money.
Our regions are one of Victoria’s best selling points and something we should be putting front and centre as we try to develop a stronger and clearer idea of Brand Victoria.
Many people think brands are about selling washing machines or soft drink. But they are much more than that. They are an expression of what makes a thing unique and worth a customer’s attention. Countries, states and cities develop their brands so that they can compete on the world stage: for export sales and investment dollars, as well as for tourists.
New Zealand is a great example. At the turn of the millennium, productivity was falling and New Zealand was going backwards in the international competitiveness rankings. The country was seen as a place of great natural beauty, but one that also relied too much on its natural resources.
So the Kiwis decided to flip the script. They took their “100% Pure” brand, which was previously used to market New Zealand as a holiday destination, and broadened it to become a tool to promote the country as a place of innovation, leading the way in the global knowledge economy. It’s been a raging success.
A strong brand unifies a place’s idea of itself so that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. Victoria has some strong elements of brand but does it have that clear picture of itself, the same way New Zealand does?
Victoria is, after all, bigger than New Zealand by population. What would happen if we cast off the shackles of a sub-national mindset and instead conceptualised ourselves as a country and marketed ourselves accordingly?
Aside from our amazing regions, PwC’s survey findings give us some great pointers about what we should be focusing on when we go out and sell our magnificent state to the world. Marketers call them “brand pillars”, but they’re really just what makes us special.
So here are my suggestions for what those brand pillars should be:
1. Regional prosperity.
2. Inclusiveness. Victorians are progressive and welcoming. More than transport service, or even health facilities, the PwC survey reveals that the inclusiveness of people’s local area was equal second in importance to how much they loved where they live, only behind community safety.
3. Sport and leisure. The research shows that one in five of us sees the provision of leisure facilities as being most important to them. We also lead the world in sports administration — we’re brilliant at running sports.
4. Creativity. Victoria is the creative powerhouse of the nation, with vibrant and growing innovation and start-up scenes and world-leading makers in areas such as film and gaming.
5. Education. Our number plates speak the truth: we are the “Education State”, with the sector generating almost $12 billion in international revenue every year. We’re now primed to crack the education-to-industry connection.
Finally, it’s not just the brand elements we’re selling, it’s the spirit with which we are selling them. Victorians have a faux modesty about our amazing state that we need to get rid of and instead get really energised about what makes Victoria such a great place.
WHAT’S IN STORE FOR FUTURE VICTORIA
We all need to become brand evangelists for the place we call home. And our governments need to lead the way by embracing Brand Victoria and being prepared to put more cash behind marketing it to the world.
The New Zealand case study proves the social and economic case for building a strong place brand. Brilliant long-term returns for the place where you live. That seems to be a smart use of money to me.
Russel Howcroft is a PwC Melbourne partner and former advertising agency boss.