A brief history of place branding

Creating a brand proposition for a city isn't easy. Over the last 30 years or so, place branding as a discipline has evolved - largely around tourism, but these days focussed as much on inward investment and talent attraction. It began with connectivity (where a place is), and fairly quickly evolved into assets and experiences - which is still where the majority of place marketing work is done, for obvious reasons.

More recently, the leading places in this field (particularly nations) have been looking at their values as ways to differentiate - but this can be difficult for UK cities, which don't hold the same legislative powers as other European, American and Australasian cities. 

Outside in & inside out

We knew we needed a positioning and proposition for Sheffield that knitted together everything the city stands for, and allowed us to talk about the city in a way we hadn't before - and that to do this, we would need external help. After a full competitive pitch process with some leading agencies, Manasian & Co were appointed. They took Sheffield on a journey to create a proposition rooted in what we call 'impact and purpose'. In other words, it was about making Sheffield have meaning to other people, places and organisations who may not be aware of the difference Sheffield has made to the world.

This 'outside in' perspective was vital, not just because Manasian could see the city in ways that we, as 'insiders' couldn't, but because it also was derived from the point of view of 'why would anyone outside the city be interested?'. We had to make sure this question was answered for anything we came up with.

Once we had settled on 'Inspires', and Manasian had developed the clever way it could easily be incorporated into our existing visual identity, we knew we would have to launch it in a way that was 'inside out' - which is to say we needed local creativity to make it relevant for our residents, to engender civic pride and, hopefully, advocates. A creative project was therefore commissioned to produce something uniquely Sheffield that embodied the idea and key themes of 'Inspires'.

Place branding without place?!

Most place brands show images and video of their places to bring their communications to life. We felt this was a great opportunity to do something a bit different and mould-breaking, that would be inspiringly different. And that's where Rob Lee came into play, supported by 96Back and Andy Robinson.

Rob's pure graphic work is admired and loved by Sheffielders thanks to his murals across the city. Slightly mind-warping and visually arresting, we approached him with the idea of animating his visuals for the first time ever, which would not only give Sheffielders a new perspective on his much-loved work, but would give 'Inspires' a really bold and disruptive asset that would bring to life our key content themes for launch. To help animate these graphic worlds Andy Robinson came on board, a local designer and animator, and 96Back - a prolific DJ and producer of electronic music - was commissioned to produce the soundtrack to the animation. 

The real as well as the digital

We also wanted to make sure this work was seen by Sheffielders in physical spaces and places too. We will be doing this in other cities and places around the country and world - but we wanted it to be seen here, first.

We applied the bold design to the largest physical space in the city, viewable from multiple locations, on the side of Sheffield Libraries and the Graves Gallery.

In partnership with street advertising specialists Jack Arts, who are part of the Build Hollywood group, we programmed a Sheffield takeover of all their poster sites, which meant we could place relevant themes in suitable locations. 'The craft of beer' went on the side of the well loved Washington Pub, for example; 'greener cities' went by the flagship Castlegate grey to green site; and 'the beautiful game' went across the road from Sheffield United's Bramall Lane stadium.

Funding information

This project was part funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is a central pillar of the UK government’s Levelling Up agenda and provides £2.6 billion of funding for local investment by March 2025. The Fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK investing in communities and place, supporting local business, and people and skills. For more information, visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-shared-prosperity-fund-prospectus