Place Branding & Marketing Strategy

Cheerful young people standing on roadside, stopping car, trying to get free ride, having autostop journey, free space. Exciting travel adventure, hitchhiking with friends, summer holidays

As the leading destination marketing agency, DCI offers a diverse portfolio of award-winning place branding and creative marketing services, expertly bringing your community to life through craft and creativity.

With more than 60 years of experience in destination marketing for cities, regions, states and countries, DCI has perfected the art and science of crafting community brand identities that are honest, authentic and embraceable. From successful city branding campaigns to new brand images and logos, we believe your brand stems from who you are, who people perceive you to be and who you want to be.

DCI’s Creative Services team couples deep economic development, tourism and talent attraction expertise with a proven place strategy to not only define your brand but to activate it. We’re skilled in elevating the profile of destinations large and small through strategic and integrated marketing campaigns that transform your community’s brand. Whether it’s creating a marketing campaign, shooting a video showcasing real stories of people working and living in your region or developing an eye-catching collateral piece, the in-house team of creative experts will help you cut through the clutter and drive action.

  • Branding
  • Creative Services
  • Research-Driven Place Marketing Strategy
Branding
Creative Place Marketing Expertise

A Passion for Place Branding Fueled by Proven Process

DCI is a global leader in effective place branding. The branding team couples more than 60 years of experience in destination marketing for cities, regions, states and countries with a proven destination branding process that integrates research, marketing strategy, local community engagement, powerful storytelling and creative concepts.

DCI’s in-house team crafts new brand ideas to reclaim your community’s namesake and attract your target market, from corporate investment, skilled talent or visitors from far and wide. By conducting focus groups, immersion tours, interviews, surveys, workshops and website analysis, we serve as intermediaries to build refreshed branding and collateral that reflects your authentic destination and, most importantly, the people that call it home.

Creative Services
High-Impact Marketing Materials

When it comes to telling your community's story, DCI can develop marketing materials that stand out from the competition.

First impressions mean a lot, so a little strategic planning will go a long way to your creative output. Whether you need an annual report, brochure, fact sheets, logo design, presentation decks or any other kind of collateral, DCI knows how to create high-quality pieces that combine clever copywriting and data with fresh imagery and graphic design.

Our Creative Services team can also develop storyboards, scripts and shot lists for video and photo shoots that capture the differentiation and essence of your destination. Along with vetting and securing a videographer or photographer that fits your budget, DCI will even handle the editing and other post-production services necessary for expert visual content creation.

DCI’s Creative team will also work closely with the Paid Media team to develop ads that build brand awareness and trigger responses beyond just increasing SEO. Based on research and strategy, the team crafts copy and designs ads for traditional and digital marketing strategies that speak to your target audiences, whether they are meeting planners, corporate executives, site selectors or a potential labor force.

The Creative team has the innovative thinking to produce just about any kind of placemaking content you need to find creative ways to attract the end user, talent, investors or visitors.

Research-Driven Place Marketing Strategy
Marketing Tactics Arsenal

DCI can deliver a smart, research-driven, actionable place promotional strategy to reach your target audience.

DCI believes that all great marketing is rooted in research. That’s why we do the quantitative and qualitative legwork to understand both internal and external target audience perceptions of your destination. DCI’s research process includes perception studies, media audits, focus groups and more — all of which enable our DCI team to hear directly about your community’s top strengths and weaknesses.

Through our national research, DCI also understands the most important factors that motivate visitors, site selectors, and job seekers. We lean heavily on our research findings to develop a succinct brand promise, key messages and an actionable marketing roadmap across distribution channels for swift implementation. DCI’s marketing strategies are designed to be activated. DCI’s process ensures you’re set up for success and armed with a strategic roadmap for implementation.

Throughout the development of this marketing strategy, DCI will never leave you in the dark. The Creative team will develop a clear timeline, budget and success metrics to help you implement every step we design across your channels of distribution. DCI strategies don’t sit on a shelf and collect dust. We provide clients with a roadmap to implement the ideas and raise the profile of destinations through a myriad of tactics. We’ll harness proactive PR tactics and distribution strategy to target your most wanted media. We’ll amplify your key messages through social media, engaging influencers. We’ll optimize your website and can even plan advertising campaigns. We’ll place thought leadership pieces, attend trade shows, organize in-market activations – and the list goes on. A marketing plan is only a plan until it’s set into action.

Get in Touch

If you’d like to know more about DCI’s successful place branding strategy and capabilities, please reach out by email.

Dariel Curren

Executive Vice President
dariel.curren@aboutdci.com Get Started With DCI