Place Branding & Marketing Strategy

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.

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.

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.