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New York Bests
Sydney and London to be Named World's Top
City - Launch of World City Brands Index
Summarizes Health of Cities'
Image
London,
16 September 2005/ Travelpress.biz - Data
from a survey released this week by global
advertising agency Leo Burnett Worldwide
finds the British rate New York City as
the best city "brand" in the world --
above their own capital London. Sydney
also gets Brits' stamp of approval, coming
in just behind New York, and just above
London.
Experts in
branding with client experience that
includes tourism accounts for Switzerland,
Thailand, Singapore and Norway, Leo
Burnett partnered with leading pollster
YouGov to conduct the Leo Burnett World
Cities Brand Index. The study polled 4,000
adults in the U.K. to understand their
perceptions of 50 global cities based on
five factors which determine the overall
health of a global city brand. New York
squeezed out close-runners Sydney and
London thanks largely to its best-in-class
ranking in three of the five dimensions:
vibrancy of the culture; attractiveness of
the destination for a holiday and positive
word-of-mouth. Sydney, home to the highly
successful Olympics in 2000, scored well
all round, but suffered comparatively when
it came to perceptions about the city's
culture.
Other
cities rounding out the top 10 list of the
50 leading city brands worldwide included
Barcelona, Paris, Rome, Las Vegas, Los
Angeles, Toronto and San Francisco,
respectively.
Brits'
London scored relatively highly across all
dimensions contributing to brand strength,
and came behind only New York and Rio de
Janeiro in terms of 'vibrancy of culture'.
Somewhat counter intuitively, given the
British propensity to complain about the
weather, London polled the best score of
all 50 cities when respondents were asked
about the quality of its climate. What let
the city down however was the degree to
which those asked claimed to have heard
positive 'buzz' about their capital.
London ranked 20th out of 50 cities on
this question, behind Edinburgh, Dubai and
Johannesburg &endash; with less than 20
per cent of those questioned saying they
often heard good things about the
city.
Said
Richard Pinder, president of Leo Burnett
in Europe, the Middle East and Africa,
"Cities are having to start thinking and
acting more like brands than ever before.
Increasingly they compete with each other
for investment from global businesses, vie
for the tourist dollar, struggle to
attract world class talent &endash; and as
we've seen with the Olympic 2012 bid
recently, fight tooth and nail for the
right to host major global sporting
events. You can't place a high enough
value on getting a city's branding right
today."
Underscoring this, industry leaders have
predicted that winning London's bid to
host the 2012 Olympic Games could earn the
UK more than £2bn in extra tourism
revenue, while JPMorgan Asset Management
has gone further and said that London can
expect to see a lift of as much as 0.4 per
cent in its GDP as a result of the
Olympics coming to town. Much was also
made during the bidding process for the
Olympics 2012 of New York City's claim
that winning the bid would result in a
regional economic impact of over $12
billion, and create over 135,000
jobs.
In the
Leo Burnett ranking, what potentially
reduced New York's lead over other world
cities in the top 10, were perceptions
about quality of life in the city and the
climate. Just 33 percent of respondents
felt residents of the Big Apple had a good
quality of life, placing the city in 17th
place well behind Toronto (65 percent),
Sydney (55 percent) and London (51
percent) on this dimension, while in terms
of climate, New York ranked a 24th, far
behind leaders London (1st), Barcelona
(2nd) and Toronto (3rd).
Beirut
&endash; once famously dubbed the 'Paris
of the Middle East' &endash; sits in
unenviable 50th position in the chart, its
image no doubt damaged following years of
civil war.
About
Leo Burnett
With 52
offices in the EMEA region, the agency
handle many of the world's most famous
brands, including Ikea, McDonald's,
Nintendo and the H.J. Heinz Company. Leo
Burnett EMEA is part of a global network
of over 200 operating units spanning 84
markets. EMEA's regional headquarters is
based in London, with sub-regional hubs
for CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) and
MENA (Middle East and North
Africa).
The
world's seventh largest agency network (as
ranked by Advertising Age in April 2004),
Leo Burnett Worldwide (
www.leoburnett.com ) is a wholly
owned subsidiary of Publicis Groupe
(www.publicis.com) , the world's fourth
largest communications group. The Gunn
Report has ranked Leo Burnett among the
five most awarded agency networks globally
for four consecutive years.
About
YouGov
YouGov is
a research company using online panels to
provide research for public policy, market
research, and stakeholder consultation.
YouGov has a track record as the UK's most
accurate pollster. In all five of the
YouGov polls where data could be compared
to actual outcomes (including the UK
general election, the Australian election,
the Pop Idol contest), YouGov was within
1% of the actual result.
Media
Contact
Leo
Burnett Ltd
Trudi
Harris
PH +44
(0)7799775779
trudi.harris@leoburnettemea.com
TravelPress.biz,
eTurboNews, P.O.Box 208, Haleiwa, HI
96712-0208 USA,
PH:
+1-808-521-2800 FAX:
+1-310-362-8973
www.travelpress.biz
media@travelpress.biz
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