Brand Strategy Guru

In an ever more competitive global marketplace, destinations are realising that traditional marketing approaches are not enough on their own to attract enthusiastic visitors and advocates.

Brand Strategy Guru has helped UK resorts and destinations to develop brand narratives that are authentic, compelling and distinctive, helping destinations to present themselves afresh.

Recent projects

Hemsby & Newport: 1200 Years of Seaside Fun

A pro-bono community project for the twin resort of Hemsby & Newport on the east Norfolk coast, focusing on finding and creating a new and positive story for the resort to tell. Brand Strategy Guru discovered that Hemsby is a Viking name and that the village had been founded by Danish invaders early in the 9th Century.

Thus the new brand positioning was born: 1200 Years of Seaside Fun, designed to keep the lighthearted seaside values of the resort at the forefront whilst giving the place real pride in its heritage. The new positioning was brought to life in a Viking logo, which also features on a new village sign, and in the creation of an annual Hemsby Viking Festival. The new brand and festival have achieved extensive media coverage and focused attention on the resort’s fight back from challenging times.

The Broads: Britain's Magical Waterland

Brand Strategy Guru was delighted to be commissioned lead the recent brand strategy project for The Broads national park. Our role included the development of a brand positioning platform to provide a unifying brand idea, a consistent set of compelling brand messages, as well as a foundation for training, quality and other brand marketing activities. The purpose is to promote The Broads on a national and international stage as a visitor destination, providing a richer-textured brand image than has been the case in the recent past.

To that end we devised the positioning line Britain’s Magical Waterland from which was created a new visual identity (designed by Cobalt id), which will be used as the basis of an ongoing campaign. A brand toolkit with copyright-free artwork has also been developed to be used by any business, organisation or individual to support promotion of The Broads. The new positioning created a media stir which immediately gave Britain’s Magical Waterland extremely valuable headlines. Simon Middleton has subsequently been invited to speak about the project at conferences in the UK and abroad.

Other place branding work

Creation of brand strategy and naming the unique collection of world class historic buildings in Norwich: the Norwich 12 A Journey Through The English City.

Advising the leading UK resort of Great Yarmouth on long-term branding strategy.

Leading the rebranding project for the Edwardian resort of Felixstowe in Suffolk.

Advising the Visit Norfolk tourism organisation on a new brand positioning for this much loved destination county.