Trends to Watch: Building City Identities to Become Destination Brands

Editor’s Note: This blog is part of our Design Forecast blog series, looking at what’s next in 2025 and beyond.

Cities are at an inflection point. Since the global pandemic, some downtowns have rebounded, while others are struggling. To position themselves for growth, cities are looking to attract new businesses, new audiences, and new champions to reshape perceptions or rebrand themselves.

Gensler’s City Pulse Survey found that most residents feel that their downtowns offer a great experience, while visitors are less likely to agree. To be a true destination brand, our cities must close this experience gap. Becoming a destination brand depends on more than buildings and businesses — it hinges on people and attracting new audiences. So, how do our cities take on this challenge, and how can brand positioning and a compelling narrative help build strong brand advocates?

In a recent webinar, Amy Bixler and Janice Cavaliere, global leaders of Gensler’s Brand Design practice, joined panelists Jennifer Bowen, VP of Destination Development & Community Engagement at Destination Augusta; Melissa Buckminster, Director of Marketing & Communications at the Downtown San Francisco Partnership; Alex Stettinski, CEO of the San Jose Downtown Association; and Ebony Walton, Director of Marketing and Communications at the DowntownDC Business Improvement District, to discuss “Building City Identities to Become Destination Brands: How Placemaking and Storytelling Magnetize People and Place.”

Here are some of the key takeaways from this discussion:

To reach broad audiences, cities and districts must give people a variety of entry points to engage.

Ebony Walton: When you talk about branding, you’re telling stories to different audiences. If you’re a property owner and you want to buy property, it’s a different kind of story than if you’re trying to get a 25-year-old to come to a restaurant. There needs to be all these various touch points for the small business owner, the tenant, the visitor, the worker, and the resident. We have to meet people where they are — whether they’re online, on social media, or in a hotel. So, it’s figuring out how we leverage opportunities, but tell the story in a way that’s going to meet these different demographics, because you can’t be everything to everybody.

Alex Stettinski: We have to create multifaceted experiences that speak to several demographics. In San Jose, California, we just painted a 12,000-square-foot mural on San Pedro Street with about 800 volunteers. It’s wonderful to see the community that’s being created and cultivated in our downtown. It’s getting people engaged, making them feel like they belong, so they have an interest in spending time there. Social media activation events can create unique experiences that attract businesses to come to our downtown.

Attracting new audiences sometimes requires creating a “bridge brand” from current public perception to future brand promise.

Jennifer Bowen: Augusta is well known for hosting The Masters golf tournament. And we can’t deliver on that brand promise the other 364 days of the year, because it is a private club. So, we have to really look at what our community says that our brand is. We’re also known for tradition and being hospitable. The image that you see on television is gorgeous and green, but the rest of our city is cool, gritty, and hardworking. As the second oldest city in Georgia and the home of music icon James Brown, we’re known for being a very soulful city. Sometimes you have to create a “bridge brand” that covers the gap between where you are today and where you want to be. We’re competing against other cities for visitors, so we have to find that authentic experience to deliver and continue to grow our destination.

Ebony Walton: We have to understand what people are saying to be able to combat the myths, lean into the good things, and then tell the real story. People often think of Washington, D.C. as a government town. Our Downtown DC Business Improvement District is in the middle of a rebrand with Gensler. We’re asking, “How do we reach people to let them know that we have great restaurants, and great museums that are free, in a way that’s engaging?” One of the things that we, as bids and place manager organizations, have to ask, “How do we get other people to tell our story?” Because we can’t be everywhere.

Alex Stettinski: You can try to brand a destination, but perception is something that you must take into consideration first. Like many other cities, San Jose, California, has a homeless problem, and that reputation sometimes overshadows what our destinations really are. So, we are trying to counter that narrative. We have become an entertainment district. Additionally, AI is a big target audience for us, and we have a multitude of smaller AI companies that have moved here. We are the center of innovation and creativity, and we want to bring that back by showcasing success stories in our downtown.

Placemaking is a critical component of branding success and creating sustainably vibrant destinations.

Jennifer Bowen: Branding is about perception, and what your potential customer or visitor thinks you are. But it’s just as important what your community thinks you are. We’ve been adding more events and experiences to draw locals and visitors downtown. And placemaking is so important. If it’s a clean, inviting, safe, architecturally rich environment, and it’s a place where people want to be, then that will create that authentic experience.

Melissa Buckminster: My organization serves a specific area of San Francisco, a 43-block radius in the Financial District and Jackson Square. Pre-pandemic, this was an area where people are going into the office every day. Post-pandemic, that has very much changed. So, we have really been working on this rebrand since 2022 and looking to make this an area that is welcoming for all at different times for different uses. A lot of our events and activations challenge how the space is being used, when it’s being used, and who it’s being used by. This is reflected in everything from our communications to our brand colors. This is a place that’s welcoming for all — not just during working hours, but in the evening and on the weekend.

Alex Stettinski: It’s important to create a sustainable destination where people come on a regular basis, when there are no events, because they want to hang out there. And that’s much harder to do because that includes partnerships and major investment. For example, Detroit came back as one of the main downtowns in the U.S. through major stakeholder investments. It is sustainably vibrant through placemaking with hundreds of millions of dollars invested into their downtown. This is a huge component of branding that we, as business improvement districts, need to look at.

There’s no silver bullet for measuring ROI and success; a multi-pronged approach is crucial for branding efforts.

Melissa Buckminster: We host a large projection mapping event during the holidays every year, and we had 67,000 attendees last year. That foot traffic and quantitative data is a really big piece, but so is being able to gather qualitative data, to ask people where they’re coming from and how they’re feeling about the city. We partner with our local businesses as well. We just opened the first-ever entertainment zone in California in our district, which allows folks to purchase alcoholic beverages in brick-and-mortar businesses and enjoy them in a street that is open to pedestrians. So, getting those numbers from our local businesses is another great measure to see if our event and branding has been successful.

Ebony Walton: There are some foundational things that you look to, like web, social media, and event metrics, to measure ROI. You can do social listening, surveys, or campaigns. I don’t think there’s a silver bullet. It’s nuanced. Every brand, place, and organization is different.

Click here to view the full webinar.