Citymarketing Day 2017

A beaming sun, packed programme with leading speakers, talk shows, and elevator pitches were the omens for a successful City Marketing Day 2017. Around the clock of ten, the Galloway at the 1931 Congrescentrum Brabanthallen in 's-Hertogenbosch filled up. The main issue of the day: who will be the big winner of the Netwerk Citymarketing Awards 2017? We at Plaece reported.

While enjoying a welcome drink and, of course, Bossche bollen in the Galloway in the 1931 Congrescentrum Brabanthallen, guests were given a warm welcome by the excellent organisation. After a short Meet & Greet, attendees were led to the Limousin 1 for the lavish programme.

During the Network Citymarketing Awards 2017, two prizes were awarded: a jury prize and a public prize. The nominees were presented to the expert jury because of an exceptional or striking contribution in the field of city marketing. The independent professional jury reduced the many contenders to a number of five nominees.

The nominees were asked to give an elevator pitch on the day, allowing attendees to vote for the winner of the audience award 2017. For the jury award, the independent jury selected the winner. The 2017 nominees in a nutshell:

Brand book The Hague

Bureau Citybranding / CommunicationLab Municipality of The Hague

"The digital brand book was developed with many parties in the city, under the coordination of Bureau Citybranding of the Municipality of The Hague. The Den Haad brand book is intended as an inspiring toolkit with practical resources such as key messages, facts and figures, photos and videos" - merkdenhaag.nl

Jheronimus Bosch 500 years, 'shared hospitality

Municipality of 's-Hertogenbosch

"The city of 's-Hertogenbosch commemorated the five hundredth anniversary of the death of Hieronymus Bosch in a big way with the multi-year programme Hieronymus Bosch 500, full of socio-cultural, scientific and artistic activities. A unique and ambitious international event that definitively (re)confirmed Hieronymus Bosch's place among the absolute top Dutch masters and linked him convincingly and definitively to his city of 's-Hertogenbosch."

Winter campaign David Bowie is in Groningen

Marketing Groningen

"The much-discussed exhibition 'David Bowie is at the Groninger Museum was curated by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. This tantalising multimedia experience featured more than 300 objects from David Bowie's personal archive. He kept handwritten song lyrics, original costumes, photographs, album designs and other rare material from the past 50 years. The exhibition is on a world tour and, after London, has reached the cities of Toronto, Sao Paulo, Berlin, Chicago, Paris, Melbourne and Groningen." - davidbowie-groningen.co.uk

Leiden city of discoveries/campaign T-rex discovered

Leiden Marketing

"In the summer of 2012, managing director Edwin van Huis first uttered these words. But where do you get a Tyrannosaurus rex? And where do you get the money? Yet it worked out. Naturalis researchers went looking in the United States. Finally, they dug up the skeleton in Montana in September 2013. Since then, the bones have been carefully excavated and prepared. On Friday 26 August, T. rex arrived in Leiden, accompanied by police, palaeontologist Anne Schulp and biologist Freek Vonk. You can now meet the queen of dinosaurs, over 12 metres long, 6000 kilos of bones, muscles, claws and teeth, at Naturalis."

Ede opts for Food: from seed to apple tree that will now bear fruit

Citymarketing Ede

"We want to help small producers bring products to market. That's why we want to donate 10 per cent of Food Unplugged's sales to a new initiative: the Farmeteers Academy. This academy will train primary producers - growers, farmers, but also beer brewers, coffee roasters, bread bakers - to become marketers. The internet revolution offers plenty of opportunities for special producers. But then the 'farmer' must also become a marketer: 'farmeteer'. With the Farmeteers Academy, we are going to help these entrepreneurs build a bridge between producer and consumer." - food-unplugged.com

Kick-Off conference room Limousine 1

Host Marijke Roskam kicked off the day, after which Martijn Bulthuis, chairman Netwerk Citymarketing, took over the microphone and welcomed all attendees. The Citymarketing Day officially kicked off...

The first speaker, Manolis Psorras, an "innovator, strategic thinker & planner, debater, and, above all else a true citizen of the world" had come over from Greece. The charge of the presentation was an interesting item for all city marketers, namely the sharing economy and its consequence on tourism.

The 'Sharing Economy' and initiatives like Airbnb are impacting today's tourism. Manolis Psorras further zoomed in on the "dark side" of Sharing Economy and "The top challenges" and concluded his engaging presentation with the wise final advice "Disrupt the disruptors & focus on your USPs".

After Manolis Psorras' inspiring words, it was the turn of the first nominees to convince those present why they should vote for them. The kick-off was for Merkboek Den Haag. All nominees were given a total of five minutes to make an elevator pitch. Based on this, the audience in the room voted for the winner of the audience award of the Netwerk Citymarketing Awards 2017.

The second pitch was by 's-Hertogenbosch, who took the stage in their own unique way with visual Hieronymus Bosch creations and an elevator pitch in the form of a video. With these impressions in their pockets, attendees were directed towards the Galloway for a relaxed snack and drink during the coffee break.

After the short break, the stage was transformed into the setting of a true talk show. Kirsten Willunat, Jules Goris and Lian Duif took a seat on the couch to talk more about the ins and outs of the preparations and key lessons during the Hieronymus Bosch year.

During the talk show, Marijke Roskam zoomed in more on the approach, lessons learned and how this legacy will be used to face the future. The first steps of preparation were already taken in 2016.It has been a huge project involving multiple organisations and parties with a result everyone can be proud of. The talk show ended with a Q&A from the audience.

After the talk show, Groningen,Leiden and Ede had the chance to attract the audience for the Netwerk Citymarketing Audience Award 2017.

With all elevator pitches behind us, it was now up to the audience to vote for the winner of the audience award, which would be announced later in the day.

With the awards ceremony in prospect, half-day 3 continued with the Energizer. Led by Marijke Roskam, fun and interesting questions were addressed and answered by the audience. During the Energizer, groups were formed to share knowledge with fellow professionals. An interesting, interactive item that enlisted the help of the audience.

For the next guest speaker during the City Marketing Day, it was doubtful whether she would be able to attend. Judith van Oost from Antwerp was suffering from flu, but didn't want to miss the day anyway. A nice decision for us!

Judith van Oost talked more about the "atypical" brand idea with which Antwerp profiles itself in communications to visitors, businesses and brains. The advice is for city marketers to dare to think more out-of-the-box.

To Danny Mekic the honour of closing the day for the guest speakers before it was announced who would be the winner of the 2017 Netwerk Citymarketing Audience Award and Jury Award.

When it comes to marketing, Danny Mekic is no stranger. The entrepreneur/ Technology and Innovation expert was previously named most successful young entrepreneur in the Netherlands by Management Team magazine Sprout. And Elsevier named him "one of the five greatest Dutch talents".

Danny Mekic took attendees through the changing world and the efficient use of Big Data. What is Big Data, what is it used for, and are we not getting lost in it?

Due to the changing world and the possibilities regarding technology, there are more and more platforms and possibilities to reach your target group. This also makes it increasingly complex. Take bitcoin as an example that allows untraceable transactions.

In the Netherlands and the rest of Europe, we lead the way in technology. The Netherlands does very well with specialised ICT skills. Yet this quickly creates insecure thoughts and the fear that more jobs will disappear, whereas we should take a more optimistic view of technological developments.

Collecting data is getting easier and easier. But aren't we getting lost in this? Is it necessary to collect as much data as possible in all kinds of ways? Even if this is at the expense of privacy? We should therefore ask ourselves whether we are not going too far with smartcities and big data.

Danny Mekic closed with the wise words: innovation starts with a dream and being more flexible than your environment. Finally, he liked to use Steve Jobs' quote "People don't know what they want, until you show it to them".

AND THE WINNER IS....

After all the interesting guest speakers, elevator pitches and the talk show, it was time to announce the winner(s) of the Netwerk Citymarketing Awards 2017. The audience votes were counted towards the audience winner and the independent expert jury was ready to announce the winner of the jury award.

The nominees were no longer kept in suspense. This year, both the audience award and the jury award were well-deservedly won by:

Jheronimus Bosch 500 years - 's-Hertogenbosch

The jury's final verdict was: "The jury report showed that the quality of the five nominated entries was high and that all initiatives had a very real chance of winning the award. 's-Hertogenbosch had a very successful year, where maximum return was realised and the local, national and international impact of the Jheronimus Bosch 500 years was high."

After the award ceremony, the City Marketing Day ended over drinks and snacks in the Galloway. This marked the end of a successful City Marketing Day. We, from Plaece, look back on a successful and inspiring day in our own 's-Hertogenbosch.