John Donnelly, Marketing Edinburgh

“This city doesn’t just sell itself you know.”

You might expect the man who does exactly that, sells Edinburgh to the world, would have to justify his existence of course. But John Donnelly CEO of Marketing Edinburgh is someone who knows exactly what his job is. In the three years since he has been in this role he has been strident in his views on what is right for Edinburgh.

In June this year Convention Edinburgh, the business tourism arm of the city’s official marketing agency, Marketing Edinburgh, reported its most successful year to date, securing new conference and event bid wins worth £94.3 million to the local economy and a 10,000 boost in delegate numbers.

Representing a £2.8 million increase on last year’s economic impact figures, 206 future conferences, set to attract 74,400 thousand delegates, were won by Convention Edinburgh and its members during the previous 12 months.

This is Edinburgh campaign

This is Edinburgh as a marketing campaign has been enormously successful in putting Edinburgh on the map as a conference venue and tourist destination, but we wondered how that success had been measured.

“The first thing that I did when I arrived here was look at the project devised between Marketing Edinburgh, Essential Edinburgh and the council which I inherited.

“My background is running advertising agencies, so my first task was to devise a proper written brief and as part of that there are measurable objectives.  In advertising you only ever respond to a proper written brief.

“The two hard objectives or metrics were that the campaign had to deliver more than 2% above UK average in terms of footfall and above the UK average retail spend. This really only relates to the city centre defined in geography terms and includes the area from Haymarket to Holyrood and the Old Town to Queen Street.

“It includes bars, restaurants, attractions and retail units. If we had to hit those objectives then we reckoned it would bring in £50 million worth of incremental spend, and the campaign did hit above both those objectives. These are real figures which come from The City of Edinburgh Council’s economy department. So on one level that is how we measured the success of the This is Edinburgh campaign.

“There were other objectives that we wanted to achieve, things like reengaging the citizens of Edinburgh who, it appeared, had fallen out of love with the city centre largely because of the tramworks. People didn’t always know which roads and streets were open or closed for example.

One of the ways that Marketing Edinburgh under John’s leadership began the process was to survey 500 residents after a year into the campaign and got their feedback. John explained : “The metrics were terrific. It showed that more than 90% of people in the city were aware of the campaign, thought it was good, had re-engaged with the city and had been in the centre more often.”

TIE Survey Results Infographic Jan 2015

“The third area of how you measure the success of such a campaign is the legacy. What does it leave behind? We had started from scratch with our digital footprint. There was no website  for example so this was something which we quickly fixed.

“We now have ThisisEdinburgh.com that has 120,000 unique visitors a month and a social media audience of about 300,000 who we regularly communicate with. But one could not have happened without the other. To make the website a success we had to start with the campaign.

“Going forward we will not create any more posters or adverts in the foreseeable future with This is Edinburgh on them but we will keep it as the online channel because people know about it.”

Need for a city brand

Donnelly argues that what Edinburgh needs now is a city brand. He feels that the city needs a brand so that local residents are aware of it and so that they are persuaded to become ambassadors for Edinburgh.

“Campaigns like I AMsterdam and I love New York were all rooted in city problems. New York was debt-ridden and a crime hub and the Mayor wanted to turn that around. In Amsterdam they had problems with graffiti and so the way forward was to get locals involved. They have a stunning marketing film!”

Given that the marketing company responsible for selling Edinburgh believes that we need a brand, we are sure to get one. Donnelly believes that most people agree that the brand entity is required to engage the residents. But how do you create such a brand?

“There is however a school of thought that the brand is already This is Edinburgh and people have connected with that. It worked as a shopfront for the city and you could see that working for leisure tourism, business tourism, investment or film which we are also responsible for. But my view is that the campaign was not built for that reason, rather it was a specific project, so later this year we will embark on a city brand exercise to look at how we take our ideas forward on that.

“It may sit alongside This is Edinburgh but it may equally replace it eventually. We have now secured the domain Edinburgh.org back from VisitScotland who held it since the local tourist boards were killed off. When that happened everything, including domain names, was swept into the safekeeping of VisitScotland.  When you Google ‘Edinburgh’ it is the council website which has first ranking  and then VisitScotland.”

European Cities Marketing

Edinburgh is now a member of European Cities Marketing which is a useful knowledge sharing group.

“I was at a conference in Madrid earlier this year at which point Edinburgh joined. Only Belfast in the UK had become members before that, but now thanks to Scottish Enterprise paying our joining fee we are a part of this group, along with London.

“What they have found is that there is a country versus city element to the way that marketing works. It appears that people search for specific cities rather than countries. We found out a really interesting fact :  that twelve times more people Google ‘Edinburgh’ than ‘Scotland’.

“So now with that knowledge we have to decide what to do with the Edinburgh.org domain.” (We think you should all watch this space!)

Donnelly is convinced that locals don’t want anything which is trite or concocted it appears.

“We get less than £1m a year from the council and the same again for work which we do for the public sector like universities, and also from marketing revenue from our website. In the long term it would be better that we stand on our own feet.  We can run part of the business as a marketing and advertising agency, yet to happen but we are looking into it. We are still a not for profit organisation and we employ 22 people here, reinvesting all of our profit.

“But we do want to work more with the council and in an effort to do just that we have two council employees working here in this office.  They market the council’s museums, galleries and The Usher Hall, and we want to do more of that kind of thing. We just have to be more ambitious about it.”

Tourism levy – no comment!

When asked about the need for a tourism levy in the capital, Donnelly is really careful what he says.

“As an organisation we are quite clear about the Tourist levy, but this is not a debate to be held in the media. There must be a decision on this by council and of course the government who have to take any legislative steps. We will not be making any further comment, although of course we may be involved in it, but we have been misquoted and our previous comments distorted. That said, the city does need more money to promote itself however!

“While Edinburgh is very well known there are many other cities in Europe which spend a lot more money to promote themselves. So to get more inward investment from tourism we need to make a concerted effort.”

Donnelly travels a lot with his job to promote the city: “I believe that Edinburgh can be a bit inward looking and it really needs to be represented across the world. You learn more by talking to other places than making it up yourself. It can also confirm that what you are already doing is the right thing.

Luxury hotels

Looking across the city The Edinburgh Reporter suggested to John that there is a general feeling that more high end or luxury hotels are needed here in the capital. It is something that has been said often at planning application stage of several developments. Donnelly agreed: “The city undoubtedly needs more 4 and 5 star hotels. That is what leisure visitors say to us and also business tourists. The problem is that to attract these hotels Edinburgh needs to become a year-round destination. And Edinburgh is not in that position yet.

“You need to promote the city at quiet times with events which give people reasons to come to Edinburgh so that there is less variation in visitor numbers throughout the year. I met someone from Iceland last year who had a really good story to tell.

“Following the financial collapse and the ash cloud they recognised that they had a reputation issue to fix. So they have created year round events to attract people to Reykjavik which is a comparatively small city of around 120,000. But now there are 800,000 annual visitors compared to 1.2 million here in Edinburgh which is almost five times its size.

“They now have 48 festivals throughout the year, which means that something is happening every week of the year. These may not be as big as our Edinburgh festivals, but it is a clear success story. I got the the Icelandic representative to come over and talk to the Edinburgh Tourism Action Group (ETAG) conference earlier this year.

“The point is that to make five star hotels work you have to have a year round destination. It is easier to make money with premium hotels than it is with the more expensive ones.

“If all that is built here is premium hotels then we will only get certain types of visitors.

“The Royal High School is a case in point. We confirmed to the planning committee that the city needs more luxury hotels. We are clear that we have no role in commenting on the design of any development, but we do keep saying that we need more luxury hotels here.

“So to get that we need to create the desire for people to come to the city.”

As a family man who has lived in Edinburgh for the last 20 years Donnelly has a few places to recommend.

“My favourite place in Edinburgh is Inverleith Park.  Ever since our kids were young when we would walk them there and get that fabulous view of the Castle overlooking the city. I love Stockbridge and also the Old Town in winter because of the closes and vennels there. It is magical when the lights come on.”

Career 

His most recent prior role was as Commercial Director of Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games with overall responsibility for all commercial revenue streams: sponsorship; ticketing; licensing/merchandising; international broadcast rights sales. The Games are regarded as the most commercially successful in the history of the Commonwealth, driving over £100M of commercial revenue.

Prior to this John carved out a career in marketing agencies in Edinburgh and London over a 20 year period as Managing Director at three : Euro RSCG KLP; The Marketing Store Worldwide; and bd ntwk. He was also a Board Director at the 500+ strong Iris, with billings of $100M.

“I tend to learn from people that I work with. The most inspiring person I have worked with was Robert, Lord Smith of Kelvin, who I worked with on The Commonwealth Games.

“I guess if you want my business mantra it is to be honest. In marketing there are lots of words and jargon which don’t mean anything. It is always best just to be honest and treat people as you would be treated yourself. I don’t read a lot of management books, but I do try to learn from other people.

“And on that note while this is the best job I have ever had, the job I really loved before now was when I worked with a guy called Ian Ferguson in a small office on St Colme Street. He gave me the courage and the freedom to do big things at the time!”

Main photo of John Donnelly by Jon Savage Photography 07762 580971
www.jonsavagephotography.com

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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.

1 COMMENT

  1. Mr. Donnelly is to me, a brand marketer, in a very enviable position. As someone who loves Edinburgh dearly, I, like a growing number of others, am increasingly concerned for its wellbeing and future. And because branding of the city will be a contributing factor to not only how the Edinburgh is perceived, but will likely influence future planning decisions on a number of levels, it is crucial that a balance be stuck between the ‘real’ Edinburgh (history, arts, architecture, its people…) and the ‘brand’ Edinburgh (which will use those ‘real’ elements to draw visitors and investors, though at the risk of ‘Disney-fying’ them). The danger of the ‘Athens of the North’ becoming the ‘Blackpool of the North’ will largely be determined by the branding. A feature in the Guardian this week, one on Glasgow in relation to Edinburgh, finished with the excerpt (see below) that highlights the pitfalls. (Glasgow recognised its own need for branding/rebranding about 30 years ago.) The branding of Edinburgh (and the decisions of City Council) will need to consider the reality that Mr. Donnelly will not only be dealing with attracting people and business to Edinburgh, but protecting the very assets of the ‘real’ while fulfilling the ‘brand’. As said, I love Edinburgh dearly, so wish Mr. Donnelly the very best with the critical process of establishing that balance. The Guardian comment: “Edinburgh has become a global theme park for frivolous self-gratification, a staging post in the global elite’s gap year. As its town planners continue to drive a wrecking ball through its glorious and ancient cityscape they have also permitted it to become a city of froth and artifice: a 24-hour party city.”

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