At the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce awards last Thursday night the city’s marketing organisation, Marketing Edinburgh, took home an important award.
The body won the Digital Marketing Campaign of the Year award for the citywide 2050 Edinburgh City Vision project. This was a four month campaign created by Marketing Edinburgh along with agencies Wire, Republic of Media and Because Brands Matter.
It began in September 2018 when the council asked them to lead the second phase of the campaign asking all Edinburgh residents what they would like the future of the city to look like. There were more than 35,000 visions and all key performance indicator targets were outstripped with digital assets like the Futurists who were recruited after an online campaign and Taxi to the Future where passengers booked a ride and shared their vision through social media.
Marketing Edinburgh shared a real-time wordcloud and ran Twitter polls encouraging people to think about the future before sharing their views in the consultation.
This is now the final month of consultation for the campaign although it was extended by three months due to its success so that every school and educational establishment could have their say too.
John Donnelly, chief executive of Marketing Edinburgh, said: “The Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce Business Awards’ recognition of ‘2050 Edinburgh City Vision’ is a proud achievement. I am thrilled for all of those involved, but even more so, I remain very encouraged by Edinburgh’s people who embraced the opportunity to share their meaningful visions for their city, on everything from environmental goals and inclusivity to the eradication of homelessness.
“To give some context to the success of the campaign, our 2050 City Vision outreach campaign generated 15K more than a New York City project delivered in a similar timeframe. Thanks to the hard work of our team, we’ve created a database of hopes and aspirations for Scotland’s Capital of which that every person, business and organisation in Edinburgh can take inspiration from when planning their future.”
Commenting on the next steps, Edinburgh’s Lord Provost Frank Ross, explained: “Should evidence ever be needed to prove how passionate the citizens of Edinburgh are about their city, this surely must be it.
“Thanks to the creative efforts of Marketing Edinburgh and the input of thousands of residents, business owners, charities and students, the reaction to the 2050 campaign has been incredible.
“Not only is this process Edinburgh’s most successful public consultation on record, it is fast becoming one of the most engaging city vision processes in the world, beating the targets of other – much bigger – cities like New York who have gone through a similar process.
“We are now in a final call for entries, particularly from our young people who will steward the city in 2050. Once all feedback has been received the Council will analyse the results before shaping Edinburgh’s final vision. Due to the sheer volume of responses, we expect this process to take until late summer.”
The 2050 Edinburgh City Vision consultation is open until 31 March 2019 for submissions and a Committee report is expected to be brought to a meeting of the Full Council in May 2019.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
