BRAND NEWCASTLE: Positioning for the Future

Obelisk @ Night 1
Originally uploaded by Snelvis

According to Tourism New South Wales about 95 per cent of the state’s business visitors spend most or all of their time in Sydney. This fact is not easy to forget, when you consider Newcastle is New South Wales (NSW) second city and the sixth largest in Australia.

Internationally, NSW has been successful in attracting over 65 per cent of all Australian-based Asia Pacific regional headquarters or operations – that’s well over 600 companies. Unfortunately, very few have located their headquarters in Newcastle.

Courtesy of the Australia Bureau of Statistics, over half of Australia’s 500 leading companies have called NSW home including companies like WestPac, Commonwealth Bank, St George Bank, Macquarie Bank, AMP, Woolworths, Seven Network, Boral, CSR, Harvey Norman, PBL, Leighton, Qantas, Lend Lease, Fairfax, and Westfield. Again, very few have seen the benefits of locating their major operations or headquarters to Newcastle.

Whilst Newcastle is struggling to project an attractive new image, Sydney our nearest and biggest competitor has been named the world’s best city by the Anholt City Brands Index, followed by London, Paris, Rome and New York. Paul Keating even said, “If you are not living in Sydney you are simply camping out"

It is no exaggeration to say that Sydney is as close to having a ‘perfect city brand’ as any city can have.

Like Sydney, increasingly more and more cities around the world are using branding, positioning themselves more effectively to compete globally for their fair share of the world’s consumers, tourists, businesses, investment, capital, respect and attention.

Rather than being classed as a campsite, Newcastle’s future success relies on it becoming a strong compelling brand. I can only hope our political masters see the potential of branding my adopted city.

Give me the job…I’ll do it.