How should we sell Cluj?

‘One city or country can be assimilated to a large corporation that at the end of the financial year is supposed to draw the line and register the profit’, states Bogdan Branzas, a designer and branding specialist. Is this standing for Cluj also?

‘We are not selling our country’… but here we are, in the position of having to sell our city… and for serious cash too. Just imagine one city as the perfect commercial product ready to be launched on the market. Moreover, it’s a product that has involved each and every one of its citizens, who can also benefit from one share of the business profit. This is the definition of one city’s ‘brand’ in the simplest terms possible. For several years now, or, better said, since the local administration has passed from Gheorghe Funar to Emil Boc, the topic regarding ‘the Cluj brand’ has several times been brought up without being put into practice. MetroMedia Transilvania published last week a survey revealing the first names that the citizens of Cluj think of when it comes to their city. But what is the real significance of a city brand, what is its relevance to each of us and what can we gain from the town we are living in?

Civilization, a minimum condition

‘Pavements, sidewalks, renovated façades, public toilets. All this has been happening in Cluj and it is a very positive aspect, of course. But against all opinions these are only civilization attributes and not at all brand attributes. They are part of the absolutely necessary civilization of Europe and the XXIth century’, points out Bogdan Branzas, a branding specialist and the author of the ‘Ursus, king of the bear’ brand. The idea he points out is a simple one: in order to become a European city Cluj must not only reach the required civilization standards but also stay at that level. In a consumption society such as the European Union the idea of having a ‘city brand’ is one of the most financially advantageous ones. According to Branzas, the brand reunites all the qualities and the potential that Cluj may ‘sell’ outside.

What does Cluj have to show?

Boc, The Bear Festival, Funar, Florin Piersic and the Central Park, these are the very first personalities, locations and events that the citizens of Cluj first think of when it comes to their town. The results provided by the MetroMedia poll reveal a situation far from positive as well as a certain general attitude. This could be the basis for common beliefs and the feeling of a compact community. When making public the results of the poll MetroMedia also launched the idea of creating a city brand.

Contradictorily, the sociologist Vasile Dancu explained that the idea of creating brands relies too less on ‘what the people think’. On his opinion Cluj must meet three conditions in order to become a product to be successfully sold: to explore a reality, the public acknowledgement of this reality and the existence of enough place on the market to meet exactly what the city has to bring extra. In other words to create a new identity…

‘Stubborn Ardeal people, red and yellow banches, maybe the universities also’, are the elements that Branzas considers to be currently attributed by people and on the Romanian mentality level. And these are attributes that can hardly be put out on sale.

‘Let’s think of Sic for example. The people living there are meticulous and hard working and they are very well known for that. So they people of Sic have their own brand and I’m afraid I must admit that it is even stronger that the one that the people of Cluj have, though the people of Cluj are far more numerous’, states Branzas.

In order to have a brand it take a deep analysis of the local society. One step forward is the MetroMedia poll, other steps should be made by the local administration. There is interest for development’, conclude Branzas, but we are not making efforts enough for to make it happen.

The strategy is rather weak

The idea of a brand has been existing from the moment when the Local Council led by Emil Boc started to work on a development strategy more than one year ago, a strategy long time referred to but now standing on a rather unstable position. On one hand, the Dean of the University of Political and Administrative Sciences Catalin Baba stated that this strategy was going to be finalized within about one month. On the same day the spokesman of the Local Council, Raimonda Boian, was stating that ‘the strategy is still on an incipient level’. Beyond the rather weak synchronization between the local administration and the University involved in a local project, the strategy of Cluj has reach a pretty strong departing point in creating a ‘brand’ of the city.

The ‘brand’s’ importance

‘A brand may turn at any time into an advantage. It also used to be an advantage in the socialist economy, on another level of course, but still an advantage. January 2007 is a decisive moment that shall focus on the need for investments in coherent trade and brand strategies’, explains Bogdan Branzas. He has developed the ‘branding’ idea including Cluj also on his blog, that can be accessed on branzas.blogspot.com. On the other hand, the idea of a brand for Cluj was launched also by business people of Cluj. For example Iosif Pop, ImmoFinance president, recently came up with the idea of setting up a business center to become the future core of the city’s development.

Bogdan Branzas is known as one of the most vehement fighters for creating a country brand. He started his career in 1990, by drawing traffic signs for a driving school and became the ‘Brand man’ as the ‘Capital’ magazine described him in 1997, after the success he made with the ‘Ursus, king of the bear’ brand. Between 1991-1994 he worked for Vitrina Advertising as the company’s first designer. He remembers working there 8 hours a day, trying at the same time not to leave apart the classes he used to attend by the University of Design. The opportunity occurs to take part in a perfume packaging training course in France; after that his perspectives changed completely. ‘It was at that time that I found out advertising was not for me and that I felt much more comfortable with branding. The quantity of information one gets to work with when creating a brand is much more complex, one must make sure that the product’s life is going to be on long term, while in advertising one campaign usually lasts no more than one year’, explains Bogdan Branzas. Back in the country, he chose his own way in business. In 1994 together with one of his friends he founded the first branding company in Romania, Branzas. Shortly after, his partner withdrew from the business turning to a university career. Then came the company’s first major client and hence the opportunity to create a Romanian brand: Ursus. Until 2001 Branzas had no real competition in Romania. Now there are two more independent branding companies, one company working by an agency, several branding departments working by advertising agencies as well as persons or small companies working on projects. Last week Branzas company celebrated 12 years of activity; its client portfolio includes major names and old business relationships: ARDOR, Autonet, Brinel, The Bear Company of Romania, Connex, Danis Consulting, Elis, Eximtur, IBM, Impress, Lafarge, Microsoft, MOL, Napoca Constructii, Procter&Gamble, Ringier, Sanex, Siemens, Standard&Snacks, Standard Cargo, Tiriac Holdings, Tiriac Auto. Branzas is currently providing analysis services, consulting services, implementing, design and naming services, enjoying a vast experience that starts from the vehicle field and goes to hygiene, energy and telecommunications. Reporter: What did the Ursus opportunity mean for your company? Bogdan Branzas: Ursus had one month before hired a German company for the purpose of creating one brand. At that time the main shareholder of Ursus was a German company but the management was local. Mr. Buzoianu also wanted a Romanian version because the brand was in fact intended to be genuine Romanian. This collaboration resulted in consolidating our name on the market, launching us right into the public space and gaining a strong financial position. The second major client came in 1998– Tiriac Holdings, offering us the possibility to extend on national level. Now we have clients all over the country. We intended this business to become a service supplier for 23 million people.

Romanian brands

Reporter: How do you characterize the Romanian branding? B.B.: It is a developing one. Reporter: During the 90s companies knew little about brands. How does the situation stand now? B.B.: Along the past two years we have been weekly receiving one offer demand from companies all over the country. We work very hard to meet all the demands. We practically involve time and human resources so that every request originating from potential clients should receive the most detailed answer possible. It is a long term strategy and investment. Unfortunately, many companies in our country don’t afford to start off this process because of their development stage. Many of them just give up when finding out which are the steps and the activities that must be made, because of the time and the budget involved in creating a brand. Practically 95% of the demands don’t take shape, but some of the companies still become our clients later on. So far most of the companies have invested money in productions means, they have manufactured products, some of them even stood out as brands by a series of happy occurrences: the owners solved out the ownership problem, they purchased office buildings; or they solved their personal problems – they now own a house, a car, their business is now going well. The only thing they could now is to create a brand or to opt for a rebranding process. Here also comes the fear of 2007, when theoretically any one is allowed to travel from Romania to the EU and the other way round, and then comes the need for consolidation.

Reporter: Do we have brands ready for the major names that are going to penetrate from outside? B.B.: That is hard to say. We do, but not in all the fields. On January 1, 2007, we are not going to face a huge wave of investors coming all over us. Two or three years are going to pass by the moment when the Romanian companies shall face a serious competition, and this means time enough to create new brands or to consolidate old ones. Along the last two years the companies have been starting to acknowledge the fact that the brand is also going to make a difference, not only the quality of the products.

A Brand for Romania

Reporter: Why hasn’t anything concrete been done yet for the creation of a Romania brand? B.B.: This is probably the same situation as in the case of the companies. The authorities do not acknowledge the importance of this process. It is easier, for example, to make a CD with all the IT companies in the country. A Romania branding shall be next, otherwise it’s going to be tragic. One must say that some countries choose to do it in a visible way, while others don’t. Reporter: What would be exactly the thing that could make Romania stand out? B.B.: This is hard to say. Reporter: Do we have many options? B.B.: Yes and no. Let’s find out first who we are and what we want. We don’t know ourselves well enough, we can’t possibly imagine what would be the thing that could help us stand out, how we would like to be seen as. The brand starts from the inside, from one’s own perceptions, from features. About Croatia we know that it is a good tourist destination, where the mountains go down into the sea, it has excellent roads and good prices and the waiters are welcoming. This is largely the answer to the question ‘What do you know about Croatia?’ This means that something occurred inside too that eventually led to the occurrence of this perception. On asking ‘What do you know about Romania’ we find out about gypsies, stolen swans, etc. Reporter: Does Romania have to change first its outside image or is this brand intended to change the perception? B.B.: We can approach this issue in several ways. One may promote Romania as new on the global market and especially on the European one. Further on, we may also promote it in the honest way; that means finding one way to express the fact that we are a 23 million people country, a economically growing and multicultural country, having various forms of landscape and willingness to work but also a lot of laziness; that we are a country with both the Balkans and the Western spirit inside and that we are going to do what it takes in order to get somewhere. By honesty one gets willingness: ‘look at these people, they admit the truth, they work, they go on …’ For the first stage an honest attitude is enough. Then one must settle what kind of paradise one intends to promote: a financial one, a tourist one, etc. Reporter: While the companies need two or three years in order to consolidate their brands, how long do you estimate this is going to last for Romania? B.B.: It takes a lot of time for analysis, investigation; only after comes the communication to the outside. I estimate between two and five years, though I think two years is not enough. For 50 years Romania was rigid; no contact with the outside world, censorship over human communication. Now, after 15 years, we cannot expect to reach the level of France. We must support people in their evolution by means of social and government measures meant to make them believe in something. The way we act on the street is exactly the way our social and economic relationships are; each of us thinks and acts only for oneself. There is no common target. The Romanians went through many changes, that is why when the Romanian wants something it must be now or no later than tomorrow. We don’t have that calm that leads to wellbeing. Reporter: Do you think more of yourself as a manager or as a creation man? B.B.: Management came naturally. When one has ten colleagues that one must pay and also ensure good laboring conditions one will surely learn how to be a manager. Reporter: Where exactly do you want to get with your company? B.B.: For the moment we are still in a developing stage, like everything around us on the other hand. For me it is very important that this company also exists within 20 years. If you do a great job and have happy clients it is easy to make and keep a name.

Interbrand partnership

This year Branzas company signed an exclusive partnership with Interbrand, a company having 34 offices in 30 countries. ‘Last year they penetrated the Moscow market and this year they approached us. This is an advantageous partnership for both parties. They wanted to extend, to have money coming also from other geographical areas, whereas we wanted to have access to an unbelievable know-how, considering that it was Interbrand that first came up with the financial evaluation of brands, yearly making global brand top and other tops for the brands of certain interest areas. Their evaluations are acknowledged by any company or authority’, says Bogdan Branzas.

Free time

Bogdan Branzas says that he is making up now for what he did not manage to do 10-15 years ago. ‘I’m going to concerts: I was in Greece to Roger Waters, together with Catalin Stefanescu and Radu Naum; some time ago I was to the concerts of Peter Gabriel and U2. When I want to take some time off I go with my wife to Wiena. I try to spend some time with my kinds too or read a book, at least in the weekends, so I choose to delegate some of the tasks. I read the press every day not so much to find out the information itself, but to be all the time in touch with the economic life. I’m interested in the foreign investors coming to Romania or in the Romanian companies having been purchased. This is how I can figure out which may be the future successful brands.

An article by Camelia Prisacar

‘The comparison between branding and advertising is just like the one between the potter and the market where the pots are sold. The potter thinks what shape to assign to one particular pot, he thinks of what this is going to serve for; he wonders who’s going to buy it and then he creates the corresponding form. The advertising agency is like a shop which must sell that pot.’

Bogdan Branzas, Branzas manager

‘I have never looked for clients to sell my services. I never took part in social events just to make myself known. The companies that chose me came to me by the recommendations of my clients.’