City Branding for İZMİR City

We discovered İzmir's spirit, and leveraged it as its differentiator.

PLACE BRANDING: A FOOL’S GOLD?

Did you know that the success rate of a place-branding project is less than 15%? Turns out that most of the place-branding initiatives are prematurely ended within a year of introduction. Yikes!

A UNIQUE APPROACH

How do you brand a place? Exactly what should be branded? Snow-capped mountains? Stunning valleys? Exotic beaches? But, then how do you really differentiate yourself?

I Mean It Creative was challenged to brand İzmir, the third largest city of Turkey. Instead of focusing on its natural wonders, we decided to uncover the unique story of İzmir.

BRANDING

CASE STUDY

İZMİR'S GENIUS LOCI

Romans used believe that every place had a spirit. They called it “Genius Loci: the spirit of the place.” We had to discover İzmir’s genius loci, and figure out “how” it could be relevant to its target audiences.

We asked “why” its culture was distinct. All answers let to the same answer: İzmir was the city of frontiers. And all we had to do was to bring its story to life…

TV COMMERCIAL

DIGITAL CONTENT

True to form, İzmir became the first Turkish city ever to place a bid for the World EXPO. That’s when the City of İzmir asked for I Mean It’s assistance.

Our task was to shoot a promo video for EXPO 2015, to tell the beautiful story of the city, and its people. And by capturing the youthful, jovial, and harmonious spirit of the place, we did exactly that.