"I Amsterdam." "Be Berlin." "Keep Austin Weird." Some cities have their own identity. Most don't. What is the difference?
Seems like every major city has a branding campaign these days. A logo, a tagline, a coordinated push to tell the world what it's about. "I Amsterdam." "Be Berlin." "Keep Austin Weird." A few stuck. Most got quietly shelved after a few years and a budget nobody wants to talk about.
What actually gets me is the gap between what a city claims to be and what it actually feels like when you're standing in it.
Some cities have no slogan, no rebrand, nothing, and you still know exactly what kind of place it is within two days. The architecture, the pace, and how locals interact with strangers. It all adds up. The identity is just there. Nobody packaged it.
Others have clearly spent serious money on slick videos, international campaigns, and a new logo every few years, and when you show up, it feels like whoever made it has never spent a weekend there.
A few things worth noting: Amsterdam pulled down the famous "I Amsterdam" letters in 2018 because the sign had become a magnet for the exact kind of mass tourism the brand was never meant to celebrate. Austin's "Keep Austin Weird" started with local shops pushing back against chain stores with no agency, no city council vote, and it's probably more recognizable than most slogans that cost millions.
My take: city brands that work are the ones that named something that already existed. The ones that fail described a city someone wished existed. You can't brand your way into an identity.
Curious what others think
- Which city actually lives up to its image when you arrive?
- Which felt like the biggest gap between reputation and reality?
- Is "City Branding" even a real discipline, or does a city's identity always get decided by its people, not the agency that won the contract?