Bratislava will host the first edition of Simon Anholt & Robert Govers’s Nation and City Branding Masterclass. The event will take place for the first time in Central and Eastern Europe in 2024. Its aim is to bring state-of-the-art knowledge and experience on the topic of reputation management to cities, regions, and countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. The long-term ambition is to assist in building nation and city brand strategies across the region.
Scheduled for 14 February 2024, the event promises to shine a light on image-building for trade, tourism, talent and investment. The event will take place in Grand Hotel River Park, a Luxury Collection Hotel in the heart of Bratislava. The event will feature keynote speeches on competitive identity, brand management and marketing in addition to a panel discussion and the presentation of case studies.
Both keynote speakers of the conference are world-renowned experts in their respective fields. Simon Anholt is acknowledged as the leading international authority on the images of countries, cities and regions. He has pioneered a wide range of evidence-based techniques for the measurement and management of these critical soft power assets. He first coined the term “nation brand” in the 1990s, even though his approach to curating and enhancing place image is primarily based on policy and strategy rather than on communications – on deeds rather than messages.
Robert Govers is a Senior Partner at Anholt & Co., where he has worked on numerous assignments with the Governments of the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan and Qatar. He has also advised many other administrations worldwide, including the national and regional governments of Luxembourg, three provinces in the Netherlands, and the City of Ghent.
The team organising the events is a Slovakian civic association named Brand Slovensko 30, which operates in Slovakia as well as in the CEE area. The civic association is an apolitical, independent entity focused on disseminating knowledge about this discipline to positively influence the image of Slovakia abroad by connecting sectors, education and publishing activities. The event will be supported by the Bratislava Tourist Board.
Learn more about the conference at https://ci-masterclass.com/.
