Manly Brand Report

Table of Contents 1. Executive Summary 2. Introduction 3. Theories a. Holt’s Theory of Cultural Branding b. Hall’s Tourism and Market System 4. Case Study Introduction 5. Brand Strategies 6. Critical Analysis of Brand Strategies 7. Recommendations 8. Conclusion

Executive Summary
This report was commissioned to examine the Manly Council case study and the strategies they use for their business and how they can relate to actual marketing theories and models.

This research draws attention to the two strategies that Manly Council uses one of which is the beach and how they utilize this in enhancing the experience of tourists. Manly Council does this by placing eateries, shopping centers, services such as bike tours and aquariums and hosting annual events such as the International Jazz Festival. The Holt’s Theory of Cultural Branding where it states that brands are and can influence the societies culture fits into this strategy as Manly Council has created the ‘Surf City’ brand to align the values of its residents to create a beach culture for them to showcase to visitors. However in the strive for personal sovereignty is almost impossible through brands because cultural branding will force too many cultural icons for one to handle and time is short for one to reach sovereignty.

Further research indicates that social media is also a tool used by Manly Council to increase brand awareness. The Hall’s Tourism and Market system, which signifies that a tourists experience is the main point of business activates, fits into this strategy as tourist can share their experiences on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter in which Manly Council has made accounts in. Although buy doing this Manly council may fall into mimicking the activities of young people as they are the main users of social media.

It is recommended for Manly Council to: * Build a train station with in the area from a more efficient medium to transport to and from Manly Council * Implement better management to maintain the cleanliness of Manly Council during the planning and development of attractions and the overall area * Create a ‘Manly Council app’ for visitors to download for easier navigation, access to events and safety warnings.

Introduction
This brand strategy report will apply brand management theories into a real life case study in which the case study will be about the Manly Council. Throughout this report I will be explaining 2 brand strategies that the Manly Council is currently using which are, the use of its beach to attract tourists and the use of social media to raise brand awareness. Two theories will also be used to relate to these strategies and how well they can apply and also their faults. The two theories will include the Holt’s Theory of Cultural Branding and Hall’s Tourism and Market System. Finally I will be giving my recommendations to Manly Council into making the destination more easier to access and more safer to stay.

Theories (Holt’s Theory of Cultural Banding/Hall’s tourism and Market System)
Holt’s Theory of Cultural Branding:
According to (Holt, 2002) the ‘Holt’s Theory of Cultural Branding’ refers to “the dominant mode of consumption that is built by the overall actions of companies in their marketing activities.’ and also mentions that for capitalism to work, it needs a interdependent relationship between market prerogatives and cultural structures that orient how people comprehend and interact with the market offerings. Basically brands have a role in defining a societies culture and companies take advantage of this by placing offerings that relate to that. As stated in (Holt, 2006) brands behave much like parasites riding the coat-tails of other more powerful cultural forms, but then use their market power to evangelize ideological revisions. Via ubiquity, and repetition brand change developing cultures into principal standards

Hall’s Tourism and Market System:
(Beeton, 2006) Claims that the Hall’s tourism market system puts the “tourism experience as central to tourism, which places the tourist or ‘market’ at the focal point of the entire system.’ Although Hall’s system didn’t cover everything. While it is obvious that placing tourism experience at the top of the list for their customers taking into consideration to tourists needs and wants and the actual service given, (Kim et al, 2013) argues that once a locale becomes a tourist destination, the lives of citizens in that society become disturbed by tourist events in the sense of material life, health and safety of community members and the overall quality of life.
Where Hall’s tourism and market system may have some holes in his theory it is nonetheless corrects as (Lima et al, 2012) stats that while creating tourist experiences is a huge obstacle for the community, local service providers and even for the tourist themselves, together they can satisfy tourists, stimulate emotions, appeal to their senses which retains in their minds which can also lead to word of mouth and will be the best opportunity for sustainable market success.

Case Study Introduction
Manly was founded by captain Arthur Phillip in January 1788. In 1855 Henry Gilbert Smith build a wharf in which is now known as the famous Manly Wharf transporting customers to and from the destination.

The Manly council was founded on January 6, 1876 and their vision is “Manly- where natural environment and heritage sustain and complement a vibrant cosmopolitan and community lifestyle. Manly offers a variety of things to do for tourists. Events such as the Sydney Food and Wine Festival or the Manly International Jazz Festival, Attractions like the Manly Art and Gallery Museum or the Manly Sea Life Sanctuary and Services which includes a wide range of restaurants and an array of family leisure activities all of which add to the customer experience when they visit Manly.
Manly has high brand awareness mainly because of its well known name and the services they offer, it is also known as they surf city and is arguably the birthplace of Australian surfing. Manly is also environmentally friendly keeping the cove as it was when it was found and it bring the feelings of excitement and thrill to tourists because of its high quality service.

Although being a famous tourist destination in Sydney it would also have many competitors, particularly the Waverly Council and the Randwick City Council. Similarly, Manly Council shares the characteristics of having an iconic beach, aquatic services, range of restaurants and a clean environment. What differentiates Manly from the other councils is that it has the iconic ferry transport, annual events, a rich history and divers interactive and innovative attractions.

Brand Strategies
Manly Councils main brand strategy in trying to increase the tourist experience and to provide with a more enjoyable stay is utilizing the natural beaches that they have. Manly positions their beaches to be the ‘perfect beach for the whole family’ (Destination NSW, 2014) The beaches are famous for their white sand, the crystal clear water of the beach, the rock pools found among the peninsula, the noticeable symbol that signifies Manly, which is the Norfolk Island Pine and the overall atmosphere of the destination (Visit Manly, 2014).

Manly Council actually has about 18 beaches to offer to its customers, in which they all can swim, sail and enjoy. These beaches include Shelly Beach, Little Manly and Fairlight. Furthermore, within the vicinity of all beaches, Manly Council provides a pedestrian plaza to cater for their customers shopping needs and they also offer a wide range of restaurants and eateries, many of them delivering a beachside view.
Manly Council also uses their beaches to host annual events such as “The Manly Food, Wine and Sustainability Festival” where Manly will showcase its many restaurants and New South Wales’s wineries to be accompanied by live entertainment and cooking demonstrations (BlueArc Group, 2014). Manly Council also holds the “Manly Jazz Festival” which is Australia’s largest community run jazz festival, which includes free performances from jazz musicians throughout the whole day. This is not only a celebration of sound but also a celebration of Australia’s beach culture. (BlueArc Group 2014).
The birthplace of surfing is arguably in Manly (Hello Manly 2014). Manly Council uses this to promote their beaches offering services to tourists to hire surfboards and have even implemented a surfing school for customers to learn (IA Connections, 2014).

The Manly Council has been successful in taking advantage of their beaches and adding value to their offering by constantly creating new reasons and exciting features to tempt tourists to return or lure visitors that normally visit other destinations stated by (Martin and Kozak, 2012). A tourist destination is commonly known as a combination of attractions, services and facilities and should work together to help shape the overall visitor experience (Antonson and Jacobsen, 2014)

Another strategy that the Manly Council uses to raise its brand awareness to using social media websites to increase their coverage of people and to create new ways to engage into future potential customers.

Social media today is now taking over the world and recent research illustrates that there is an increase of people that are using social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter for a number of reasons such as making new friends, keeping in touch with old friends, receiving information and for entertainment and according to (He et al, 2013) “companies are now implementing social media to facilitate this growing tendency in order to advantage of business values such as driving customer traffic, expand customer loyalty and retention, raise sales profit, cultivating customer satisfaction and also forming brand awareness”

Manly Council has successfully taken advantage of this creating its own pages on social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

By doing this Manly council can effectively communicate to its customers, promoting their upcoming events, special deals and even gain feedback from customers. Not only that social media is a good way to create hype throughout the market via word of mouth. As (Wang and Zhou, 2014) claimed Word-of Mouth marketing via social media can considerably impact consumer behavior as it had played a part providing awareness, information acquisition, opinions, attitudes, purchase behavior, post purchase behavior and evaluation.

Critical Analysis of the Brand Strategies
As stated before, Manly has branded itself as the ‘Surf city’ because it was the birthplace of Australian surfing. With this Manly has created a beach/surfing culture where most of its attractions and events are based on its beaches for all tourists to see and experience. With this strategy, I will be relating it to the Holt’s theory of Cultural Branding. Cultural branding is basically when the brands have a role in defining the values of the society and Manly’s use of the beach and surrounding their offerings based on the “Surf City” brand is a great strategy of showcasing their values to incoming tourist and visitors. It is shown in (Brown et al, 2014) that if destinations are able to cater for a more in depth engagement amongst their sightseers with their literary interest, they can in turn improve their sense of identity with the destination with symbolic meanings and images and also that it can be used for prospective, and more sustainable destination branding strategies. Manly has implemented many restaurants and eateries, put into place services such as surfing schools and aquariums and even hosted sporting events such as the ‘Ironman’ competition to furthermore push for the ‘Surf City’ brand that they have. To further relate this strategy with the theory of Cultural Branding (Holt, 2006) explains that brands work to shape combined characteristics, as expressions of the main social constructs such as class, gender and race within a specific national discourse. Individuals utilize iconic brand symbolism to strengthen their sense of identities and to ratify the essential status and connection process that are the bread and butter purpose of all symbols.

However Holt’s theory of Cultural Branding has some faults mainly stated in (Holt, 2002) as branding can overflow social life with calls to chase personal sovereignty via brands. Furthermore to experience a sense of sovereignty through brands, one must take in huge amounts of fashions, tourist experiences, local cuisines, tourist experiences and cultural icons. The main problem with this is that there isn’t enough time to reach to goal of personal sovereignty in the way that market competition describes as successful.

Next will be relating the Hall’s Tourist and Market system, which states that the tourism experience is to focal point of all business activities and Manly Councils strategy of using social media as a way to increase brand awareness. Manly Council has made accounts on many social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to create a platform for tourists to show their experiences that the had in Manly. (Gerritsen and Zeng, 2014) posits that social media plays a crucial part in many factors of tourism, more particularly in information search and in tourism promotion. Visitors of many can post pictures of the food they have eaten, or record videos of the many events that Manly hosts on to social media websites to share and put emphasis on their experiences they had at Manly and as affirmed by (Munar and Jacobsen, 2014) tourists can now build and share their experiences online due to the advancements in technology such as mobile phones and tables, moreover visitors can gain a sense of real time integration by sending messages about their experiences though text messages, sending photos or videos to friends, emailing and even posting on internet sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Although using social media can create change in ones main value proposition in a business or tourist destination as mentioned by (Bizirgianni and Dionyspoulou, 2013) since young people are the main users of social media, the tourism industry makes actions to slowly become part of their activities which can bring about changes to the traditional style of the tourism sector. Changing the ‘Surf City’ brand that Manly Council has created and what it represents can be dangerous to their business because what they are offering to the tourists becomes unclear and can make their experiences less enjoyable.

Recommendations
Manly Council has taken advantage of its many resources to gain tourists and make the experience more entertaining for them. But they can still further add more features to their offerings to make staying at Manly even more memorable.

One of the recommendations for Manly Council is to put into place a train station within the area. While there is ample transport such as buses and ferry, one of the most convenient ways to travel in Sydney is absent. Building a railway in Manly would entice more tourists and visitors to go to Manly because of the ease of transportation, as some people may have to take multiple services only to reach the destination.

Another recommendation that Manly could do is to act on maintaining the environment as they continue to plan and develop their tourist attractions. And as specified in (Li et al, 2014) tourist development is a good thing although it can also impact the environment such as soil and water pollution if it is not handled properly. Therefore Manly should put into place more bins to handle pollution, using clean neutral fuel to reduce air pollution or even plant more trees to become more environmentally friendly.

The final recommendation for the Manly Council is to create an app specially made just for the Manly Council. An app that would include, special events happening around the area, a map, travel options and times, things to do, bargains and even warnings for safety such as high tides on the beach or high temperatures would certainly help tourists get to know the area. Especially the safety aspect as (Gerritsen and Zeng, 2014) explains that there is inadequate research but it is an emerging feature for using social media for crisis management.

Conclusion
Manly is a bustling tourist destination with manly attractions for tourists to do and experience. With using the beach as a central point in their offerings, placing restaurants, various services, shopping centers and even hosting annual events. Manly Council has must to offer to its visitors. Manly also takes advantage of using social media to create brand awareness. Keeping up with technology, Manly Council has set up accounts on sites such as Facebook and Twitter for tourists to showcase their experiences at Manly. From a marketing perspective these strategies fit will into theories such as the Holt’s Theory of Cultural Branding and Hall’s Tourism and Market System. Finally it is recommended that Manly Council to build a railway station to make transport to the destination more convenient, to manage the cleanliness of the area in the process of developing to Manly Council destination and to implement a Manly Council ‘app’ to make navigation around the area easier as well as warnings for safety issues.

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