UK 'Style Set' Favours Glasgow As Never Before

New research undertaken by TNS Travel & Tourism for Glasgow City Marketing Bureau (GCMB) has revealed that perceptions of Glasgow among the UK ‘style set’ have significantly improved over the last two years.        

 

The research, devised to track the effectiveness of the Glasgow: Scotland with style brand, shows that there has been a 13% swing in Glasgow’s favour among what the marketing industry terms ‘UK early style adopters’ in response to the question “What UK and European cities would you consider visiting?” compared to when the same question was put two years ago. 

 

The research also indicates a swing away from Barcelona (by 13%) and Prague (by 22%) among these same key influencers, suggesting that they have “been there and done that” and are now looking for fresh inspiration for their short breaks.

 

Scott Taylor, Chief Executive of Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, commented, “This hasn’t happened by accident.  This is exactly the result we were aiming for, having spent then last two years specifically targeting ‘early style adopters’ with messages about aspirational Glasgow.

 

“This third wave of research was undertaken just after our Design Collective’s third outing at London Fashion Week and the publication of a Glasgow dedicated issue of Next Level magazine, not to mention Glasgow’s win in its bid to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games.  And it shows that Glasgow is riding high on a wave of positive publicity.”                       

 

The third and most recent wave of brand benchmarking research by TNS for GCMB took place in November 2007, following the first two waves in March 2006 and September 2006, respectively. 

 

A total of 601 respondents were questioned in the third wave, with 12% coming from the segment known as ‘early style adopters’.  

 

Scott Taylor continued, “Our strategy for the Glasgow: Scotland with style campaign has been to target early style adopters first in the belief that their opinion of the city would percolate down to ‘style followers’ below.  They are not an easy nut to crack, however, and it is testament to the integrity of the brand that this strategy has worked.”

 

There are also signs that these early style adopters are visiting Glasgow as never before.  In Wave 1 of the TNS research only 11% said they had visited the city in the past 12 months, but by November last year this had risen to 20% - equating to approximately 150,000 visitors.

 

Since the launch of the Glasgow: Scotland with style brand in March 2004, occupancy of Glasgow hotels has been climbing steadily from 70.8% in 2004 to 71.5% in 2005, 74.3% in 2006 and 77.4% in 2007.

 

Councillor Steven Purcell, Leader of Glasgow City Council and Chair of Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, added, “The Glasgow brand captures beautifully all the very stylish things happening in the city that would appeal to trend setters.  The trick is to continue to deliver on the marketing promise, and I have great confidence that Glasgow and the exciting times ahead can do that.” 

 

Graham Hankinson PhD at the International Institute for Culture, Tourism and Development at London Metropolitan University commented, “Glasgow can be proud of these results; building a destination brand is a long term business requiring focused communication and an exciting experience, but most importantly persistency of effort.”

 

 

Further information from:

Nancy McLardie, Head of PR, Glasgow City Marketing Bureau

Tel: 0141 566 0830 or mobile 07710 349394

  

 

 

1.     According to market segmentation experts, there are 750,000 ‘early style adopters’ in the UK. They are in the AB socio-economic group, aged 25 – 45 and agree with 90% of 10 statements including “I like to try out new or different things” and “People that I know often buy products based on what I have told them”.

 

2.     In the Wave 1 research, Glasgow came 15^th in a list of UK and European cities spontaneously mentioned as a place ‘early style adopters’ would consider visiting after Paris (1), Rome (2) and Barcelona (3) and above Florence (16) and Manchester (17).  In the Wave 3 research, Glasgow had moved up two points – overtaking Milan and Vienna.

 

3.     In the Wave 1 research, only 54% of ‘early style adopters’ said they would discuss Glasgow positively, while this had grown to 61% by Wave 3.

 

4.     In the Wave 1 research, the top three associations with Glasgow were overwhelmingly cultural (39%), historical (33%) and traditional (26%).  By Wave 3, stylish, exciting, creative and contemporary had begun to register.  Indeed, Glasgow’s strength is it is both these things.  Where some cities are overwhelmingly historical and others markedly contemporary, Glasgow boasts increasingly diverse associations.   

 

5.     Funded by Glasgow City Council with contributions from the private sector, Glasgow City Marketing Bureau is engaged in national and international activity comprising: development and implementation of the city branding campaign: Glasgow: Scotland with style; event creation, attraction, management and marketing; conventions, incentives, meetings and exhibition sales; conference and event accommodation bookings and public relations. www.seeglasgow.com