Sicco van Gelder

Placebrands / Amsterdam / Netherlands
sicco@placebrands.net

Sicco van Gelder is an Amsterdam-based international brand consultant. His career has focused broadly-based brand strategy solutions for B2B, B2C and NGOs. In early 2003 he co-founded PlaceBrands, an innovate consultancy devoted to unlocking the potential of geographic brands.

Speaking

Global Brand Strategy
When a brand stretches across countries, it is imperative to understand the forces that affect it in various markets. These forces are both internal and external to the brand’s organization and determine whether and to what extent a brand can be standardized across markets or adapted to suit local circumstances. Using the Global Brand Proposition Model as a framework, Sicco takes the audience into a fascinating discussion on how to strategize for and effectively manage a global brand to create value for its various stakeholders.

Place Branding: Cities, Regions and Nations
As globalization intensifies, cities, regions and nations find themselves competing with other places for attention, talent, investment, visitors, events and influence. A powerful brand provides places with a necessary sustainable competitive advantage. Sicco discusses the main issues of branding for places, such as putting together brand partnerships of stakeholders, developing a shared vision and a common purpose for your place, public consultation, strategising for a place brand, developing activities that demonstrate the place brand, and embedding the brand of the place.

The New Branding Imperatives of Strategy, Creativity and Leadership
The combination of strategy, creativity and leadership will determine the competitive strength of brands, whether they are product, service, corporate or place brands. Strategy (business, brand and marketing) determine the direction of a brand. However, strategy is nothing without creativity in its formulation, implementation and execution. Strategy and creativity are worthless without the leadership that ensures that things get done and that the brand creates value for its various stakeholders. Sicco discusses these three imperatives and the power of the interaction between them.

Branding for Development
What has been learned in advanced societies about creating value through branding can and should be transferred to less developed nations in order to improve the lives of their populations. There is absolutely no reason why the beneficial effects of branding should be restricted to the developed world, or why the role of less developed nations should be mere suppliers of commodity goods and labour to rich companies from rich countries. As the glossy image of multinational and especially Western-owned brands begins to wear a little thin, local brands may well find that they have an unprecedented window of opportunity to state their different and attractive credentials.

Writing

Global Brand Strategy
Unlocking brand potential across countries, cultures and markets (Kogan Page 2003).

Placebranding 2.0
The Journal of the Medinge Group, vol. 3, no. 1, 2009

How to Improve the Chances of Successfully Developing and Implementing a Place Brand Strategy
This paper tries to answer critical questions by describing the criteria and factors that contribute to successful place branding. By assessing the place, the players and the plans they make, it is possible to predict the likely success of a place branding initiative.
The Journal of the Medinge Group, vol. 2, no. 1, 2008