Opportunities

In the past, local governments played a dominant role in the whole process of city advertising. But with the fierce competition in the market, governments also began to work with professional public relations agencies.

In the aftermath of the May 12 earthquake in 2008, Chengdu, one of the cities hit by the disaster, established a partnership with Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, a subsidiary to Ogilvy & Mather Group, one of the largest marketing communications companies in the world, to start its city marketing campaign.

"Some city government leaders really took to heart the values of media planning from the cooperation," said Zhou Xiaojun, vice-president of public affairs at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide.

Miles Young, chief executive officer of Ogilvy & Mather Group, said that the spending of Chinese governments of different levels on marketing campaigns is "quite small at the moment", but "government is only just starting to experiment in this area". He emphasized that he was referring to a complete strategic marketing and branding campaign rather than just an advertisement.

He added that communications agencies such as Ogilvy were benefiting substantially from governments embarking on marketing campaigns and believes the market holds great promise in the future.

Other voices

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When cities are in a rush to shoot advertising videos in order to invite investors and boost tourism, they should also keep an eye on their backyard.

"These advertisements could stimulate the flow of visitors to cities, but whether there will be a good result is determined by the impressions the visitors garner, which largely depends on the city's economic growth and social public service system," said associate professor Yang Hongshan from Renmin University of China.

"There aren't funds specially earmarked for our province's advertising campaign right now. I think we should focus on economic development at the moment," said Hao Yuan, vice-governor of Gansu province.

In his opinion, if they really intend to launch a publicity campaign, the key point is to showcase the characteristics of a province. For Gansu, it lies in its unique silk culture, which developed centuries ago from its connections with the Silk Road, Hao said.