Boom Town time for Eastern Cape

Boom Town MD Neil Hart says: "It's giving these organisations direction and they are aligning everything from organisational development to finance around the brand. It's a powerful process for organisations as well as for those looking in from the outside.

"The process is also helping create a huge amount of excitement and expectation around the brand, the organisation and of course, delivery. The process of brand strategy - of cooperation and collaboration, being sensitive to a range of stakeholder views - is very much a part of the public sector mindset and the reason behind the positive uptake of the process."

In each of these organisations, the circumstances have been different and posed different challenges and Boom Town has tried to ensure to that its scientific-based methodology can address various scenarios as well as being easy-to-understand by clients.

The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, formerly the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality which manages the Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage and Despatch area, announced its new branding strategy about three weeks ago: "People had a strong affinity to the metropolitan name so the municipality was particularly sensitive to getting everybody on board and creating buy in. It's an imperative for the whole sector.

"And yes, it is more time-consuming but without it, organisations run too high a risk. Without buy-in, there is no mandate, no internal brand and in the long-term, a weak organization."

Hart says the uptake of brand strategy in the public sector is the reason behind Boom Town strategy division's growth: "Brand strategy can be complex but we have tried to ensure that the process is a kept simple. For us, the brand strategy is about getting to that single, most powerful idea around which the organisation can reengineer itself - on which it can focus, by which it will be driven and managed. The challenge is to create brand-centric thinking inside an organisation's walls."