Building brand Kent

How Kent is perceived to the outside world can have huge implications on how successful we are at attracting visitors, skilled workers, students, industries and companies to the county. The quality of life that a place offers is an increasingly important factor in choosing a location, whatever the objective may be. This is why a cohesive effort to project a positive image to all audiences is an approach that many places around the world are successfully adopting.

Visitor perceptions of Kent tend to be positive, invoking strong associations with the natural environment and heritage assets. Visit Kent’s recent perception study found that the natural beauty and the variety of places to visit are key drivers across all ages and yet Kent’s history and heritage is the highest rated attribute, particularly among the over 35’s. The county’s good transport connections, creative hubs and high-quality local produce were also highlighted as key strengths for the destination. However, a report which draws on workshops with Kent stakeholders representing a range of sectors, delivered by Visit Kent as part of the South East Local Enterprise Partnership funded Revi-VE South East Place Recovery programme, highlighted several underappreciated attributes and challenges which were negatively impacting Kent’s brand. The workshop report found that negative press coverage around congestion at the border was having a longer-term impact on the appeal of the destination and that some key sectors were struggling to attract workers to live and work in the area.

A recent survey of Kent resident’s, conducted by Visit Kent, showed that 50% of respondents now work from home to some extent, with 30% making the permanent shift to hybrid working following changes made during the pandemic. The workshops, facilitated by Place Marketing experts Toposophy, identified that this change in behaviour, along with an increased focus on quality of life, presents a timely opportunity for a collaborative approach to showcasing how Kent’s lifestyle can offer the best of both worlds, helping to inform decisions of businesses, key workers, students and visitors alike. Specific opportunities were also highlighted around supporting employers to attract skilled staff and mapping Kent’s strengths in emerging areas such as sustainability and flexible working spaces.

Building upon the existing placemaking work that has been successfully delivered across the county and drawing on the findings from the workshops, Visit Kent launched a new place marketing campaign entitled the Rhythm of Kent, which highlights the county’s desirable lifestyle merits and positions Kent as a place not just to visit, but work, invest, study and live in. The campaign in turn uses inspirational local ambassadors to highlight the overall area’s desirable attributes, including but not limited to Kent’s outstanding coast and countryside, vibrant communities, and connectivity to London and Europe. The project also created a new Kent Place Marketing Hub where businesses and organisations around the county can find free to use assets and resources to help them promote the county more effectively.

This is the first step in a new cross-sector approach to marketing Kent as a destination, reaching outside of the visitor economy and engaging with a wider range of stakeholders to develop key messaging and audiences for brand ‘Kent’. This supports the ambition set out by Kent County Council in the Framing Kent’s Future strategy.

Article provided by Visit Kent. Visit Kent is a public/private partnership with an industry-led board. It is recognised by the two upper-tier local authorities Kent County Council and Medway Council, the 12 district councils and the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) as the official Destination Management Organisation for Kent and Medway.