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Carly Stiana Scheffer-Sumampouw et al. Smart City Branding

Surabaya is the result of branding made by the Sura- 5. As part of the recommendations, this study aims
baya Tourism Promotion Brand as a city representa- to provide strategies, especially digital campaigns,
tive. Second, Sparkling Surabaya has a global, modern, to implement the city branding concept consist-
and brilliant meaning in every area throughout the ently and sustainably. This campaign strategy can
day, representing the modern Surabaya community in later become a tool for evaluating the success of
a big city. Third, Sparkling Surabaya is a power rela- city branding and can be duplicated in other cities
tionship between the city government businesspeople in Indonesia.
and tourism task force officials in Surabaya to form a
social image of Surabaya destinations (Burhan, 2017). Research Methods
Units of analysis can be individuals, groups, or organ-
Digital Branding isations (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016). This research’s unit
Digital branding is a marketing communication activ- of analysis is a city (organisation): Manado, the capital
ity that aims to share information about a brand with of North Sulawesi, which has been declared a smart
the public through digital media, such as the compa- city since 2018. In this case, the Manado city govern-
ny’s website and social media. ment is a source of information because the initiative
Yunus (2019) mentioned ten guidelines for improv- to campaign for the first 100 cities to become smart
ing brand image through digital branding: (i) Providing cities in Indonesia is an initiative of the government
a road map for long-term planning, (ii) understanding as the policyholder.
the digital branding hierarchy and managing it appro- The research is exploratory by nature, which is es-
priately over time, ( iii) Identify well the identity of the sential, and it aims to obtain information regarding
customer and create a brand strategy, (iv) Realise brand matters related to the progress of the smart city of
equity and sales are two different things, (v) Brand be- Manado after three years of being a smart city.
longs to the customer, not the creator of the brand, (vi) Data collection is carried out in 3 ways: interviews
Brand strategy needs to consider the attributes of its with three key informants. The criteria for key inform-
CEO, ( vii) Building an efficient brand can be realised ants are individuals who hold positions in local govern-
through brand association, (viii) The categories of tech- ments, understand the concept, and are responsible for
nology used in digital branding are created by custom- implementing smart cities and city branding. The sec-
ers and external parties, not by the company, (ix) The ond way is through a literature study on Manado city
rapidly changing environment demands that marketers data obtained from various sources and case study lit-
can quickly adapt to internal and external, (x) invest erature on areas successfully implementing city brand-
time to understand the technology. (Yunus, 2019) ing inside and outside Indonesia. The third is internet
The purpose of this research: research related to campaigns, writings or photos about

1. The research team wanted to identify Manado’s the city of Manado since it became a smart city in 2018.
local advantages within the brand architecture We collected data from the internet based on the main-
framework, which became the city’s brand attrib- stream mass media, namely Tempo, Kompas, Detik,
utes. Liputan 6, and Metrotvnews, typed in 3 keywords,
2. What has been done within the city branding namely: kota Manado, smart city Manado and Mana-
do diversity in harmony (based on the interview with
framework for Manado since it was declared a tourism government official “Diversity in Harmony” is
smart city in 2018? the central theme to visualise Manado as a smart city).
3. Within the city branding framework, what has not Based on the type of research, this study is a qual-
and needs to be done by the city of Manado? itative study with an exploratory nature that aims to
4. Any successful and sustainable brand communi- find specific ideas, ideas, phenomena or symptoms.
cation strategies are carried out with specific target The process has no particular structure and occurs
audiences. randomly. The data type is qualitative, with methods

Proceedings of the 7th UNESCO UNITWIN Conference | 69