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Carly Stiana Scheffer-Sumampouw et al. Smart City Branding

also strategies to increase brand awareness of Manado the head of the Ministry of Communication and In-
City when there are souvenirs that tourists can take formation Technology of Manado City, Mr Erwin
home and not consume. According to the head of the Simson Kontu, SH. Most articles were in the smart city
tourism office’s interview, NATURAL TOURISM is still category, which focused on developing infrastructure
the City of Manado’s flagship product and the locality and technology to support Manado’s progress.
that the city government prioritises. The second most common news topic is natural
However, culinary tourism, religious tourism, and tourist destinations, which aligns with the results of
crafts must improve because a city’s branding includes our interview with the head of the Manado city tour-
all these elements. The Manado Association as the City ism office, Dra. Neivi Lenda Pelealu, M.Sc. Indeed,
of a Thousand Churches and SULUT as the province of she emphasises Manado’s superior natural wealth.
Nyiur Melambai should appear in news reports from Another notable occurrence that can be observed
the national media. Likewise, news about Diversity in from the findings of an internet news search is that
Harmony based on interviews is promoted to the au- no visible or insignificant news discusses the involve-
dience as a tagline, although national news coverage is ment of the private sector with or within the city of
minimal/almost non-existent. News & photos about Manado regarding natural tourism, culinary, religion,
DISASTER also dominate the Manado keyword, and it or intelligent cities.
is in the second top position after NATURAL TOURISM An online news article (liputan6.com) in 2017
if we enter the keyword Manado. Emergency numbers wrote that the implementation of intelligent city
for the public and tourists can be contacted when a Manado is exemplary. They have mainly depicted
disaster occurs/experiences and needs help, which the Manado Cerdas Command Centre (C3) photo.
must be communicated frequently concerning smart The author was given a chance to visit the Manado
city branding. When searching for news regarding command centre and found the technology, human
Manado in the last two years, it turned out that the resources, and seriousness of the Kominfo Manado
internet also promoted other cities such as Tomohon, Office were highly beneficial to the people of Mana-
Tetempangan Hill, and Koha. Hence, digital cam- do. The technology and budget allocated were signif-
paign strategy plays an important and strategic role. icant to serve the people. We are in the middle of the
The arrival of President Jokowi and the First Lady, pandemic; society needs information and commu-
as well as other ranks of the central government, nication technology. Moreover, the Manado Cerdas
means that the central government is earnestly pro- Command Centre is there to help. By doing this, the
moting super-priority destinations and SEZs in North government is working mainly on smart city pillar
Sulawesi, with the city of Manado as the entry point. number 1: Smart governance.
News content is overwhelmingly dominated by nat- Based on an internet news search, interviews and a
ural or social disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. visit to Manado City in November 2021, we found that
Twenty articles out of 100 collected pieces contain all “diversity in harmony” serves as the DNA of the city.
the negative news about the MANADO keyword. For The government officials cleverly captured it, and the
this reason, the role of the city government in provid- slogan truly reflects the city of Manado. However, the
ing access, facilities, and technology to help commu- smart city idea appeared to be a top-down policy. The
nities affected by disasters is vital. It includes frequent branding communication is not consistent. As a re-
communication of emergency telephone numbers, sult, our internet news search indicates that the hype
which need to be known not only by the residents of was only during the Manado Fiesta campaign, which
the city of Manado itself but also mainly to be under- was back in 2018. After the Manado fiesta event, the
stood by tourists. Communication and Information branding of Manado becomes obscure. If the smart
Technology often disseminates the emergency tele- city concept is applied by local government, it does
phone number for Manado on standby, namely 112. not solely resonate with tourism or technology; in-
This is in line with the results of our interview with stead, it reveals the city’s DNA and maintains its in-

74 | Proceedings of the 7th UNESCO UNITWIN Conference