My friend Haider Kikabhoy, who blogs over at The Cob-webbed Crucible, sent me a fascinating article this morning about the unusual city branding efforts of Macedonian capital Skopje.
I had to forgive the author for mistakenly calling Qatar a city, (c’mon I know it’s small but not THAT small…). But I was soon fascinated by Macedonia’s ambitious method of reclaiming the ‘lost history’ of its capital city.
The Macedonian government pulled out all the stops to reconstruct Skopje’s ENTIRE central district in a ‘quasi-baroque’ architectural style. To complete the city-wide makeover, they ordered a fleet of ‘vintage’ London-style red double decker buses, plus building a wax museum, an enormous statue of Alexander the Great, and a whole assortment of fountains.
And this isn’t the first time it’s happened. Skopje first reinvented itself back in 1963, after a huge earthquake devastated the city. Back then, Skopje had been a trend-setter.
The article suggests that Macedonia commissioned the Skopje revamp in a bid to get noticed by the EU membership committee, and eventually join the EU. By carrying out this ‘traditional’ revamp, Macedonia is trying to reclaim its identity and present an image of an overlooked yet genuine European nation, with similar values and aspirations to the other EU states. And to avoid being seen as ‘just another barbaric state lurking outside the EU’s borders’.
I’d love to visit Skopje and see this unique facelift for myself. So I suppose the branding efforts have been successful in that they’ve piqued the interest of a potential tourist: me. It would also be interesting to see if Macedonia’s rebranding attempts actually help it to make the EU membership shortlist.
Of course there’s much more to successful place branding than simply presenting a pretty package. Authenticity is key. There’s a risk that Macedonia’s zealous efforts to recreate Skopje could be seen as overdone, fake, or maybe even as a source of amusement.
After all, being Europe’s unofficial Disneyland isn’t the most desirable place brand to have.
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/42373177@N07/6936213447/”>Jason Drury</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>cc</a>
Yes Sam, for most Macedonians, the crazy programme of monuments and statues building is probably a big waste of money when the money can be better spent on improving public services or road conditions in the country. But for a passing tourist like me, those constructions are very weird and memorable, but definitely I prefer the forward-looking wave of modernist archiecture built after the 1963 earthquake.
Hey Haider. Making the country ‘stand out’, by installing all these new features may be good for attracting curious tourists like you and me. But if you asked me, ‘What’s a good reason to visit Macedonia?’, I wouldn’t have any particular answer, except that it’s a fairly unusual and quirky place to go. The place just doesn’t have very much of a nation brand. But yeah, I agree the govt. ought to plough some of that ‘rebranding’ money into public facilities/education/cultural programmes etc – anything to make life better for the people. This approach may well benefit the Macedonian nation brand in the long run.