We are most familiar with brands associated with companies, their products and/or services. Brands serve numerous purposes for numerous parties – company employees, partners, government, customers, distributors, etc. Brands help us better understand the company’s identity, its personality and the ways it behaves. A brand for a company is important because it helps communicate what a product or service stands for.

When people think of brands, they think of logos, slogans, mission statements… We have developed all of these, but that is only the beginning.

Toronto’s Brand Promise:
Engage your imagination in a city of unlimited possibilities.

A brand promise is as good as its ability to deliver on it. The brand is delivered through behaviour, and it is this behaviour that delivers the brand experience – which is essentially what the brand is all about. It is the brand experience what builds brand equity, brand value, and brand loyalty. A brand is a behaviour expressed by its logo, its signature line, its designs, its customer service, its payment practices, its employment policies, its corporate social responsibility, its commitment to vision, etc.

In the case of destinations, and specifically cities, a brand plays a more intense role, because it needs to inspire and resonate first and foremost with the people that make that brand what it is – its people. William Shakespeare once wrote “What is a city, but the people?” And while surely architecture, location, weather, urban planning, museums, restaurants and iconic attractions all play a role, it is the citizens who will yield the ultimate brand experience. In their behaviour and in what they put into their city.

In the process of branding Toronto we have sought to discover and define what Toronto stands for in truth and in all its simplicity. What is the city’s essence and vision, its qualities and aspirations that make it unlike any other city of the world?

Ultimately, competing with every other city in the world for tourism and trade, the new brand Toronto will help define what Toronto stands for on the world stage. To elevate us in the traveler’s or investor’s mindset so that the world community knows who we are and what we stand for. But equally, if not more importantly, so that we know who we are collectively and what we represent as a City. With the new brand we can best communicate and do justice to all that is Toronto - its wonderful people, the myriad of experiences and unlimited opportunities that exist here and that make Toronto unique. With the new brand we can speak in one voice so that our message is clear, focused and solid.

But this is just the beginning, the branding process does not end here. We must also ensure that Toronto’s essence is communicated, sustained and enriched in all of the city’s activities and behaviours… from tourism to trade, from business investment to policy development, from communications to philanthropy. The brand promise must be lived and fulfilled by everyone who lives in this great city. As Torontonians, it is largely up to us what we make of this city. The better our behaviour, the better our city will be. Hence, we should behave confidently and proud of the place we call our home. In our own modest way, and through our natural behaviour, we are now ready to share our story with the world.