Dominic Buttimore, CEO and executive producer of th1ng (thing one), was part of a select panel of branding experts including Jean-Louis Missika, Vice Mayor of Paris, who addressed business leaders on ‘how to brand and market their cities and regions’ at the La Baule World Investment Conference.

The annual conference brings together industrial companies, emerging SMEs and financial investors in an effort to work together towards identifying global sources of growth, innovative social solutions, and sustainable development.

This year’s conference focused on global challenges related to city development. The speakers discussed the most innovative ways of investing in global cities and explored opportunities in adversity.

Buttimore introduced delegates to th1ng’s branding films for two very different cities: London and Dubai.

th1ng’s London branding film was commissioned by the London Development Authority to engage overseas audiences in London ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games. It was premiered at the Beijing Olympics.

Following the film’s successful reception among international business audiences, th1ng was subsequently briefed to direct and produce a film to promote Dubai’s Jumeirah neighbourhood. Buttimore showed delegates how film can be used to powerfully inform and engage audiences with city brands, and also illustrated how social media provides marketers with added opportunities to share their content in more targeted and effective ways.

“The rules around media have changed significantly – and social media in particular has really put the audience in control. For those marketing cities, regions or even countries the opportunities to connect with their audiences are almost limitless thanks to web 2.0. But while this is exciting and even liberating, it puts the onus firmly on marketers to create content that their audience wants to share. That means it has to be very, very good.

“At La Baule we showed two different approaches to solving the problem of how a city engages with their audiences. While our responses to both briefs were quite different in character what chimed with the delegates was the potential for film to crisply tell a story and emotionally pull in the audience,” said Dominic Buttimore.