PROJECT

Alba Iulia: Building The City Brand

CLIENT

The City Of Alba Iulia

Transylvania, Romania

CATEGORY

Branding, Strategy, Web Development, Mobile Development, Campaign, Experiential Marketing, Community, Place Marketing, City Branding

CONTEXT

There are 10.000 cities in the world, all of them competing for a limited number of investors, entrepreneurs, students, tourists. Why would they choose your city? That was the challenge we had to solve when Heraldist & Wondermarks first took the city of Alba Iulia as a client.

Years later, Alba Iulia becomes one of the most inspiring place-marketing case-studies in Europe. The small Transylvanian town was just appointed by the EU, to be the lead city in the EU’s first-ever place marketing program, and cities like Budapest, Limerick (Ireland), and Perugia (Italy) will be learning from its example. Pretty impressive for a little town from the Eastern European ‘nomansland’.

IDEA

Apart from a good the touristic promise, Alba Iulia needed a strong, long-term brand positioning. This is why we started by following the key elements that built the identity of the city along the centuries. We were surprised to find out that, for the last 2000 years of history, Alba Iulia has always been a small city but, paradoxically, it always had a disproportionately important role in the history of Transylvania and later, in the history of Romania. 

Perhaps Alba Iulia is not the actual capital of Romania but it is for sure..."The Other Capital of Romania”. The star-shaped citadel with 7 corners and 3 concentric walls inspired the most famous logo of any city in Romania.

EXECUTION

Alba Iulia was the first in the Eastern European area to have a long-term brand strategy, brand manual, and brand identity. Once we finished building the foundation of the brand, we developed the official visitors website, the mobile app, print materials, outdoor projects, merchandise and more.

The place branding & place marketing project created by Heraldist & Wondermarks for the city of Alba Iulia, is now regarded by the EU as a premiere example for other cities in Europe.