The ciry of Antwerp implements a new brand strategy backed by latest neuroscience insights

Antwerp is a city in Belgium and the capital of Antwerp province in the Flemish Region. it is the most populous city proper in Belgium, and with a metropolitan population of around 1,200,000 people, it is the second largest metropolitan region after Brussels.

Both economically and culturally, Antwerp is and has long been an important city in the Low Countries, especially before and during the Spanish Fury (1576) and throughout and after the subsequent Dutch Revolt.

The City of Antwerp set out to define and implement a brand strategy leveraging latest consumer neuroscience insights to create an original brand frame. 

Key selection criteria for securing the bid:

1. The strategy should reinforce the city’s ambition to portray itself as a resilient city, constantly reinventing itself;
2. City marketing should rigger key intended associations: ‘creativity’, ‘flamboyant’, ‘drive’
3. Ensure relevancy and distinctiveness for our target audience.

Mindspeller’s 3 step DIY Neuromarketing-as-a-Service approach offers the ideal solution for the Antwerp marketing team. Mindspeller’s methodology allows a combination of actionable insights and progressive understanding how to increase brand equity. 

Step 1: Path Finder

With Path Finder the Antwerp marketing team is able to investigate to what extent ‘gut feeling’ ideas on repositioning should be used also as long term strategic targets to create an original brand frame.

Step 2: Content Optimizer

Content Optimizer helps the team with A/B testing of draft campaign content. Which design drafts best trigger the strategic goals set out with Pathfinder? 

How can campaign content be improved by integrating Mindspeller suggestions for rephrasing or using imagery that has a better chance of optimizing brand equity?

Step 3: Mind tracker

Mind Tracker allows the city of Antwerp to track its brand on the implicit level, driving 95% of consumer behavior (choice of city trip destination in this case). 

With Mind Tracker the Antwerp marketing team is able to evaluate the contribution of short and long term branding campaigns on its brand equity. The more the brand triggers the intended associations that resonate with its target audience, the higher the brand equity. 

 

Whereas the multi-year project just kicked-off, Mindspeller delivers immediate insights with first marketing assets (campaign imagery) revealing interesting associations in the long tail of the brand’s Association Wheels. These Wheels display emotional ‘Points of Interest’ surrounding the current position of the brand ‘Antwerp’ on Mindspeller’s implicit association map. The Wheels reveal which themes overlap with the candidate intended associations or competitive brands, such as other European cities.

These insights lead to a careful reconsideration of the original intended associations to be configured as long term target brand frame ‘destination’ in the Pathfinder ‘GPS’.