Plymouth Matters 6 Feb – March 2012

This is going to be the biggest event to hit Plymouth in a long, long time.

The event, taking place in the Sound with up to 15 state of the art wing-sailed catamarans, will present a sensational experience in the ideal natural harbour environment for sailing enthusiasts from across Europe. The boats will be based in Millbay, with major events planned for the Hoe and the Barbican. There will be 1000’s of visitors.

It gives us the perfect launchpad to promote its maritime assets across the world. There is of course already a host of sea based events like the Plymouth Race Week, the Squib National Championships and other events like the National Fireworks Championship that makes such good use of Plymouth Sound. Americas Cup will help raise awareness for all of them and really add to Plymouth’s growing reputation as an event destination.

It is a perfect opportunity to bring forward the work that is going on behind the scenes to prepare for the 400th Anniversary of the departure of the Mayflower.

It is going to be hard work but there is a great team pulling it together.

As always we would love to hear from you if you have any suggestions.

Michael White’s piece in the Telegraph helps to give some London perspective.

Computer-generated classical music isn’t as disappointing as it sounds.

Thanks to Jane Cullen from Peninsula Arts for sending it in.

The city has never had a strong online presence and with this alongside the redevelopment of the Visit Plymouth site we now have some real estate online.

Investors, visitors, businesses or locals will all come through here to check out the shop window of Plymouth.

And this is only the first step in the journey.  Over the course of the next year with other partners in the city we will scope out and build an entire digital presence that speaks through multiple platforms, engages users through multiple channels and taps into as many different social networks as possible.

It will be a truly city site. But it will take some time so the new site will do a very effective job of maintaining a strong and dynamic presence until we have the new digital presence.

Money can’t be spent as freely as it could a few years ago. Instead we have to work smarter, harness what is already being spent on the same agenda. Partnership is key. 

Businesses and organisations throughout the city are already talking about and promoting Plymouth in their own way every day and this is the opportunity that should work for all.  If we get it right we help organisations with a stronger city identity behind them and we can ensure the city is getting the strongest possible profile.

So out of challenge comes opportunity and Positively Plymouth is the perfect way for us to do this. Already the partnership approach is paying dividends. Partners have created a truly unique way to market events in the city for this year and there will be a real buzz around that as summer draws closer.

The Council, University, Science Park and others are coming together to form a resource that allows innovation and enterprise to flourish in the city. This organisation, called GAIN, is going to be key to the international promotion of the city.

And we have Mayflower. The 400th anniversary of the sailing of the famous ship is approaching in 2020. This is a huge opportunity for Plymouth and Positively Plymouth is leading the way.

All these events and activities are being drawn together to create one coherent positive, vibrant message about Plymouth.

The nature of the partnership approach makes things slower than might otherwise be expected. But what we end up with is by some stretch so much more effective and not to mention exciting.

Stay in touch and watch it unfold.

This means we have been creating some complex structures and relationships that allow that to happen. As a result Visitor Marketing is well and truly up and running with some amazing initiatives coming up in the next few months – including a new Visitor Guide, Visitor website, Plymouth events programme and much else.

Through Positively Plymouth investors will be carefully targetted based on a natural fit with what Plymouth can offer. We are working very closely with key partners like the City Council and University of Plymouth to create the right marketing propositions for Plymouth and the targets we want to reach.

We will talk about our progress through this forum. So keep coming back to stay in touch.