Despite the differences between the cities, Dunedin should reinstate branding as ''Dunedin, Edinburgh of the South'', writes Murray Stott.
In 1998 I only managed to secure a meeting with directors of the RBS (the Royal Bank of Scotland) to pitch an F1 sponsorship deal by virtue of my then being a Dunedin mayoral candidate in New Zealand.
I remember thumping the table and telling bank officials they would have to change their branding from their full name to simply RBS to maximise the leverage of either on-car or on-shirt sponsorship branding in this digital age.
Pretty simple stuff - follow the market leaders AIG or HSBC. I delivered the same advice to the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) when I tried to secure its naming right to the V8 supercars some years later.
Dunedin ratepayers have recently paid a modest $20,000 for the mayor and an appropriate few to travel to Edinburgh and Otaru to honour invitations from those cities in accordance with our existing sister-city relationships.
Some commentators have sounded the clarion calls of entitlement or junket etc. Such calls usually resonate from those not invited to go anywhere.
The concept of the mayor together with other relevant people travelling to such cities is a good idea and could prove to be an investment should their connect produce an attraction or idea that could benefit Dunedin.
There is a note of caution however: for example, by adhering to the notion that what works for Edinburgh will prosper for Dunedin.
In 1972, I set up camp in Christchurch as, being a young promoter then, I was attracted by the fact that the city was to stage the Commonwealth Games in 1974.
Also, being inspired by the success achieved by Edinburgh promoters during its games of 1970, I booked every venue in town that the Games committee hadn't.
This was predicated on the fact that if my attractions failed to profit then I could clean up by subletting my venue bookings.
Sure enough, along came a catering promoter to sublet the Winter Gardens.
He had studied the Edinburgh games closely and discovered that a pop-up canteen had sold 600 to 900 meals a night, between 9pm and 6am the following morning.
However, on the first night of his Christchurch operation he only sold six meals.
The canteen closed the next day. Fortunately, I got my money.
It is a nonsense to consider what works for Edinburgh will cut it in Dunedin.
The comparatives between the two cities are only valid insofar as our heritage is concerned and that Dunedin's major streets and suburbs paint a vista of overlay with Edinburgh.
In terms of resources we only compare with Edinburgh in a modest fashion.
It has four universities, Dunedin, one, and seven banks and insurance companies with head offices there while Dunedin has none anymore.
Its arts festival (started in 1947)
attracts 4.3 million visitors each year; and the city over the year attracts one million overseas visitors.
It would be a hard task indeed to expect delivery of anything other than a modest return for Dunedin to replicate its efforts in any way given its base population of 470,000.
After all, Edinburgh has the strongest economy in the UK outside London, with a younger demographic of highly educated professionals.
Financial services are the driver of its success. Dunedin, and New Zealand, is now relegated to being a branch office of equity-funded corporate Australia: which controls the largest media interests, banks and insurance companies in this part of the world.
Hence, the local sponsorship pool is considerably restricted for staging local Edinburgh-style events.
When I brokered the TV sponsorship for the Dunedin City Council's Guggenheim exhibition, with the forward-thinking SBS, we could have secured far greater multi-sponsorship were it not for our local and international geographic isolation. At the end of the day, more than 95% of attendees to the Guggenheim exhibition came from the South Island.
Obviously, we do not have the ability to train or bus-in tens of thousands of attendees from London, where to go up to Edinburgh for the festival and/or Hogmanay is now considered to be de rigueur.
To thump a Gothic table once more, the smartest thing Dunedin could do now is to be consistent with branding, like Edinburgh.
In days long before it had 14 million visitors per year it promoted itself as being the ''Athens of the North''.
Conversely, Dunedin should now reinstate its branding as Dunedin, Edinburgh of the South as it once was, until the council, in its modest wisdom, changed it to I am Dunedin.
Ask yourself, how would that market capture the millions who have recently visited Edinburgh?
I would venture to suggest that the brand ''Dunedin, Edinburgh of the South'' would deliver market capture of global travellers and art lovers who would not in any way be disappointed by our culturally rich city's offerings.
They would then go and tell their friends what an interesting place Dunedin is, thus creating a multiplier effect to lift Dunedin's game and better position it to be a Unesco City of Literature.
- Murray Stott is a trademark agent and sponsorship broker, formerly of Dunedin and now based in Auckland.
