Sicco van Gelder, international branding consultant, author & speaker

author

Sicco van Gelder is one of the world's leading experts on global branding and brand strategy. Sicco a co-founder of Placebrands, an innovative firm that helps cities, regions and countries define their brand strategies. Sicco is also a member of the Medinge Group, a top-level think tank of branding professionals from three continents.

Sicco has lived, worked and travelled across five continents. His exposure to the great diversity of these continents has helped him to develop his understanding of and sensitivity to differing cultural, motivational, economic, social and competitive issues. Sicco frequently speaks at workshops and conferences around the world. A sample of his topics:

Global Brand Strategy
When a brand stretches across countries, it is imperative to understand the forces that affect it in various markets. These forces are both internal and external to the brand's organization and determine whether and to what extent a brand can be standardized across markets or adapted to suit local circumstances. Using the Global Brand Proposition Model as a framework, Sicco takes the audience into a discussion on how to strategize for and effectively manage a global brand to create value for its various stakeholders.

Place Branding: Cities, Regions and Nations
As globalization intensifies, cities, regions and nations find themselves competing with other places for attention, talent, investment, visitors, events and influence. A powerful brand provides places with a necessary sustainable competitive advantage. Sicco discusses the main issues of branding for places, such as putting together brand partnerships of stakeholders, developing a shared vision and a common purpose for your place, public consultation, strategizing for a place brand, developing activities that demonstrate the place brand, and embedding the brand of the place.

The New Branding Imperatives of Strategy, Creativity and Leadership
The combination of strategy, creativity and leadership will determine the competitive strength of brands, whether they are product, service, corporate or place brands. Strategy (business, brand and marketing) determine the direction of a brand. However, strategy is nothing without creativity in its formulation, implementation and execution. Strategy and creativity are worthless without the leadership that ensures that things get done and that the brand creates value for its various stakeholders. Sicco discusses these three imperatives and the power of the interaction between them.

Branding for Development
What has been learned in advanced societies about creating value through branding can, and should be, transferred to less developed nations in order to improve the lives of their populations. There is absolutely no reason why the beneficial effects of branding should be restricted to the developed world, or why the role of less developed nations should be mere suppliers of commodity goods and labour to rich companies from rich countries. As the glossy image of multinational and especially Western-owned brands begins to wear a little thin, local brands may well find that they have an unprecedented window of opportunity to state their different and attractive credentials.