Europe's Most Talked About Cities 2023
Europe's Most Talked About Cities 2023
“Where digital visibility leads, investment follows.”
A city’s prospects are not determined by one single element – but improving digital visibility can lead to an improved performance.
Brand building and a positive communications campaign elevates visibility. This visibility can work to activate a city’s soft power.
An elevated soft power profile can improve FDI, as investors seek to increasingly deploy capital into cultural assets to improve their own soft power and ESG compliance.
Future city prospects are dependent on a variety of social and economic indicators, yet scoring highly in digital visibility and soft power, is shown to influence investor intent in the future.
ING Global Cities Digital Visibility Series 2023
ING Media’s research on Europe’s most talked about cities, now in its fifth year, provides vital insight into the impact of digital messaging on regions and cities as brands, how this affects investment, where talent concentrates and our travel choices.
European nations have been faced with a series of new challenges in the period since the pandemic. Despite the end of restrictions, the resulting economic crises have affected consumer spend which so often dictates expenditure and footfall in global city areas.
ING has identified and ordered the top 60 European cities according to their share of online conversations. While Europe’s most visible cities have remained largely unchanged, the total number of mentions has increased 13%, driven by a return to events and culture which were stymied in the years of Covid-19 lockdowns. This year we have extended the research. With the return of coercive hard power as a tool of state craft in Eastern Europe, the value of cities persuasive soft power needs reemphasising. Hard power is best described as economic or military influence, with regards to cities most likely to be associated with GDP.
Measuring soft power is a challenge, an often-undefinable construct. In response to this we have created a unique set of indicators to investigate how top European cities compare, measuring themes like culture, travel, education and diversity.
Those that benefit from soft power can expect to demand higher levels of foreign direct investment. Allied to this we compare city investment and development prospects against the cities’ digital visibility data, which are both important elements of a city’s branding. We show how effective communications is the main driver of these pillars – and what this means for future growth prospects.
The convening power of cities continues to place them at the heart of digital conversations. Increasing their visibility through successful communications can help cities navigate the political and economic headwinds to come.
“The convening power of Europe’s leading cities and activation of their unique brands has seen people return to culture, sports and entertainment in the first full-year post pandemic.”
EUROPE’S MOST TALKED ABOUT CITIES (2023)
London (1st), Paris (2nd) and Madrid (3rd) continued to be the highest mention-generating cities in Europe – claiming the top three spots for a fifth consecutive year.
The overall mentions for the Top 60 European cities rose over 13% since last year, signalling the return of travel, in-person events and business activities post-pandemic.
The global energy crisis illuminated conversations around the most energy resilient Nordic cities. Stockholm (+20), Copenhagen (+3), Helsinki (+3) and Oslo (+2) all ranking higher than last year.
Glasgow digital output returned to a more familiar ranking position after its boost from COP26 in the previous year – revealing the true power of global events.
Cities can outperform their capitals. Istanbul continues to outperform Ankara and Porto beats Lisbon.
TikTok is one of the leading digital platforms in terms of engagement. For every mention on London, 8,000 people engaged on TikTok versus five on Twitter.
Milan leads the way for conversations around culture, testament to the return of major global events like Milan and Paris Fashion Week.
Tech drives conversations in Cologne. DMEXCO returned to the city in 2022 welcoming 40,000 technology experts from 91 countries.
Over one third of conversations around Luxembourg City where about business, as the EU is looking to curb its tax-haven status.
Edinburgh has targeted becoming a net-zero, climate-ready city by 2030 – driving conversations on sustainability.
Birmingham is Europe’s youngest city and leads on conversations around talent. With 40% of its population under 25 and a graduate retention rate of 46%.
We will release more research on digital visibility throughout 2023.
Soft Power
So - how do cities build and maintain influence? Away from economic influence, fiscal might, trade deals, commercial links, a stronger currency than a fellow city; there is an alternative.
Like nation states cities are significant sources of soft power. Soft power involves ‘positive attraction and persuasion to achieve objectives’, in contrast to hard power, which might best be described as ‘control by coercion’. With the return of coercive hard power in Eastern Europe, the value of cities’ persuasive soft power needs reemphasising.
With cities increasing their digital output – communicating their own soft power elements and assets is an excellent source of brand building. The importance of effectively communicating a winning global narrative is crucial for a cities’ status on the world stage. To coin a phrase from US academic John Arquilla, “In today's global information age, victory often depends not on whose army wins, but on whose story wins.”
In response, ING Media has created its own Soft Power Index.
Our index uses a host of environmental, cultural, and social measurements to score and rank Europe’s top 60 cities by soft power.
London tops ING Media's inaugural soft power rankings, followed by Paris, Madrid, Berlin and Stockholm.
London’s leads our ranking as it appears in the top three cities across nine of our 13 metrics, scoring especially highly on sports, arts and tourism categories.
The rankings show that four of the top ten ranked cities on our soft power index (Stockholm, Munich, Brussels and Amsterdam) sit outside the top ten on our digital visibility rankings. A sign that these cities could be illustrating their soft assets more than they currently are.
As well as overall digital output we can also measure conversations around specific “soft” conversations; intentional digital output that highlights the strengths of the soft power assets a city has.
Of the top ten cities who are talking about their soft power the most, 50% of them appear in the top ten list of ING Media's soft power rankings. This tells us that some cities aren't talking about those soft power assets it enough.
Some cities are talking more about their soft power elements than their ranking position should suggest. Some of the biggest over-achievers include a British cohort of Birmingham, Edinburgh, Manchester, Glasgow and Dublin.
Athens is top of the movement list, coming in at 44th in our Soft Power rank but finishing 17th when measuring total conversations about those soft power elements.
We will release more research on soft power throughout the year.
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