"Visual Identity as a system to enhance the City Image “an analytical study of mega events”"

Abstract

As a result of globalization and the state of the openness in the world, as well as the breaking of geographical, social and cultural boundaries, the organization of mega international events has become one of the attractions towards the cities and countries, which helps to develop and improve the economic, social and cultural aspects. On the other hand, this is affecting the competitiveness of countries and cities, which poses challenges to meet these changes and enhance their ability to remain competitive and attract the audience "target group". According to Philip Kotler, these events transmit specific communication messages to the target audience to achieve marketing objectives and creating a positive city image that enhances its ability in different aspects of marketing and competition. There are many cities that used the mega-events which organize it to improve their image and making it a famous city brand around the world, such as the Venice International Film Festival and the Venice International Biennale, which helped to fame the city and its name around the world.Recently, Some Egyptian cities have joined in organizing some international events or be in competition for hosting them, but many Egyptian cities are still not qualified to organize such events due to several factors "economic, environmental, social" and inter-related problems, bad infrastructure and lack of the future plans of the development of these cities in a sustainable manner, commensurate with the requirements of the contemporary world and the expectations of the target audience. It is, therefore, necessary to support these cities through a future vision commensurate with what is needed by the target audience, to build a distinctive visual identity achieve communication and marketing aims.This research aims to highlight the importance of the visual identity of the Egyptian cities, not only to achieve communication objectives but also to build a positive image which enhances their competitiveness. It also aims to establish a future vision for the Egyptian cities based on the international events that can achieve the communicative and marketing objectives of these cities.

Keywords

• city marketing; city image; city brand; visual identity systems