Study names Hamburg "Germany's strongest city brand"

"We are very pleased that Hamburg is once again perceived by the German population as the strongest city brand even amid corona. The Stadtmarken Monitor shows that we are well on the way to lead the city into the future with a clear, authentic and standard image of Hamburg. Creativity, innovation and willingness to change characterise Hamburg as a location. That has also been noticed," said Dr. Rolf Strittmatter, Chairman of the Board of Management of Hamburg Marketing GmbH. The award is both an endorsement and an incentive to continue making the general economic conditions and standard of living attractive and to stir up enthusiasm among talented young people.

The representative survey found that all age groups perceived Hamburg as the strongest city brand. The overall ranking contained nine questions on likeability, uniqueness, willingness to move, future development, as a destination for city breaks and recommendations for living and working. The city averaged 7.7 on a scale of one to ten thereby scoring the most points. Hamburg also topped the list in terms of attractiveness and standard of living. However, Munich topped the ranking in terms of economic clout followed by Hamburg. Around 1,000 interviews were conducted per city in the summer during the corona pandemic.

Apart from brand strength, the Stadtmarken Monitor included important forward-looking topics and gauged, for instance, how cities are perceived in terms of security, mobility offers, digitalisation or affordable housing especially against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hamburg ranked first to third in terms of mobility and digitalisation, but all the metropolitan areas achieved only lower ranks in terms of affordable housing with Hamburg in 46th place.

Around 10,000 people representative of the German-speaking population aged 18 and over were surveyed online this summer for the third Stadtmarken-Monitor 2020 by Brandmeyer Markenberatung in Hamburg. Each respondent rated five cities. The values per city are based on the answers of about 1,000 respondents. Hamburg first secured the rank as Germany’s strongest city brand five years ago. The study is refinanced by sales of the report and analyses.

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