Top cities in the world have been largely built around brands.

To get to a status of a globally branded city, calls for aggressive marketing of the unique aspects about the city because like for every product, a good brand is easy to market.

Even for cities, a brand city is easy to sell to the world in terms of attracting foreign direct investments and tourism, among others. Every city must market itself as a preferred brand to get the global appeal, which consequently attracts the best of the world to it in terms of business, and tourism.

In this regard, plans by City of Kigali (CoK) to launch a campaign aimed at branding the city is a smart move. "I am Kigali,” campaign will come with several benefits for the city and the country in general. Kigali has a lot of potential to be ranked among the global brand cities.

Several surveys have been conducted on branded cities, and these are based on evaluating cities by several categories such as climate, infrastructure, attractions, buzz and security.

Rwanda can leverage on all the above through branding, especially on the aspect of security where the country’s capital has been ranked among the safest cities to live in the world. Also under the branding, focus can be put on the city’s unique tourism packages.

The brain behind the campaign can also look into the Meetings Incentives Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) to brand Kigali as the preferred city for conferences and meetings.

The campaign’s components which include highlighting the positive impact of population growth, migration and diversity of culture in Rwanda through art, exhibitions, movie screenings and panel discussions, among other ways should be fast tracked because Kigali is changing rapidly, and this campaign is an opportunity to take the first big step towards building Kigali as a global brand.