How London Balances Heritage and Innovation to Sustain Its Global Brand

Konrad Jagodzinski (Brand Finance, UK)

For the second year in a row, London has been named the world’s best city brand in the Brand Finance Global City Index. But what fuels London’s success? And what can other cities learn from it? In an excerpt from a recent episode of Brand & New, “From Heritage to Innovation: How London Sustains Its Global Brand,” we delve into why London, the host city of INTA’s 2026 Annual Meeting, remains as iconic, magnetic, and unforgettable as ever.

Tracy Halliwell (London & Partners, UK)

INTA’s Willard Knox sits down with two guests, each providing a unique perspective on London’s success. Konrad Jagodzinski is Place Branding Director at Brand Finance (UK), and Tracy Halliwell MBE, is Director of Tourism, Conventions, and Major Events at London & Partners. Together, they discuss how London continues to thrive as a global brand and why its blend of commerce, culture, and creativity keeps it at the top of the world stage.

Below is an excerpt of this Brand & New interview. It includes some minor edits to improve readability.

Willard Knox (WK): I’ll be honest with you, I work at INTA, but until I began preparing for this podcast, I had never heard of a city as a brand! What is the idea of a city as a brand? How would you define that?
Konrad Jagodzinski (KJ): Any city, any country, any region of the world, just like a company, organization, a product, or a service, can be considered a brand. And what I mean by that is not necessarily a particular logo, such as I HEART NEW YORK.

It’s not necessarily going to be a brand in the same sort of corporate asset sense as for many corporations, but it certainly is a brand in the sense of the image, the set of associations, the perceptions of a city that different people around the world, the public, and the inhabitants of that city would have, about that particular place. This is what makes it a brand, because someone thinks something of it and makes decisions, often commercial decisions—whether that’s visiting, investing, studying, working, or living in a city—based on that set of perceptions, that image they have of that city.

WK: I was looking at key performance indicators. There were three different metrics: familiarity, reputation, and consideration. What do they mean and how are they selected?
KJ: There’s obviously plenty of city rankings out there looking at how a city is doing in this or in that area. What we look at is the set of perceptions around a city, and not just in that country, but globally, around these three metrics. We’re looking at perceptions of 100 cities across 20 markets spread across all continents. They give us our view not only of London and New York, for example, but also Lagos and Warsaw.

The whole study is based entirely on the results of a survey. It’s simply perceptions. There’s nothing else. There’s no judgment from Brand Finance. There is no statistical data. There is no finance performance data that feeds in. It’s basically the opinions of people from across the globe, across those 20 markets, telling us what they think about those cities.

WK: What is it about London or New York or Paris that sets them apart from other cities?
KJ: The key thing that cities like London, New York, and Paris have in common is that global, almost universal, familiarity. This is very difficult for other city brands to attain.

People know those cities as capitals or former capitals of empires that ruled the world and continue to influence the world today. But they also know those cities as centers of culture. They see them in films and read about them in books. They listen to songs about New York and London and Paris, and they dream about being there, and that is something that’s obviously very difficult to attain for other cities. So that familiarity is something that’s important, but it’s not the only thing, because it could be known for all the wrong reasons.

The thing about these cities is that they are also known for all the right reasons. These are obviously centers of business and finance, but they are also centers of culture. They have wonderful architecture and rich theater and museum offerings. They are also well known for education, science, and technology and when you read the news, it’s events happening in those cities that people tend to read about.

WK: Tracy, you worked on the London 2012 Olympics. Give me a little more color on that, because we have a lot of sports fans out there who I know are going to love hearing from someone who was involved.
Tracy Halliwell MBE (TH): The Olympics became a catalyst and pushed us to think more carefully about what London in its entirety is and what it means to specific people. How do we use the Games to promote London as a business and tourism destination for the future? How do we get the world interested in hosting events in London?

Prior to the Games, we’d already had a little bit of a reputation of being quite a difficult city. We were very big. We had lots of different boroughs and organizations. And if you were a major event producer, how did you go about working in London? A lot of people were scared of London. How could we show the world that you can actually do stuff in London? It’s a big city, but it’s a friendly city, it’s a welcoming city. It’s easy once you know the right people and the right things are in place. It can be done. So, our job was really to be that welcoming face.

WK: Do you think of London as a brand? Is that something that you think about in your day-to-day work?
TH: One of the challenges with London is, and it’s probably very similar to New York, is that it’s just too big, it’s too diverse, and you have a reputation that’s been built up over hundreds and hundreds of years.

Whoever you are and whenever you’re coming to London, you’re coming for a different reason. You’re looking for different touch points. Can we capture all that in one brand? I think we’ve always felt we can’t do that; however, we can certainly help to wrap our arms around what London is. We can try and look at what our audiences think about us, and how we can change negative perceptions about London.

But, there have always been three factors we’ve looked at: what do we say about London? This probably is the marketing and the promotional side. More importantly, what do other people say about London? So, how they’re interacting with us. And I think the third thing that we picked up is that it’s probably more about what we do as a city: how do people experience London?

So, looking at it through those three lenses, we’ve come up with messages, and we’ve come up with campaigns. We’ve done all sorts of things, but you’ll find that it probably boils down to those emotive things. What does London make you feel? How can we promote that feeling?

You said you got quite excited thinking about coming to London. That’s probably going back to when you were younger, and the last time you were there, and the experience you had. That would be very different to an event planner who tried to organize an event 20 years ago and found it difficult.

We know that London is this amazing, diverse, exciting, historical, modern—it’s a bit of everything—city, but you can’t just boil it down to one thing. How do we communicate the values of London? How do we communicate those stories and the authentic stuff that people are going to believe?

WK: London has both this very historical, centuries-old element to it, but also a new and exciting cutting edge to help draw people in. It’s not just resting on its history.
TH: I think it was the writer, poet, and wit, Samuel Johnson, who said, “When you’re tired of London, you’re tired of life!”

There’s always been a view that London is always changing. It’s always evolving. And I think that is in large part down to the diverse population we have in London. An American once described to me his view of London, which he said was like a dinner party culture. He said you can be in London and go to a dinner party, and you’ll have a politician on one side of you, you’ll have somebody from film and TV on the other side of you, and you might have a leading heart specialist on the other side of the table, somebody from banking and finance, and they all live and work together in London. We are a world city, very similar to New York. We have a population of people who’ve come from all over the world and set up their homes in London. We have people who have different ways of thinking.

If you’re in the United States, you may have to go to say Los Angeles for the film and TV people. You may have to go to New York City’s Wall Street to meet the financial people. You may have to go to Washington, D.C., to meet the politicians, but in London, we’re all mashed together, so we all exchange ideas and knowledge. And once you get people in a room talking, exciting things happen. That’s why I think London has a reputation for being innovative and creative. There are investors and people who are willing to underwrite things and get things from idea to conception. You’ve got the investment banking world there; it’s quite an exciting economy in that things happen.

We’ve also got a very adventurous population who are willing to try new things—for example, coming up with a new idea for a new show like Abba Voyage—a brilliant new attraction in a custom-built venue called the ABBA Arena in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Instead of the band performing live in person, the show features digital avatars (known as ABBAtars); you absolutely feel as though you’re in an Abba concert. It’s just amazing.

WK: One last question for you: What would you say are the “must see and do” activities for visitors to London?
TH: Do the classics because you won’t have done London unless you’ve been to Big Ben and the Tower of London—all of those things. They’re all phenomenal. Walk along the Thames and you’ll see so much and experience so much outdoor dining and fun pop-up events that are happening in places like Battersea. Battersea Power Station is now thriving with restaurants and bars. It’s headquarters to Apple, so there are 4,000 workers there. It is a really buzzy, vibrant location people probably haven’t been to because it’s only been open the last couple of years or so.

Your event is going to be at Excel London. All along the docks and Docklands edge, there’s a lot of experiential events you can do, with the Friends Experience or Formula E Prix. All of these things are popping up in London in the most unusual places.

Bottom line: Just get out and walk around London and you’ll find something unusual around every corner. Every time I leave my office or my home, I find something new—and I’ve lived here for 40 years. I’m always finding something new and thinking: where did that come from?

Listen to the full episode of the Brand & New Podcast.

The 2026 Annual Meeting takes place in London, England, from May 2 to 6, 2026. Registration opens December 8. Learn more.

Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of this article, readers are urged to check independently on matters of specific concern or interest. The opinions expressed in this interview are those of the persons being interviewed and do not purport to reflect the views of INTA or its members.

Topics Brand & New Podcast United Kingdom Brand Stories