The world's most curious man contemplates writing, branding and travelling with an insane degree of nuance.

jeremy@jeremyhildreth.com

Tag Archives: Lithuania

Taking the waters: special places and the power of suggestion

There *is* something about old spa towns. Maybe it’s just the exaggerated power of suggestion induced by knowing that generations and legions of people have been drawn from far and wide to a particular place to have a particular experience. Druskininkai is in southeastern Lithuania, near the borders with Poland and Belarus, and people get [...]

Jeremy’s Vilnius mini-guide

Lithuania used to be the largest country in Europe, stretching, under the rule of Grand Duke Vytautas in 1430, from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea (a feat achieved, incidentally, not by conquest but by inclusiveness and diplomacy).  Lithuania was also a Soviet Republic for half a century, and Vilnius, its capital, wears on [...]

Everything I know about place branding

Everything I know about branding places

The complete brand book for Lithuania

Download the complete, final volume of our recommendations to Lithuania, including the appendix of notional designs.

The problem with first impressions

…is that you don’t know what you don’t know, sometimes, when you’re looking at something. Take, for example, this scene in Vilnius (where I am delighted to be living for the summer), which I photographed while jogging today. It is a normal scene, a bit of urban decay, some concrete blight. Very common around here. [...]

Why to bother keeping up appearances

I know Ignalina nuclear power plant is scheduled to close at the end of this year. And rationally I know that managing two atomic reactors — even if they are almost identical to the vintage Soviet RBMK-1000s at the heart of the Chernobyl hiccup — and keeping an aquarium have nothing to do with each [...]

“If a place is trying to fake it, then it will be exposed.”

“I never said most of the things I said” said Yogi Berra. I felt just like Yogi when I read over this article in the new issue of Business Traveller magazine which quotes me heavily, discussing my/Saffron’s work in Northern Ireland, London and Lithuania. Luckily, most of what I said (or didn’t say) sounds half-way [...]

The loveable quirkiness of northeastern Europe

Yesterday was the national day of the Republic of Uzupis, the SoHo (NYC, as opposed to Soho, London) of Vilnius, Lithuania. I didn’t make it to Christiania – I’ve still never been to Copenhagen! – before they dismantled it, but I imagine this as a gentrified and more philosophically grounded version of the Danish self-declared [...]

Selling Lithuania smartly

My six months working with Saffron and Wally Olins for the Lithuanian Development Agency on a strategy and action plan for developing what the client called ‘the economic image of Lithuania’ (and what Wally and I thought of as ‘the image of Lithuania, particularly with respect to commercial considerations’) has wrapped. We had a press [...]

New destination

The WhereBrands place branding blog is the new soapbox for my strong opinions and invaluable wisdom about place-related marketing.

You’ve found me!

Not always easy. As an international brand copywriter, Wall Street Journal arts page contributor and near-nomad, the road is my home.

The constant stimulation of an ever-changing confluence of people, place and moment has shown itself to be the ideal salve for my painful curiosity about this astounding phenomenon we call human conscious life.

So I travel.

Meanwhile, I tell my stories and I help others tell theirs, doing my bit make the world safe for good writing and good marketing. I've had an eventful career so far (read the full "about me" stuff here; for better or worse, it's almost all true).

At present, I am creative director of WhereBrands, a company I founded to coach cities, countries and companies on how to make the most of [a] place. WhereBrands' site is devoted wholly to place-related marketing, branding and communications, as is the WhereBrands place branding blog.

The rest of my brilliant insights about marketing, writing and travelling you'll find right here (along with the lousy ones). I encourage you to leave comments, or, if you feel yourself a kindred spirit, drop me a line; I'm always glad to hear from clever, exotic people like you.

Speaking on YouTube

Speaking on YouTube

A string of funny and insightful anecdotes about the way countries regard (or loathe) themselves, and how that affects outsiders' perceptions (clip: 2 mins).

In the news: Branding the hard way

In the news: Branding the hard way

Jeremy tells CNN/Fortune that Estonia getting the Euro is an 'unfakeable' positive signal for the country. "It's something that they've earned from scratch."

In the news: Jeremy’s new book is out

In the news: My new book is out

Brand America (2nd edition): the making, unmaking and remaking of the greatest national image of all time. Co-authored with Simon Anholt.

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