Selling the New Liverpool

Liverpool's image is a subject which has vexed many a Scouser. And there is no doubt that, at the start of the decade, the PR job to be done on the city was never going to be a straightforward one.

So Christopher Hart's article in the Sunday Times recently was one I couldn't help but ponder.

'You're wary of becoming the kind of tourist who doesn't want his Liverpool smart and prosperous, preferring it deprived and shabby and picturesque. It's just that this felt alive, where the New Liverpool feels dead,' he wrote.

Now Liverpool really has got something to shout about - with £2bn of regeneration in 2008 alone - promoting the city ought to be easier.

And, Hart's words aside, in so many ways they are. Partly on the back of the Culture title, this city has attracted millions of pounds of media exposure - since January alone an estimated 5,000-plus articles globally, 94% of which were positive or neutral.

As one of those charged with helping to generate some of the positive press coming out of the city, I don't doubt these figures for a second.

I gave up my job as Editor of the Liverpool Daily Post last year and have since been working with clients such as the Arena and Convention Centre Liverpool. The £164million venue is - with our help - promoting itself and the city as a world-class destination for events.

I've discovered first hand that Liverpool is a place journalists are interested again - for all the right reasons.

It is no exaggeration to say that interest from the international media in ACC Liverpool, and by extension the city, has been phenomenal. While much of this is obviously due to the superhuman talents of their PR company (ahem), their own brilliant team (and now I am being serious) and the fact that anyone who has visited the facility knows that it is nothing less than stunning, there is clearly another force at work here: the sheer momentum the city's positive image has started to gather.

There is only one problem, I suppose, and that is that you can't please all the people all of the time, as Mr Hart's views underline beautifully. Whereas most observers see the gleaming regeneration schemes as an enhancement to the city's unconventional brand of charisma and beauty, others clearly don't.

But then, sometimes you have to accept that there will always be elements of the media who won't be won over, no matter how hard you try. The key is doing your damndest to make sure the nay-sayers are in the minority. On balance, it appears that they are.

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