Only Lyon, an excelent online marketing campaign

For a long time now, the town of Lyon (France) has been spending a lot of time and effort in branding the town and giving it a name on the international scene. After seeing the adverts, the websites and the general collective effort and spirit surrounding the project, I must admit that I’m hooked!

Only Lyon brand name and logo

In one of my previous articles I mentioned this town as a good example of territorial or city branding (the fact of making a brand out of a place in order to give it a stronger identity, see this post), now I’m going to dedicate a small article on the town to show you just what has been done on an online and visual basis (I will not be talking about the economic, cultural, or social side).

First things first, the brand name ONLY LYON followed with the red lion logo, respects as colour scheme that has been used throughout the branding process, helping every little bit come together as a one. This can seem quite basic but it gives us a sense of unity that is very important when advertising a place to live in, study in or work in.

Have a look at these different websites and videos. Do you see the red, white, black and grey colour scheme?

The main website: http://www.onlylyon.org/accueil-42-1.html

The tourism website: http://www.en.lyon-france.com/

The dedicated “TV” website: http://www.onlylyon.tv/

The blog: http://theychoselyon.com/

Only Lyon main website first page

The second thing I have to remark upon is the fact that ALL the websites, videos and online documents are very well done and precise. The websites are simple in design, easy to understand, and very pleasing visually. The Only Lyon TV (3^rd link) is especially well done and easy to navigate, and offers a very interesting selection of videos about the town. They also have a good variety of pages on the most used online social media websites that have already attracted a great number of people (over 6 000 fans of the Only Lyon Facebook page). The videos can easily be found through Youtube and other such video services on the net and they have excellent media coverage on information websites and blogs.

The Only Lyon brand name and logo in the town

I have spent a lot of time going through the different Only Lyon websites and texts, looking for mistakes or problems… and the only thing that’s missing or needs changing is the non-existence of an English version of the TV website. All the rest is, well, just excellent quality: the details, the information, the links, it’s all there.

Indeed, the whole online operation seems to have been very well planned and definitely uses all the options available on the net: blog, video, websites, social media etc… I can only recommend this as the best example of territorial branding online that I have seen.

By James Berry

For more information please visit ID-reel.com 
Or Join us on Facebook (click!) and Linkedin (click!)