Impact Assessment between the City and the Company Reputation

Abstract

Introduction and objectivesSince there's a race for customers on the market of the consumer goods, cities of the 21st century compete for the inhabitants, tourists, investors and international companies. In this competition a huge scale of city marketing tools are available, the image and good reputation of the city, their conscious framing are one of the biggest feats of arms. The economy of the dynamically developing city, Gyor experienced several system changes, it had transformed from a commercial city to an industrial one, and nowadays it has been transited to a dynamically developing centre.Today Gyor is the sixth biggest city in Hungary, home of more than 130.000 inhabitants. It is centre of the Kisalfold region, the county seat of Gyor-Moson-Sopron County. It is an episcopal seat, a city rich at history. Gyor is the third richest city on monuments in Hungary, home of the Champions League winner women handball team of Gyori Audi ETO KC and a University city. These are undoubted facts about the city, which declares its present now, in the second decade of the years 2000 curiously according to the slogan Future is being built in Gyor! The economy of the dynamically developing city is based - after several model changes - on the car manufacturing industry. Its main leg is the Audi Hungaria Zrt. (AH), other important counterforts are the suppliers connecting organically to this. Therefore no wonder, that the present of the city, the economic prosperity have their mark not only in the economic index numbers, but in the image face of the city and in the identity of its inhabitants as well (Jakab, 2014a). The blooming economical background Introduction and objectives has its positive effects on the to 0 converging unemployment rates, on weekdays fully booked accommodation facilities, but on the other hand it generates growing needs for new, qualified workforce, on weekends and in periods with lower business intensity the demand on behalf leisure tourists. To attract young, high-educated inhabitants, the strong reputation of the AH should appear in the city's reputation. But, are there any tourists willing to visit a destination with a strong industrial reputation? In order to attract leisure tourists, how should the city balance being Hungary's third richest settlement on monuments and being the Hungarian citadel of car manufacturing?Nowadays in Hungary there are more and more cities focusing on managing their reputation, but we can't find another city like Gyor, who is working so closely with their stakeholders in order to build and maintain more positive reputation.The research objectives are therefore to analyse the reputation of the biggest investor of the city, AH and the city itself. The research is based on literature and content analysis of promotional materials as research methods.The target of the research was to find the answer to the question as follows: What kind of effects has the dynamically developing car manufacturer AH - headquartered in Gyor, led by the German premium category company - on the reputation and image of the city of Gyor based on the analysed marketing communication tools. The research was conducted as part of a wide-range-analysis1 where the synergic effects were identified through literature and content analysis, expert interviews and questionnaire surveys among three stakeholder groups.Tasks of the study are:1. To interpret the main company and city reputation definitions and research methods;2. To analyse selected marketing communication tools of the city and the company;3. To assume the opinions about the city-AH-cooperation and draw conclusions in order to strengthen the common reputation building process.The research has practical value - it contributes with useful information to evaluate the current reputation of Gyor and AH, highlights fields of importance within it and draws suggestions for further steps of cooperation. …