COAST GAMES LEGACY IS STILL DELIVERING

THE world’s most recognisable brands drive super profits for their shareholders.

As a city, a strong Gold Coast brand means supercharging opportunities, jobs and prosperity for ratepayers.

To do that, we must market our brand.

Traditionally, there are two ways to create – and retain – brand awareness: firstly, through paid advertising space; and secondly, through wordof-mouth.

The recent Commonwealth Games in Birmingham reminded me why our city is on the rise when it comes to attracting national, and international sporting events and festivals.

I was on the ground in Birmingham, participating in trade forums and connecting Gold Coast businesses with their UK counterparts. Everywhere I went, and everyone I spoke to, reflected on the success of our games.

Comments I received ranged from “what a great part of the world you live in’’, to “your sporting facilities are truly world-class’’ and “it’s great to see so many films coming out of the Gold Coast now’’.

Every comment was a personal reflection of their opinion of our great city: true word-of-mouth in action.

To add to the word-ofmouth, the television coverage of Birmingham 2022 attracted huge numbers. BBC World reports its viewer audience included 57.1 million streams (digital distribution of TV content, which is separate to conventional free-to-air TV audiences) and Channel 7 Australia reported at least 10 million viewers.

The reason this is important is that virtually every time a competitor in any sport was in action, the commentators would reference how well the athlete had performed “on the Gold Coast in 2018’’. The commentators would then reflect on the 2018 games, the location and events … providing tens of millions of dollars of free-to-air word-ofmouth promotion.

The value of this free-to-air publicity is that it keeps the focus on our city so far as upcoming major sporting events and festivals.

Next year, we will host the World Lawn Bowls Championships, including para-athletes, from 12 countries. This is the first time the parabowl athletes will compete and I know their federation made the decision based on what we did for para athletes in 2018.

World bowls aside, we have a string of national and international sporting events heading our way and every one of these create jobs for our kids, income for local businesses and further exposure for the mighty Gold Coast.

Early this year, the Gold Coast was voted No.26 in the Global Sports Cities rankings. The only other Aussie cities ahead of us were Sydney and Melbourne.

The basis of this ranking is our capacity to host world-level sporting events – from our facilities, to accommodation, reliable weather, logistics, transport, security and spectator support.

As the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics edge closer, we will see further interest in the coast from national squads wanting to acclimatise, as well as the relocation of some national sport administrative bodies – all good for business and good for our economy. Try telling that to the “antieverything keyboard warriors” who are still bagging our games, four years on.

The heightened sporting reputation gained from hosting GC2018 gives us every reason to leverage our reputation globally. When we do this right, we are all winners – especially our kids.

In 2018, they said “let the Games begin”. Now, I say, “let the legacy continue”.