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the construction of a city's international communication capability involves competition in discourse power, values ​​and ideologies, and has multiple factors such as cross-cultural and cross-communication. it is an important part of beijing's new productivity improvement, and an important support for beijing's international influence, competitiveness and development. city positioning is a strategic guide for international communication, and international communication is a service means for city positioning. in the context of economic globalization, urbanization and omni-media communication, the transformation and upgrading of city positioning is a prerequisite for the revitalization of international communication effectiveness. without positioning, there is no communication. this article combines the strategic height of positioning and the depth of communication strategy to propose the development direction of beijing's city international communication capability.

1. beijing’s city image positioning: international cultural consumption center

subtract from many positioning strategies and highlight one image and one word. it is necessary to give full play to the advantages of beijing's cultural resources and create differentiated characteristics. this article proposes that beijing should build an "international cultural consumption center", which is not just a consumption center or a cultural center, but a unique positioning that integrates consumption and culture.

manuel castells's world city system theory believes that the rapid development of transportation networks, energy networks and information networks has further improved the construction of globalization. the new model of international communication is no longer the previous exchanges between countries or regions, but exchanges between core cities. important cities in the world constitute some important nodes of globalization. in the global city network, cities are divided into three roles: political center, consumption center, and manufacturing center. in the division of roles among cities in china, beijing prefers an overall role, while shanghai and shenzhen are more suitable for local roles. this local role gives shanghai and shenzhen the possibility of breakthroughs. shanghai has become a world-class consumption center, shenzhen has become a world-class manufacturing center, and beijing is still the national political center.

beijing's city image needs to expand its influence in the international community. compared with other cities, its biggest advantage lies in its cultural resources, and culture must be combined with other industries to achieve the greatest effect. the international communication of a metropolis needs to rely on cultural soft power. there are two most important points in cultural soft power: the ability to possess cultural resources and the ability to transform cultural resources. the latter is a powerful manifestation of cultural soft power. beijing has thousands of years of cultural history and strong possession of cultural resources, but its ability to transform cultural resources is very lacking. in other words, beijing is not a consumer city, and lacks the practical concept of "consumer-centric", which is the focus of beijing's current breakthrough. high-quality development must break through the threshold of each department and break down the barriers between departments through departmental linkage. the same is true for the cultural industry. only when culture empowers technology, design, performing arts, tourism, etc., can there be new transformations.

the combination of culture and consumption is not the traditional sale of cultural products, but the empowerment of culture in various consumer fields, promoting the transformation of cultural resources into cultural industries, and thus realizing the development of new quality productivity. in combination with beijing's "cultural advantages" and the actual gap in consumption centers, beijing should adopt the dual positioning of "consumption center + cultural center" and truly focus on the attention and communication of "people" in cultural propaganda.

2. city image building strategy: playable, playful, and fun

image strategy is a practical method under the guidance of positioning strategy and a tool to realize positioning strategy. beijing's image strategy can be formulated as a multi-level and multi-dimensional strategy cluster. most of the existing strategies are high-level and high-perspective authoritative images, and there are also many meso-perspective industrial images, but there is a lack of bottom-level perspective life images. under the guidance of the "international cultural consumption center" positioning strategy, starting from the reality gap, beijing must dare to break the convention and create a "playful, playful, and fun" beijing from the perspective of the people's interest.

the strategy for building beijing's city image should coordinate the relationship between the authoritative image and the interesting image. when developing image strategies and communication content, it should distinguish between communication discourse and narrative angles, and dare to break through. the beijing image strategy of "being able to play, knowing how to play, and having fun" that is most suitable for international tourism contains several layers of thinking. first, "being most suitable for international tourism" is a cognitive scenario. the implementation goal of the construction of the "international cultural consumption center" is to enhance the prosperity of consumption and the activeness of business. the realization of the scenario will ultimately fall on the consumption behavior of people at home and abroad, among which international tourists are the key target of the implementation of this strategy. suppose a foreign friend wants to travel, where does he go? why go? if he has the idea of ​​"going to beijing, because beijing is very suitable for foreigners to play", it is a manifestation of the success of the image strategy. in other words, through a series of measures, beijing has achieved effective city association. secondly, "being able to play" means that beijing's consumption scenarios are rich enough. "knowing how to play" means that beijing's consumption services are very comprehensive. "fun" means that beijing's consumption content is very interesting. in short, to create beijing's "dream-making" function, beijing must allow tourists to have a good time, and even become a city that they will linger in for a lifetime.

three,city image communication path: spreading fireworks from multiple angles

the overall impression of beijing's city publicity is to emphasize scientific and technological strength, economic strength, and create a modern image. for a city, modern development is an important force for urban strength. however, modern containers alone are not enough. people live in society and need a harmonious social network to support their lives. therefore, we must spread the fireworks of beijing from multiple angles, so that beijing can be fun, playful, and fun.

1. beijing is a city with a lot of fun: an orderly consumption environment

the state council recently issued the "opinions on promoting high-quality development of service consumption", proposing to focus on improving service quality, enriching consumption scenarios, optimizing the consumption environment, stimulating the endogenous momentum of service consumption through innovation, cultivating new growth points for service consumption, and providing strong support for high-quality economic development. under the influence and support of new concepts and new technologies, cultural consumption needs to strengthen policy guarantees and cultivate industrial clusters.

(1) we need to improve top-level design and promote consumption development through cross-sector cooperation

beijing should break the boundaries of government departments, industry departments, venue managers, corporate brands, sales personnel and other dimensions, coordinate and solve cross-departmental and cross-field cooperation problems, and link all sectors of society to jointly complete the content construction of international cultural consumption. on the one hand, it is necessary to establish a working system of "government leadership, multi-party tracking, and real-time feedback", regularly investigate the future expectations and existing deficiencies of domestic and foreign people for beijing's cultural consumption, and promptly follow up on the research and development and resolution of related issues. make urban consumption closely linked to the needs of the masses, and let all sectors of society participate in the construction of an international cultural consumption center. on the other hand, high-quality development should be reflected through cross-border integration, and a set of policy systems suitable for the market transformation of cultural resources should be gradually established to promote the scientific unity of cultural protection, cultural inheritance, and cultural marketing.

1. we must identify the consumption boom and use industry advantages to drive consumption upgrades

michael porter believes that the key to a country or region's international competitive advantage is the competitive advantage of the industry, and the competitive advantage of the industry comes from the enterprise clusters related to it. industrial innovation constitutes a unique cultural atmosphere and becomes an important catalyst for positive competition. the construction of beijing international cultural consumption center should focus on new formats, new models, and new services, and build industrial clusters in the fields of beauty, food, clothing customization, health care, leisure and entertainment. encourage enterprises in the cluster to continuously pursue and accumulate new knowledge and new technologies, and drive the common development of other brands outside the industrial cluster. for example, shanghai has become the city with the largest number of coffee shops in the world, and the subsequent coffee consumption is very active, from well-known brands to independent coffee shops. shanghai's coffee culture has penetrated every corner of the city, becoming a part of the daily life of citizens, and gradually forming a coffee culture industry advantage.

2. beijing: effective consumer communication

when international tourists go to rome, greece, and istanbul, they consume not the fruits of modernization, but the cultural atmosphere and historical relics with mixed medieval colors. similarly, when international tourists come to beijing, they want to consume the original cultural features that are far away from industrial civilization. therefore, to promote cultural consumption in beijing, we must use effective discourse methods and interesting consumer selling points to build beijing's unique cultural consumption environment from multiple angles.

1. we need to clarify discourse logic and spread effective consumer information

beijing does not use a consumption-oriented discourse mode, but a more serious discourse mode. in the cultural tourism industry, words such as "long history" and "thousand-year-old city" are often used to describe cultural heritage. this is not a problem in itself, but behind the "long history" is the interpretation of the length of time, not to establish communication with consumers at this moment. this can be referred to the practices of some international companies. for example, a household robot company is trying to occupy the overseas market. the robot technology content of this brand is at the forefront of the world, but in the communication strategy, they did not use "technological leadership" to promote the technological advantages. instead, in order to achieve communication with consumers, they even reduced the technical color and adopted a highly market-oriented publicity positioning, that is, entertainment, dollization, and marketization. beijing's cultural consumption also needs to provoke, create, and stimulate people's consumption desire, express discourse with consumption desire as the goal, and transform cultural resources into the market.

1. to understand consumer demand and satisfy consumers' gaming psychology

according to the national bureau of statistics, my country's consumer demand continues to recover, and digital consumption, green consumption, and healthy consumption have become new trends in consumption. in line with the consumption trend, it is necessary to make full use of operational strategies such as "daytime becomes all day", "traffic becomes retention", and "explosive popularity becomes long-term popularity" to broaden the consumption field and promote the economy to achieve effective qualitative improvement and reasonable quantitative growth. in marketing and promotion, it is also necessary to use internet thinking to fully consider the consumer psychology of various audiences, especially young audiences. games are human instinctive behaviors that stem from the exploration of the environment, the challenge of the unknown, and the improvement of skills. games provide a safe way to explore oneself and the world, and meet human needs for a sense of accomplishment, control, belonging, and self-expression. based on this instinctive appeal, beijing can add some product forms that break the inherent thinking when designing consumer products, and integrate game design concepts into the design of cultural products. for example, the "i know" tape of the national palace museum in taipei, taiwan, china, was launched, which opened up a sales trend of cultural and creative products. subsequently, the national palace museum in taipei launched the "jade cabbage umbrella" and "iceberg one-foot socks", which successfully captured the mentality of young people and aroused heated discussions and purchases among netizens.

3. “fun” beijing: three-dimensional consumption scene

guided by a series of policies such as the implementation plan for beijing to cultivate and build an international consumption center city (2021-2025) and the key points for beijing to cultivate and build an international consumption center city in 2024, beijing has gradually established a variety of consumption venues. however, venues and scenes are not the same. the difference between the two lies in how to attract people to go there and make people look forward to a certain consumption.

(1) we need to lay out consumption touchpoints and form a continuous consumption chain

consumer touchpoints are different consumption paths for consumers, and are any scenarios where brands and consumer groups come into contact and interact. touchpoint types can be divided into: influencing touchpoints, pre-purchase touchpoints, purchase touchpoints, and post-purchase touchpoints. beijing can make these key touchpoints into experience points that satisfy consumers through reasonable planning, design, and management, thereby persuading potential consumers to buy and guiding consumers to repurchase, and ultimately achieving a double increase in conversion rate and reputation. for example, in the touchpoint design of tourist attractions, many sales points in beijing's scenic spots are set up at the entrance of the scenic spot or at the edge of several scenic spots, which is not conducive to the conversion of consumer decisions. multiple flexible and movable sales points can be set up at important scenic spots, exhibitions, and intersections to facilitate customers to make instant purchases.

(2) we need to deepen the integration of culture and tourism and promote the consumption boom of live performances

the fast-paced lifestyle highlights the superficial nature of the tourism experience. it is difficult for international tourists to deeply understand the cultural charm of beijing through sightseeing. it is also difficult for the tour guides to provide high-level customized services. the result is often "visiting beijing" rather than "falling in love with beijing". large-scale cultural and tourism performances are almost a must-do itinerary for international tourists. this art form transcends history and national boundaries. it is a very important way of communication for western aesthetics that are keen on theater art. beijing has rich historical and cultural resources. reasonable layout of the cultural and tourism performance market is an important way to promote cultural consumption. it is necessary to fully mobilize beijing's cultural and tourism performance resources, fully combine cultural parks with art performances, and macro-layout the content of cultural and tourism performances. from the perspectives of historical stories, cultural evolution, modern development, etc. at different stages of beijing, the development of beijing in different periods can be shown, and different aspects of beijing stories can be told, so that tourists can understand the profound changes in beijing in the shortest time, and truly make cultural and museum scenic spots alive and moving.

about the author

gong yueqing, director of the government brand research center of beijing international studies university, master supervisor, associate professor