Isle of Man Freedom to Flourish

Another event to I headed off to after a busy day on the Isle of Man was the Chartered Institute of Marketing event being held at the Hilton hotel Douglas. This evenings event was focused on the Isle of Man’s branding initiative ‘Freedom to Flourish’. The event was well supported by around fifty of the Isle of Mans marketing fraternity where they viewed a presentation by Alistar Audsley on the progress of the Isle of Man’s ‘Freedom to Flourish’ campaign.

Freedom to flourish is a strategy for enhancing the national identity of the Isle of Man and was developed through a number of research and consultations carried out over the past view years. The core focus of this is a set of values that encompass the strap line ‘Giving you freedom to flourish’, based around a promise which is:

The Isle of Man is a land of possibility where people and business will find the right environment in which to reach their full potential, whatever they feel that might be.

I was lead to believe that the strategy is already being implemented across the Isle of Man (although I dont think its been publicised that well – not good from a bunch of marketers!) and has been lead by local politicians and a number of supporting comittees made up of a cross representation of local business and community groups who’s primary aim is to create an environment in which business and residents can flourish.

One of the new initiatives that has recently started is the Isle of Man Champions scheme with early recruits namely Manx Telecom and the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, there job is to promote the Isle of Man by using the Freedom to Flourish values within their behaviour, cusotmer service as well as marketing and press campaigns. Another such initiative is a community scheme called the Kenya experience where youngsters from the Isle of Man are encouraged to travel abroad and assist in local community work.

The presentation also touched on some new guides that are available to local business’s on the Isle of Man aimed at promoting the island in a positive and consistent way, anyone interested in these can view them on the Isle of Man Government website. Its at this point I feel like they are trying to spoon feed us all!

All in all the presentation was very positive and seemed to be received very well. It seems that a lot of work has been put in from the concept side, and on paper this all looks extremely encouraging, however, there is a however Im afraid, I do feel that the hardwork is yet to come if this is to be a real success and the Freedom to Flourish strategy keeps its promise to the residents of the Isle of Man. The proof of the pudding as they say!

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• The best sea food the Isle of Man has to offer!
• Money Media Isle of Man goes online or does it?
• Isle of Man – Virtually! virtualiom.com