Brandient has been contracted by the Association for the Promotion of Tourism in Oradea and its Region (APTOR) for the conceptualization and consolidation of the Oradea destination brand. The project starts, symbolically, on 1 December 2018, on the occasion of the centenary anniversary of modern Romania, and its finalization is planned for launch in May 2019. The contract is subject to the legal norms regarding public projects, and includes a pro-bono component offered by Brandient.
Bucharest and Singapore, December 2018
The creation of a city brand is a modern strategic approach to the city's relationship with its inhabitants, visitors (tourists) and investors — all of them being stakeholders in the development of the city. Such a conscious and programmatic approach to city branding always leads to a superior valorization of the economic and social potential, while the local development policies gain an ideological instrument for aligning the plans and aspirations of the various groups of stakeholders. The result is the fulfilment of the expectations of those who live, work, do business, invest, and enjoy spending time in the city.
„Suntem onorați și recunoscători Asociației APTOR și Primăriei Oradea pentru oportunitatea de a fi parteneri într-un proiect strategic de asemenea amploare. Într-un context tot mai îngrijorător de de-populare a României, echipe de leadership precum cea condusă de primarul Oradei, domnul Ilie Bolojan, s-au dovedit a fi, practic, singura soluție de a genera progres la nivelul regiunilor, de a atrage investitori, turiști și consumatori interesați de produsele locale – și nu în cele din urmă, de a stopa exodul tinerilor și al talentelor. Oradea a devenit în ultimii ani un model de administrație inteligentă și vizionară, și este acum în stadiul în care are nevoie de un instrumentar modern de management al businessului de destinație.”
We are honoured and grateful to the APTOR Association and to the Oradea City Hall for the opportunity to be partners in a strategic project of such scale. In an ever more worrying context of de-population of Romania, leadership teams such as the one led by the mayor of Oradea, Mr Ilie Bolojan, have proven to be, practically, the only solution for generating progress at the level of the regions, for attracting investors, tourists and consumers interested in the local products — and not least, for stopping the exodus of the young and of the talents. Oradea has become in recent years a model of intelligent and visionary administration, and is now at the stage where it needs a modern toolkit for the management of the destination business.
—Aneta Bogdan, Managing Partner Brandient
The project will be coordinated by Mihai Jurca, Executive Director of the APTOR Association, and will benefit from the support of a steering committee formed of representatives of the local businesses, of education, culture and the arts, of the young and the students, of the religious denominations — as well as of local opinion leaders.
„Conturarea unui brand de oraș este un demers pe care l-am abordat la începutul anului 2018, printr-un concurs public, care în ciuda faptului că nu a desemnat un câștigător, a asigurat un nivel de transparență obligatoriu pentru astfel de proiecte (vezi site-ul www.brandoradea.ro). Nu am reușit să desemnăm un câștigător, pentru că nici o propunere nu ne-a convins din perspectiva strategică, și a trebuit să ne recunoaștem limitele și să acceptăm umil observațiile și criticile constructive ale participanților și publicului. Este clar că un brand nu se poate conceptualiza prin concurs public și, în această logică, am decis să abordăm cei mai reputați specialiști români din domeniu și ne bucurăm că au acceptat provocarea și propunerea noastră. De asemenea, suntem convinși că expertiza și munca Brandient vor fi un factor care va aduce valoare adăugată orașului, acesta din urmă fiind scopul pe care l-am atribuit procesului de branding în Oradea. Ne bucurăm și suntem onorați de încrederea și sprijinul pe care Brandient ni le-a oferit când au decis să construim împreună acest proiect, știind experiența și numeroasele premii internaționale în proiecte mari de branding, acumulate de echipa Brandient.”
Shaping a city brand is an endeavour we approached at the beginning of 2018, through a public competition which, despite the fact that it did not designate a winner, ensured a level of transparency mandatory for such projects (see the website www.brandoradea.ro). We did not manage to designate a winner, because no proposal convinced us from the strategic perspective, and we had to acknowledge our limits and humbly accept the observations and the constructive criticism of the participants and of the public. It is clear that a brand cannot be conceptualized through a public competition and, in this logic, we decided to approach the most reputed Romanian specialists in the field, and we are glad that they accepted our challenge and our proposal. We are also convinced that the expertise and work of Brandient will be a factor that will bring added value to the city, the latter being the purpose we have assigned to the branding process in Oradea. We are glad and honoured by the trust and support that Brandient offered us when we decided to build this project together, knowing the experience and the numerous international awards in large branding projects accumulated by the Brandient team.
—Mihai Jurca, Executive Director APTOR
The project will go through several stages, starting with the round of consultation with the stakeholders — targeting the representatives of the economic and business groups, education, culture and arts, the young and the students, managers of public and social projects, religious denominations, etc. — and will then continue with the conceptualization of the brand at the ideological and visual level, and further on, with the creation and design of concrete, foundational manifestations of the brand. To this end, Brandient will put at the client's disposal its entire team of consultants and designers, under the leadership of Aneta Bogdan FCIM, Managing Partner Brandient, and of Cristian Kit Paul, Creative Director Brandient.
Brandient has offices in Bucharest and in Singapore and works with a multidisciplinary team of brand consultants and designers. The Brandient approach is always subordinated to the objectives of maximizing the value of its clients' business. More details about Brandient, as well as case studies, can be found at www.brandient.com
About the Association for the Promotion of Tourism in Oradea and its Region
The Association for the Promotion of Tourism in Oradea and its Region (APTOR or Visit Oradea) is the destination management organization of Oradea, a public-private partnership whose main purpose is the development of the local tourism policies and of the local cultural agenda. Founded in 2014 at the initiative of the Oradea City Hall with the involvement and support of Ramada Oradea, Double Tree by Hilton Oradea, Lotus Center, Group President Băile Felix, the Oradea Metropolitan Area and the Local Development Agency, the organization has reached and even exceeded the objectives set at the moment of its founding. A good indicator of its activity is the number of tourists, which in 2014 stood at 160,000, reaching the figure of over 220,000 tourists in 2017. Building on the coherent and sustained investment policy of the local administration, APTOR has managed to maintain a 20% annual growth in the number of tourists and to make known the most important values, achievements and places that the city of Oradea has.
With over 70 events organized in the last two years, where we delighted over 450,000 participants, the 3-person team of the Visit Oradea destination management organization is one of the few organizations active at national level.
More details about our work on the Visit Oradea Facebook, Instagram and Youtube pages.
About Brandient
Brandient is an independent brand strategy and design consultancy founded in Bucharest in 2002 by Aneta Bogdan, Cristian Kit Paul and Mihai Bogdan — never part of a global network, working directly for the owners, CEOs and boards of its clients, with an all-senior team and category exclusivity. In over two decades the firm has created or rebuilt more than 300 brands, 279 of them published as case studies at brandient.com/work — from Romania’s national leaders to brands carried worldwide. The firm has been active in Southeast Asia for more than a decade. The work has earned 84 international awards and distinctions — most recently a Red Dot (2025) and two Graphis Golds (2026) — 64 documented mentions in international design books and publications, and, in 2015, a place among the inaugural inductees of the REBRAND Hall of Fame, alongside Interbrand and MetaDesign.
About Oradea
Oradea, a city of some 184,000 on Romania’s western border, is the country’s Art Nouveau capital — with around 89 listed Art Nouveau buildings and a place in the Council of Europe’s Réseau Art Nouveau Network — and was, after a decade of urban regeneration, named Europe’s best Art Nouveau destination in 2022. Brandient created the city’s destination brand pro bono in 2018–2019 and carried the work forward through 2022: the Oradea case, the Cetatea Oradea case.