One of Liverpool’s most highly-rated entrepreneurs says the city needs to focus ‘less on tourism and more on place’ if it’s to achieve its potential.
Nicola Docking is the managing director of leading creative marketing agency Poke and was speaking ahead of BusinessCloud’s FUEL Liverpool event on Friday May 16th.
She said she’s proud to base her agency in Liverpool and believes the city should be the attack brand for the wider Liverpool City Region.
Docking, who has been MD of Poke for two years, said: “Liverpool relies too heavily on its tourism brand. It needs to focus more on place like Manchester.
“There are a lot of stakeholders in Liverpool and there’s lots of processes to go through that mean the message is diluted by the time it comes to the end result.
“We talk a lot about ‘LCR’ but people outside the bubble don’t always know it stands for Liverpool City Region.
“People don’t talk about ‘Greater Manchester’, they talk about Manchester. Liverpool should talk about Liverpool as opposed to LCR. Having a strong city brand benefits everyone.”
Docking will be joined by a stellar line-up of speakers at FUEL Liverpool on May 16th including FuelHub CEO Michelle Laithwaite, Stephen Smullen, managing director, PB Group; Colin Greene, partner, Praetura Ventures; Scott Robertson, co-founder, Haulage Hub; Adam Shore, director, Liverpool Business School at LJMU; and Rob Sims, CEO, Sum Vivas.
FUEL Liverpool is being supported by Growth Platform and Liverpool Business School at Liverpool John Moores University.
Poke was founded in 2020 and has grown to 15 staff and £1.2m turnover on the back of some high profile client wins including Liverpool Cathedral, National Football Museum, Alder Hey Children’s Charity and EFL.
Docking said: “I’m hugely proud of the impact we’re making in the Liverpool creative scene.
“We are having our best year to date. My role as MD is to make sure everyone is the business is achieving their absolute best for Poke.
“We’re consistently investing in the team so we’re set up to successfully deliver the size and scale of projects that we want to deliver as part of our growth.”
FUEL Liverpool is a two-part event that forms part of the official LCR Innovation Investment Fortnight (IIF) programme, held from 12th-23rd May.
To register for FUEL Liverpool here