John Donnelly has been CEO of Marketing Edinburgh for three years.

Some of the best quotes from his recent interview with Phyllis Stephen of the Edinburgh Reporter newspaper:

• “This city doesn’t just sell itself you know.”
• “My background is running advertising agencies, so my first task was to devise a proper written brief and as part of that there are measurable objectives. In advertising you only ever respond to a proper written brief."
• “The two hard objectives or metrics were that the campaign had to deliver more than 2% above UK average in terms of footfall and above the UK average retail spend."
• [After a year] “The metrics were terrific. It showed that more than 90% of people in the city were aware of the campaign..."
• “We now have ThisisEdinburgh.com that has 120,000 unique visitors a month and a social media audience of about 300,00..."
• Regarding the need for an Edinburgh brand: “There is ... a school of thought that the brand is already This is Edinburgh and people have connected with that..."
• “While Edinburgh is very well known there are many other cities in Europe which spend a lot more money to promote themselves. So to get more inward investment from tourism we need to make a concerted effort.”
• “I believe that Edinburgh can be a bit inward looking and it really needs to be represented across the world."
• “If all that is built here is premium hotels then we will only get certain types of visitors."
• “I guess if you want my business mantra it is to be honest. In marketing there are lots of words and jargon which don’t mean anything. It is always best just to be honest and treat people as you would be treated yourself..."