Hamburg Marketing GmbH (HMG)

Hamburg Marketing GmbH (HMG) was founded in 2004 by the Senate (government) of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (FHH).

Why does HMG exist?

When Hamburg bid to stage the 2012 Olympic Games, it became apparent that if Hamburg was in future to be perceived as one of the strongest metropolises in Europe, then national and international location marketing needed to be considerably strengthened. One reason for this was the diffuse and little coordinated performance of the city’s sectoral marketing companies (business development, trade fair and congress, airport, seaport, HafenCity, Hamburg.de, tourism). While these were acting very successfully in relation to their own specific target groups, a joint strategy was almost completely lacking for combining these activities under one umbrella brand, the Hamburg brand, to boost this and on the other hand, also to be able to profit from it. HMG was therefore set up with a remit to develop one unmistakable brand profile, from which the sectoral marketing activities of those promoting the Hamburger location and/or doing city marketing would profit, hence improving location marketing as a whole.

Pilot phase

In view of the immense importance of city marketing, it was laid down when HMG was founded that its work should be evaluated after a period of three years. The idea was that the results would be used in deciding on the continuation of the company and possible alterations to its structure and substantive direction. The findings of the evaluation conducted at the end of 2006 confirmed that in its first three years, HMG had successfully made considerable efforts to position Hamburg more emphatically at both national and international level. Marketing for the Hamburg location by an independent organization – HMG – is accordingly being continued.

Realignment and reinforcement of HMG
In order to optimize HMG’s work for the future, its structure and substantive orientation have been adapted:

• The spectrum of tasks has now been clearly formulated.
• Structural improvements have been made to HMG’s cooperation with the other public sector companies and government agencies.
• HMG has involved additional players, in particular the metropolitan region, in its work.

These points formed the foundation for the restructuring of HMG in 2007. The partners in the company are now FHH (55 %), Hamburg Chamber of Commerce (HK) (30 %) and also – since July 2007 –  the local government districts of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region and the partner district of Ludwigslust (15%). The Supervisory Board consists of six FHH representatives, three from the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce and two representatives for all the districts of the metropolitan region. The Chairman of the HMG Supervisory Board is Ole von Beust, First Mayor of Hamburg, while the managing directors of HMG are Thorsten Kausch and Heinrich Lieser.