Building the Image of a Place Brand with the Support of Local Commercial Brands. Poznan Brand Consortium Case Study

Abstract

Local commercial brands are increasingly perceived as vehicles to build the image of the place from which these brands originate. Local products, services or companies, through their brand values, personalities and their approach to marketing communica- tion, infl uence the way their places of origin are perceived. It comes as no surprise that places have started to use the best well-known brands to promote themselves. However, this approach is used in the context of countries rather than smaller scale places. Th e aim of this paper is to present the image relationships between the place brand and local commer- cial brands originating from that place. To make the symbiosis successful, a place as well as local brands need to defi ne the areas of their image concurrence and strength. Th is paper discusses the case of the Poznan Brand Consortium set up in order to support the brand of Poznan City. Th e NeedScope technique was used to analyse the level of concurrence or confl ict of the images between the commercial brands and the Poznan City brand. Th e results revealed that only part of the brands' images are in concord with the perception and values of Poznan while it tends to vary from one surveyed group to another. What is more, in general the local brands do not cover all desired associations with the city. Th e analysis thus enables place marketers to adequately exploit single commercial brands in specifi c contexts and select other ones in order to achieve the desired image of a city.