Place branding in the Øresund region: From a transnational region to a bi-national city-region

Abstract

The Oresund Region that connects Copenhagen metropolitan area in Denmark and Southern Sweden is an interesting example of a European cross-border collaboration. In this article, the contemporary development of the region and the place branding process is described. The aim is to increase understanding of how a complex and bi-national place brand is developed in a process of continuous change due to societal and political contexts. The article is inspired by a theoretical framework for place branding based on ideas from corporate branding (Kavaratzis, 2004) and organizational identity (Kavaratzis & Hatch, 2013), and emphasizes the role of media. The place branding process is defined in three contemporary phases: the public opinion phase, the invoking of a transnational brand phase, and the Europe of City-Regions phase. The analysis leads to two main conclusions: (1) the development of the current place brand at hand mirrors a possible change in geo-spatial focus in: from a transnational approach toward a bi-national city-based approach and (2) the case study suggests that a strategic communication logic, focusing residents rather than the wills of elites, is more relevant to such cases than a marketing logic.