The relevance of cultural production – Pori Jazz – in boosting place brand equity

Abstract

This article uses the case study design to unpack the cultural production that occurs in relation to the Pori Jazz Festival in Finland. The research on this topic lies in the overlap between three knowledge domains – brand identity formation, marketing and media content analysis. Although closely related these fields have developed separately, resulting in equivocality, a core problem in sense making, which in turn constrains efforts to reduce uncertainty. This case provides insight into what happens when the aspirations embedded within the identity of Pori, a relatively small community, interact with the realities of international marketing decisions. Although appropriate for assessing consumer purchase behaviour, marketing is outside-in-oriented and overlooks the role of the cultural context, particularly the community identity embedded in social networks. The purpose of this article is to examine, from a brand equity perspective, the impact of the context on the content of the Pori Jazz Festival in relation to the city and the audiences on three distinct levels. Re-creating the ‘global city’ builds on the fact that the Pori Jazz Festival has existed for nearly 50 years. It has created brand equity at the local, national and international levels, thereby boosting the place brand equity of the host city. The methodologically multi-layered content analysis supported the image transfer between the event and the host city. We also found that the event contributed to destination awareness, perceived quality, brand associations, and destination loyalty and positioning. Furthermore, our results suggest that cultural producers can leverage the distinct reputation of an event as a magnet attracting resources to the host city. Hence, more research is needed in order to identify the networks the festival organization is managing.