Vietovės prekės ženklo kūrimo koncepcijų teorinės įžvalgos

Abstract

In recent years place branding phenomena gets more and more attention in marketing science literature, this is based on raising amount of articles and untraditional place branding phenomena analysis concepts. Because of the rising amount of articles and different philosophies of place branding it is getting hard to understand differences between and compare it. Usage of different concepts and tools for place branding, sometimes even different understanding of the phenomena is influenced by different attitudes to place branding. For people just starting to analyze or use place branding phenomena is hard to find systematic information about different ways of place branding. That’s why authors analyze different views of place branding, value creation process, strong and weak sides of it. In the scientific literature of place branding two different views to place branding is found – branding places as products / services and place branding in corporate branding style. After analysis of place branding as product or services was found that core principle is to create competitive advantage and value for customer, which helps to sell place or place’s product for customers. Application of product branding concept for places provide tools for place communication, product development, pricing, sales promotion and in additional it gives background to create brand personality. L. Maheshwari (2011) offers the opinion that place marketing for today’s changing environment, because it cannot offer effective planning and decision making tools for target group selection and communication. In summary of place branding concept analysis, firstly it should be said, that main issue of this concept is creation of competitive advantage by forming unique place image and communicating it by integrated approach. Because of many stakeholder involved in the process, their values, attitudes should be integrated. Branding made in this way secures place changes in desired way and future needs. Image creation process is made by communication process which transforms place identity to place image. Place branding analysis object is place image, which forms in customer mind by images and perception. Place image is customer perceptions of place identity. Destination branding concept absorbs main principles form corporate branding based place branding concept. Brand value creation is based on image, which helps to create emotional connection, current and future visitors’ perceptions about the place. In the creation process of brand identity, citizen’s opinions and wills are taken into account too. Destination branding concept despite of being very close to corporate branding concept has product / service branding elements – it strives for attracting visitors, gaining competitive advantage from competitors and sell place for visitors. Destination branding do not take into account social responsibility and sustainable development ideas, main attention is pointed to strategy formulation and operational and tactical activities planning and implementation.