City Branding Process Research Articles

Strategic design to foster City-Citizen Interactions

Just as people are crucial to places’ existence, they are also essential to their brand. Motivated by the curiosity to explore the role of citizens in city branding, this research was undertaken by investigating extant theories, practices and – most importantly – citizens’ opinions on participating in the city branding process. The key research finding was that citizens’ perceptions of the city are formed by their experiences: in the city, including the physical and virtual space of the city, and with the city, through their interactions with its other inhabitants. This presented an opportunity to provide pragmatic guidelines to city marketers and governments to assist the development of citizen-centric branding initiatives led by strategic design. An Interactions framework was developed, placing citizens’ perceptions at its core and mobilising interactions across three levels: where the interactions can take place, who can aid the interactions and how designers can facilitate interactions to invoke participation. It became evident that design-led interactions can generate innovative ways of city branding. Keywords: city branding, city brand management, City-Citizen Interactions, strategic design.

Stakeholder engagement in the city branding process

This paper explores perceptions of stakeholder engagement in the city branding process from the perspective of two post-industrial cities: Sheffield, UK, and Essen, Germany. This qualitative research utilises a multi-case study approach, which allowed for semi-structure interviews and semiotics to be used. Preliminary findings highlight that there are four stakeholder ‘levels’. Each of these stakeholder groupings is involved in the city branding process to some extent. Findings suggest that the degree of involvement strongly depends on the primary stakeholders, who are seen as key decision-makers in the branding process. These primary stakeholders select other stakeholders that ‘can’ be involved in the branding process. Although this may be beneficial, it is vital to provide more opportunities and incorporate stakeholders that are willing to participate in the branding process. Alienating stakeholders may also lead to losing parts of an identity that is based on heritage. The focus is on two cities with a highly industrialised background, thus findings may not be applicable to cities without this heritage. This paper looks at both stakeholder engagement and city branding, thereby proposing four layers of stakeholder involvement in the city branding process.

Restrictions on the use of the Aaker model in the measurement of city brand personality: The sender’s perspective

The aim of this article is to explore the limitations of the extensibility of the Aaker’s brand personality framework to small and medium-sized city branding. Previous research with similar aims focused on the measurement of perceiving city brand personality dimensions from the recipient’s perspective. This article adopts the perspective of ‘senders’ in the city branding process, thus focusing on the projected city brand personality. The results of a survey among managers responsible for the promotion of Polish towns/cities revealed that the Aaker model of brand personality is not adequate to describe the personality of cities’ brands. Apart from disregarding certain city personality dimensions existing in their branding strategies (as desired by cities marketers), the Aaker model incorporates dimensions that are absent in desired images of cities brands.

Challenges of city branding: A comparative study of 10 European cities

This article focuses on challenges faced by city brand managers when they attempt to create and sustain the brands of their cities. This comparative study examines challenges faced in the city branding processes of 10 European cities and is based on interviews with 17 high-ranking city branding practitioners. Nine major challenges were identified: large number of stakeholders; limited understanding of branding among key stakeholders; limited internal buy-in amongst stakeholders; difficulties in securing sufficient funding; general slowness and time related challenges; organizational issues and lack of authority to lead; operational level challenges in marketing communication campaigns and in transferring the brand identity to product experiences; and finally, poor situational awareness resulting from poor monitoring.

Dahntahn discourses and neighborhood narratives: Communicating the city brand of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

In line with the new trend toward participatory city branding processes, this article offers four theoretical principles and practices that guide a communicative approach to city branding. Specifically, this article (i) theoretically explores how different voices of the city construct public perceptions of a city’s brand images and brand identities, and (ii) offers a conceptual methodology that marketers could use to engage, invite, listen and hermeneutically ‘read’ such discourses and narratives to reveal unique meanings of the city’s key attributes. Drawing on Ricoeur’s narrative theory, Hauser’s view of publics and literature from socio-spatial studies of urban branding, this article argues for a public-oriented understanding of city brands that focuses on the dialectical relationship between narrative and the symbolic meanings that publics attach to shared social spaces. This article supplements current city branding literature by exploring how public discourses and narratives form, enhance and communicate key meanings of the city, and how marketers can identify and integrate such understandings in communicating the city brand. A case study of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s discourses and narratives was then explored to unearth key metaphors of the city that marketers could – and what is argued should – be communicated as the city brand.

Rebranding Hong Kong “Green”: the potential for connecting city branding with green resources

This paper addresses the dearth of knowledge and theoretical development on how ecological or environmental factors such as green resources can be integrated into the concept of city branding. The gap-branding model used for identifying the perceptual disparities in a city branding process was modified to incorporate the theme of green resources such as parks and green spaces. The dimensions and elements of a green city brand were designated and tested in a study using a questionnaire survey with local and non-local city consumers in Hong Kong. The results explored the potential for branding a metropolis by its green resources and identified two distinctive Green (Resource) Brand Pentagons for each respondent group. A comparative analysis was also conducted to explain how the two groups of city consumers perceived the green resources of Hong Kong similarly and differently. This paper acts as a pilot study to bridge the disciplines of marketing and geography.

Moving Milan towards Expo 2015: designing culture into a city brand

PurposeTo create a competitive edge in today's tourism marketplace, cities seek to differentiate themselves and create a positive image. Yet, there is little consensus about city branding processes and few case studies. This paper aims to explore Milan's brand image and personality, focusing on the extent to which its image is dominated by business and fashion or culture and heritage and the implications of this positioning for Milan's re‐branding in preparation for Expo 2015.Design/methodology/approachThe paper combines quantitative and qualitative primary research. It reports the findings of a questionnaire survey, a web survey, desk research and focus group research. It analyses actual and potential tourists' perceptions, Milan's heritage product, current brand personality and the brand fingerprint.FindingsBusiness tourism is central to Milan's prosperity; in contrast, its significant cultural attractions remain marginal to its tourism offer. This results in a narrow range of tourist perceptions of the destination and highly seasonal tourist activity.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper represents the discovery phase research for a new city brand and further longitudinal and qualitative work is required.Practical implicationsThe paper includes implications for the development of a consistent destination branding strategy analyzing the first steps of the definition of the Milan's brand.Originality/valueThe paper makes practical recommendations to tourism and place marketing practitioners for broadening Milan's brand to build on the city's strong architectural and cultural heritage. It also has value for tourism academics since it makes a methodological contribution to the place branding literature through its use of projective techniques.