Place branding: where do we stand
The overall aim of this book is to examine and clarify several aspects of the
recently popularized concept of place branding. Many of the constituents
of the application of branding to places, such as identities, image, promotion
or sense of place, have been around for a long time. However, the
need to analyse their nature in the context of branding and to examine their
relationships in detail has grown rapidly in the last decade or so, as places
all over the world have put branding activities higher than ever in their
agenda. Many controversies, confusions and discords will be discussed in
the chapters that follow. This introductory chapter examines contemporary
place branding understanding in the literature and describes how the
issues discussed in the chapters of this book relate to the general topic and
to each other. To start with, it is worth taking a brief look at the wider
setting of place marketing.
BEFORE PLACE BRANDING
The application of marketing techniques and the adoption of a marketing
philosophy in order to meet operational and strategic goals of places
have been well established both in practice and in theory. The rapid rise
in popularity of place marketing over the past decade, to the extent that
it has become an acceptable and commonplace activity of place management,
may give the impression that this is a recent phenomenon. It is not.
Places have long felt a need to differentiate themselves from each other
in order to assert their individuality and distinctive characteristics in
pursuit of various economic, political or socio- psychological objectives.
The conscious attempt of governments to shape a specifi cally designed
place identity and promote it to identified markets, whether external or
internal, is almost as old as government itself. The phenomenon of places
transferring marketing knowledge to their own operational needs is not
as novel as one might think. As Ashworth and Voogd (1994:39) describe:
‘since Leif Ericson sought new settlers in the 8th century for his newly
discovered “green” land, the idea of the deliberate projection of favourable
place images to potential customers, investors or residents has been
actively pursued’. Thus, any consideration of the fundamental geographical
idea of sense of place must include the deliberate creation of such
senses through place marketing. However, the way it has been used, the
instruments available, the active agencies, and the goals pursued have all
evolved as a result of sets of changes in both the marketing and planning
disciplines as described below. The transfer of marketing knowledge to
the operational environment of cities has caused diffi culties and misalignments,
which could be attributed to several reasons, all of which are related
to the peculiar nature of places as marketable assets. Several ways in which
marketing has been related to places have been identifi ed (Kavaratzis and
Ashworth, 2008). Despite the accumulated experience, signifi cant issues
surrounding the application of place marketing remain in need of further
practical clarifi cation as well as clearer theoretical development. Indeed,
as Skinner’s (2008) comprehensive review of the literature has concluded,
place marketing is suff ering from a ‘confused identity’, which stems,
along with other factors, from the diff erent subject areas and professional
interests of the various commentators (Skinner, 2008).