BEFORE PLACE BRANDING
The application of marketing techniques and the adoption of a market¬ing 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 manage¬ment, 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 specifically 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 favour¬able place images to potential customers, investors or residents has been actively pursued'. Thus, any consideration of the fundamental geographi¬cal 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 difficulties and misalign¬ments, 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 identified (Kavaratzis and Ashworth, 2008). Despite the accumulated experience, significant issues surrounding the application of place marketing remain in need of further practical clarification as well as clearer theoretical development. Indeed, as Skinner's (2008) comprehensive review of the literature has concluded, place marketing is suffering from a 'confused identity', which stems, along with other factors, from the different subject areas and professional interests of the various commentators (Skinner, 2008).