Place branding from the standpoint of the
place recognises that place products remain
places with the distinct attributes that accrue
to places, such as spatial scale, spatial hierarchies,
resulting scale shadowing, the inherent multiplicity
and vagueness of goals, product-user
combinations and consumer utilities. All these
and more (as outlined in Ashworth & Voogd
1990) make places distinctive products and thus
place branding a distinctive form of product
branding. If these distinctions can be recognised
and incorporated into the process then it
becomes a valid and effective form of management:
if not, it is an irrelevant distraction.