This paper began with the assertion of the
existence of a gap between two approaches and
usages of place branding; that of the public
sector place managers and that of the commercial
producers. This gap has not been bridged
here but its dimensions have been specified and
some of the confusion resulting from two quite
different approaches can, to an extent at least,
be ordered.
The Kotler et al. (1993) approach, shared implicitly
by most of the marketing science experts
cited here, stems from the standpoint and experience
of commercial product marketing. Here,
there is no logical or practical difficulty in
transposing physical and place products, commercial
and public corporations, customers and
place users. Place branding becomes the use of
place names as products and the use of place
attributes as associations for products.
In contrast our approach stems from the viewpoint
and experience of place management,
where marketing terminology, techniques
and philosophies have been used for at least a
decade as part of public sector management for
collective goals. In so far as brands are assets,
which are expensive to create and manage, it is
not surprising that brand owners endeavour
to protect them from predatory competitors. It
is perhaps a significant distinction that copyright
law rarely applies to place products. (The
‘champagne’ type case copyrights the nomenclature
as product name not the place product
in our sense of the word.) The disputes that
have occurred, such as the ‘battles’ between
spatial jurisdictions for ‘Robin Hood Country’
or ‘King Arthur’s Camelot’ have not resorted to
judicial resolution, which indicates a number of
significant differences between place products
and other products.
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.