From place marketing to place branding – and back: a need for re-evaluation

Citation

Kalandides, A. and Kavaratzis, M. (2009), "From place marketing to place branding – and back: a need for re-evaluation", Journal of Place Management and Development, Vol. 2 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jpmd.2009.35502aaa.001

From place marketing to place branding – and back: a need for re-evaluation

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Place Management and Development, Volume 2, Issue 1

Place marketing and place branding techniques are believed to provide valuable tools for cities, regions and even nations to effectively manage their internal and external opportunities and transform them into competitive advantages. Place branding is steadily growing into an industry, attracting significant amounts of investment. However, little consensus has been achieved as yet on the exact nature of place branding, its relation to other forms of local development efforts and its efficient implementation. Furthermore, the governance of place branding, specifically the management of the process of participation in place branding initiatives and the way in which these initiatives are planned, managed and directed towards concrete goals, is often a matter of tension and dispute. A distinct gap, with severe implications for place branding implementation, exists particularly between theory and practice, as communication between the two is not straightforward and no “common language” has been developed. The lack of a common language is evident between theoreticians as well, as they very often use place branding and related terms, attributing to them radically different meanings. In fact, the only consistent group within place branding advocates seems to be an influential group of consultants who either sell logos and slogans to place authorities in need or suggest top-down, mechanistic methodologies to develop place brands oblivious to their wider socio-cultural roots and effects.

The past 20 years have seen the abundant production of literature on place marketing and branding, which has elaborated the field in many directions. For the most part literature concentrates on the technical analysis of case studies or the development of tool-kits, with only the occasional attempt at theoretical approaches. In other words, we deal a lot with “how to do it”, but little with “what is it that we are doing in the first place”. This may be the reaction to the need for quick and straightforward answers by policy makers or rooted in the nature of the disciplines involved in the field.

The international conference “City Marketing: Place Branding in Perspective” which took place in Berlin from 4 to 6 December 2008 aimed at setting place branding theory and practice in these wider perspectives. It addressed several issues surrounding place marketing and place branding conceptualization and implementation in an effort to contribute towards a more efficient practice and sounder theoretical base for this field of inquiry. The intent was to promote dialogue among professionals from the academic, political and consultancy sectors about the relations between place marketing, place branding and urban and regional development and their significance for contemporary places.

The papers selected for this special issue of the Journal of Place Management and Development were presented at the Berlin conference and deal with several of the issues mentioned above. Our contention is that there are two urgent needs for the development of place branding as a field of knowledge. The first is that we need to achieve an agreement on the very essence of place branding as an activity and the second is to attempt to define the scope of the activity. Is place branding an image-building mechanism that inevitably reduces the inherent complexity of places into a “workable” entity? Is place branding attempting to communicate an oversimplified message that the place cannot be reduced to in the first place? The case of conflicting images is presented in the article by De Carlo et al. The authors claim that Milan communicates a strong brand as a centre of fashion and business whereas other competing images, e.g. a city of culture and heritage are consequently very weak. This has resulted in a “narrow range of tourist perceptions of the destination” and has “created a seasonal pattern of tourist activity in the city”.

The issue examined in the article by Sebastian Zenker through the example of the, so popular nowadays, creative class, is whether we can apply to places the methods of segmentation and targeting, as we do with commercial corporations. Is place branding a process of building competitive advantages? This notion is what traps places into the narrow-sighted view of competition and forces them to ignore opportunities for cooperation that are abundant in place marketing. Is place marketing attempting to replace urban policy and leave the fates of places in the hands of “advertisers”? This would be particularly contradictive given that the discussion on place branding seems to be taking place within a non-political context despite its highly political nature. This is an issue elaborated on in the article by Margarita Pérez Negrete, which highlights the connection of place branding to politics and policies of various sorts.

Additionally, there are several issues concerning the practice of place branding discussed in some of the papers in this issue. In an attempt to link place branding to public diplomacy, Marcus Andersson and Per Ekman offer a structured analysis of an often ignored instrument, the so-called “ambassador network”, in their practitioner-focused paper. They claim that, if used properly, it can indeed be a very efficient tool for branding places. Olivia Wagner and Mike Peters propose the use of a “collage” technique – a particular unstructured qualitative method – in order to understand internal stakeholders’ perceptions of a place. Finally, the need for the development of assessment techniques of place branding activities is a matter dealt with in the article by Björn Jacobsen. The author suggests one possible way to measure the effectiveness of place branding or what is often termed place brand equity.

Several significant questions remain open and will need further research and analysis.

First of all there still seems to be no general agreement as to how to understand place branding and how this differs from place marketing or even simply promotion. The terms are still often used interchangeably. One reason behind this lack of precision may be that geographers or planners know little about branding. Is place branding part of place marketing or the other way around? Is place branding (or place marketing for that matter) a strategic orientation or a tactical practice?

Secondly, place branding is based on the principle that places can be treated as “products” and can be sold as such. What is obviously missing here is geographical thinking by many who work in the field. Conceptualizing place as something more than territory, has serious implications for the way we brand or market it: it raises questions of scale, contingency or identity. Is the marketing of a real estate development the same as branding a neighbourhood a city a region or a nation? Why is the interconnectedness of places, i.e. the way they are mutually constituted, overlooked by usual place marketing rhetoric? A common justification for place branding expenses is that places need to brand themselves in the contemporary competitive arena. However, cooperation and competition coexist to an extent unknown in the traditional applications of marketing and branding. Furthermore, it is taken for granted they there exists something called “place identity” and this can be both manipulated and tapped. Yet, conceptualisation of this identity and how it is constituted seems to be rather vague. Also, places serve different functions and have different meanings for different people. A tourism destination is radically different from a place of residence, although they both use the same space. Can branding accommodate both?

Thirdly, all these questions mentioned above seem to interest researchers in particular fields, but are secondary for practitioners of city marketing. They need to deal with issues such as effectiveness, funding, governance or success assessment. As in many other disciplines, it seems that the dialogue between theoreticians and practitioners is a one way road. Researchers base their empirical work on real cases and are thus used to examining closely the work of practitioners. Practitioners on the other hand need fast, easy answers which theoreticians cannot offer; or when they do, these answers seem to have the quality of recipes or tool-kits.

All of the above might lead sceptics to an essential question: is place branding effective or even useful? To even tackle this question, there is a need to create a common body of knowledge and vocabulary among different disciplines working in the field. The conference touched upon all those issues, but as David Bennison in his conference report (this issue) mentions, whether there is “a critical mass of people with a commonly shared understanding” remains to be seen. This Special Issue is a further attempt to continue fostering the dialogue.

Ares Kalandides and Mihalis KavaratzisGuest Editors