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Purpose -The aim of the present study is to add to the existing research on online city branding by studying how metropolitan cities are internationally positioned using the internet and online branding. The focus is on objectives and strategies, method and expression (including five illustrations), and challenges in online city branding. Design/methodology/approach -The article relies on a single-case study approach, using the Chinese city of Chengdu as a case and illustration. Methods used are interviews, observations and documentation (including online material). Findings -The study illustrates how Chengdu uses online city branding in its international positioning. Chengdu's online branding is influenced by certain imagery, as well as challenges. Collaboration and endorsement crystalize as central elements in Chengdu's online city branding. Research limitations/implications -This article and study can be seen as an important element in broadening the understanding for online city branding to international audiences. Practical implications -The study offers insights to practitioners on how online city branding is carried out in a Chinese context and in the city of Chengdu. Originality/value -The study can be regarded as an important contribution to an area of practice and research which still is fairly new and unexplored, and an area that hitherto has not been well covered in the international literature.

This article aims to explore the digitization of festival engagement due to the emergence of social media and the associated consequences this development brings for festivals and place brands. This is done by drawing on a study of eight festivals that took place in Sweden during the summer of 2015. In total, a material of 77,034 user-generated contents published in social media were collected and analyzed. The presented results illustrate that the studied festivals enjoy considerable levels of digital engagement and that this also generates engagement for the associated places in which the festivals take place. In view of these findings, this article presents the concepts of digital festival engagement and digital place-brand engagement to explain the interplay that takes place between festivals and place brands in social media. By doing so, this article contributes to extant literature within the field of event management by depicting how the digitization of festival engagement adds increased complexity as engagement manifests both physically and digitally, which in turn gives rise to several conceptual and managerial challenges in regards to the management of consumer engagement.

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of the underlying rationale for why companies participate in mega‐events in general, and in mega‐events in emerging economies – such as the 2010 Shanghai Expo – in particular. Of particular interest are the ways that companies use an event to advance their own purposes, and how experiences are created that use aspects of an event setting such as Expo 2010.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on a participatory, ethnographic and longitudinal field study focusing on the VIP section of the Swedish Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo, using additional data from other national pavilions and respondents with insight into Expo 2010 and its organization.FindingsThe study indicates that even though companies operationally used the World Expo and the VIP section in many different ways, an underlying element appears to be to use the event for the “practice of communification”.Practical implicationsThe study provides practitioners with a conceptual framework and tools to manage the co‐creation process of experiences at events. This is done by supplying an empirical example from World Expo 2010 and the VIP area of the Swedish pavilion. This is a needed addition to the current knowledge on how customers engage in co‐creation of experiences and how companies manage the co‐creation process.Originality/valueThe “communification” concept is used to denote the simultaneous building of community while communicating business‐related issues to strengthen and build relationships with customers over time, with exclusivity and co‐creation of experiences as important components.