A Short Reflection on City Branding and its Controversies

Abstract

Thanks to its conceptual character the paper 'City Branding: An Effective Assertion of Identity or a Transitory Marketing Trick?' by Kavaratzis and Ashworth (2005) is a classic piece in the area of place branding. The paper has been much cited in the literature, but did it really steer the further development of the field? Nearly fifteen years later, there is still a lot of debate in place branding circles. Taking the paper as a starting point I briefly discuss four controversies in city branding: (1) branding versus marketing; (2) places versus products; (3) policy versus politics; and (4) theory versus practice. I conclude that the complexities surrounding places and their stakeholders asks for more realism, modesty and dialogue in the place branding community.

City brand evolution research and future agenda: bibliometric and science mapping analysis

“…For example, some authors criticise traditional marketing applied to the city as superficial, artificial and far from reality, since cities are not merchandise or products. Likewise, city branding omits economic, social and cultural aspects [ 6 , 7 , 32 , 56 ] and questions the very concept of the brand and the theories behind it [ 6 , 7 , 32 , 56 ] and questions the very concept of the brand and the theories behind it [ 8 ].…”

Marketing of Cities as Centres of Socio-Economic Development in the Process of Globalisation

“…T. Moilanen (2015) think that the marketing project (as a kind of communication) must be long-term, and its implementation must be continuous. All this determines the need for marketing initiators to develop a program to influence all types of texts, to ensure their positive focus on brand promotion (Hospers, 2020;Katranov & Lapidus, 2018). In creating the desired image of any marketing object, the activity of architects is important first of all (although the results of their creativity, as well as in more ancient times, before the spread of verbal texts, were the translators of messages about the territory to stakeholders), specialists who organise communications and life processes within the territory and represent its interests in external communication processes (Jokela, 2020;Rudenko, 2019b).…”

City Branding: communication and marketing strategy for an island urban policy

“…Ello conlleva muchos cambios positivos, especialmente en términos de calidad de vida y prosperidad económica. Sin embargo, las controversias son también en la actualidad un desafío al que deben enfrentarse implicando a stakeholders locales en el proceso de equilibrar marca con marketing; lugares con productos; implementación con contexto politico; y teoría con práctica (Hospers, 2020).…”

“…El marco se centra en el uso de la marca ciudad y sus efectos potenciales en los residentes de la ciudad y la forma en que los residentes se asocian y experimentan la misma (2004: 58). Asimismo, la complejidad del desarrollo urbano muestra que hay muchos factores abrumadores que pueden reducir las esperanzas de una marca, a menos que sea un instrumento de política eficaz con mucho potencial para las ciudades (Hospers, 2020). De hecho, hay ejemplos exitosos como el caso de Turín donde la profundización del papel de las políticas de branding urbano ayudó a modificar su antigua imagen de ciudad industrial, no solo promoviendo la imagen de la ciudad sino también rechazando algunas representaciones urbanas particulares (Mehan, 2017).…”