City Brand Personality Projected by Municipalities from Central and Eastern Europe Countries—A Comparison of Facebook Usage

Abstract

City branding is becoming more and more popular, not only as a field of research, but also as a practice of local governments. Municipalities attempt to introduce this concept into their sustainable transformation process, positioning a city among its stakeholders as, for instance, an eco-oriented, innovative, or smart city. An idea that fosters building a strong and consistent city brand is brand personality. The aim of the paper is to diagnose a city’s brand personality dimensions/traits communicated via posts published on official Facebook accounts of cities and to identify differences occurring within this scope between cities of two selected Central and Eastern European countries—Poland and Ukraine. To achieve this aim, the research involved a content analysis of 1700 posts published by 34 municipalities representing regional capital cities of Poland and Ukraine. On the basis of these study results, the authors have supplemented the Aaker (1997) five-dimensional scale of brand personality with the sixth dimension: Prosocial Attitude, which includes cooperative and bureaucratic traits, to better comply with the approach of cities to problems of their inhabitants and their surrounding environment, which is consistent with the idea of sustainability. Furthermore, the fifth trait has been added to characteristics which make up Aaker’s Excitement dimension. Dubbed as patriotic, it refers to the city’s activities related to the local celebration of historical events, indicating national pride and identification with its place of residence. Bureaucratic and patriotic traits were quite frequently observed in posts published on the official Facebook accounts of Ukrainian cities. Moreover, the research proves that in case of Polish cities the dominating brand personality dimensions are Sincerity and Excitement. Ukrainian cities tend to exercise communication based on the Sincerity and Competence dimension.

The Relationship Between Brand Personality and Customer Service Delivery:Perspectives from Public Universities in Kenya

“…Models of previous studies have provided partial explanations of brand personality (Ewa & Wawrzyniec, 2019) thus pertinence of this study to unearth the research gaps. Many scholars have found a link between brand personality and brand performance (Chin, 2016;Bijuna et al, 2016;Charraz & Muhammad, 2014& Nashwan, 2015; however, brand personality dimensions are examined partially and explicit model to describe the link between brand personality dimension on customer service delivery from one context to another is yet to be established.…”

“…Some studies have measured brand personality using intangible products (Perepelkin & Zhang, 2011;Hultman et al, 2015;Rashwan et al, 2018;Cleff, Dörr, Vicknair & Walter, 2013;Vjollca and Shyle, 2015); nevertheless, based on the multi-dimensionality approach of brand personality construct, an explicit model explain on how brand personality can be used to measure customer service delivery in the university context is yet to be established. Some scholars acknowledge scholars should not only apply brand personality to measure products and services but should also reconfigure the constructs of the models to facilitate robust explanation of ideas in the marketing literature (Abdulsattar2019; Ewa & Wawrzyniec, 2019;Charraz & Muhammad, 2014;Nashwan, 2015).…”

Influences of SNS (Social Network Service) Uses and Musical Consumption on City Branding: A Focus on Broadway, New York and the West End, London

“…According to the literature, Facebook plays roles to illustrate city personality [33]. Social media is also effective to deliver information of festivals that a city holds to promote favorable city images [16].…”

Marketing and branding-oriented goals for the development of Functional Urban Areas: evidence from Poland

“…The implementation of city-branding policies aims to support the city in its appropriate reaction to current social and economic challenges (Glińska & Rudolf, 2019). City branding is a complex process that must account for many factors and associations while shaping a brand of a specific territory (Fan, 2006).…”

“…They became more dependent on emotional and functional benefits, on a process and relational approach linked by the fact that the brand is co-created by all involved parties (Daszkiewicz & Wołosecka, 2019). Thanks to the development of place branding, it has become possible to expand the related research areas, including such disciplines as marketing, urban planning, sociology or public policy (Glińska & Rudolf, 2019;Lucarelli & Berg, 2011).…”