Abstract (Summary) » Jump to indexing (document details) Full Text. (6088 words) Palgrave Macmillan 2009 INTRODUCTION

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1 Beyond the logo: Brand management for cities Gregory Ashworth, Mihalis Kavaratzis. Journal of Brand Management. London: Jul/Aug Vol. 16, Iss. 8; pg. 520, 12 pgs Abstract (Summary) A city's brand is increasingly considered an important asset for urban development and an effective tool for cities to distinguish themselves and improve their positioning. The introduction of corporate-level marketing concepts and, especially, corporate branding has significantly contributed towards the development of a city branding theory. In practice, however, there is an evident confusion of a wide branding strategy with one of its components, namely the design of a new logo and slogan or, at best, the development of a promotional campaign. This paper first describes the rise of city branding and the reasons of its popularity and, after a short review of the basic elements of corporate branding, it goes on to identify essential similarities between these two forms of branding. It finally detects the need to adapt any branding tools to the needs of cities and addresses the necessity of a comprehensive city brand management framework. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]» Jump to indexing (document details) Full Text (6088 words) Palgrave Macmillan 2009 INTRODUCTION City branding has in recent years become a prevailing activity within city management. Cities all over the world use several conduits to promote themselves to relevant audiences such as investors, visitors and residents and in their efforts they commonly include striking logos and captivating slogans that feature in welcoming websites and advertising campaigns in national and international media. At the same time, a substantial debate over the usefulness and proper application of city branding has accumulated among academics, consultants and government officials. Various issues have been raised in this debate and the suggestions for the implementation of branding campaigns within cities are often countered by critical voices. This paper examines the phenomenon of city branding attempting to clarify some of the issues involved. To that end, two related literatures need to be brought together, namely the steadily growing literature on place branding and the extensive literature on corporate brands. CITIES AS BRANDS Slogans such as 'Das Neue Berlin', 'Basel beats differently' or 'Edinburgh: Inspiring Capital' are increasingly commonplace. Amsterdam has recently launched a branding campaign centring around the slogan 'I amsterdam'; Athens successfully hosted the Olympic Games of 2004 and is now anxiously anticipating their positive effects inviting you to 'surprise yourself in Athens 1

2 Attica'; London has become 'Totally London' and will also host the Olympic Games of 2012, expecting the same results. The examples of cities attempting to brand themselves could fill many pages. The popularity of place branding but also the necessity for a wide discussion on the topic is demonstrated in the special issues devoted to it ( Journal of Brand Management, 2002) and the launching of a specialised journal in 2004 ( Place Branding --Palgrave Publishers). Place branding is defined as 'the practice of applying brand strategy and other marketing techniques and disciplines to the economic, political and cultural development of cities, regions and countries' ( This raises questions about what actually is being done in practice and whether it is possible to apply strategies developed for commercial products to places or whether a new type of branding is required. Branding is only one of many possible instruments for managing and developing places and its effectiveness needs, therefore, to be evaluated in that context. Although '...the practice of place branding has far outpaced the extent to which it has been written about in the public realm', 1 recently there has been a considerable increase in publications that raise and attempt to answer these and other similar questions. The commentary on the theoretical value and practical implementation of place branding has followed distinct routes in the literature, apparently depending on the background and research interests of particular commentators. 2 Apart from those contributions that attempt to deal with the subject as a whole, 3, 4 a major trend, especially among marketing academics and consultants has been the discussion on national branding, 5, 6, 7 usually in connection to the use of the country of origin in product branding. 8 A second trend, mostly outside the marketing discipline, has been the discussion on the effects that the evident popularity and widespread use of cultural and entertainment branding have on cities and their physical and social character. 9, 10 A major stream of publications has dealt with the issue of destination branding: treating places as brands for their benefits to tourism development. 11 This field has probably been the more developed in terms of suggesting concrete and practical measures for managing destinations as brands. Arguably a large part of the theoretical development in this field comes from Hankinson. 12, 13 Starting from his belief that 'as yet no general theoretical framework exists to underpin the development of place brands apart from classical, product-based branding theory', 14 he provides a refined framework for understanding cities as brands, focusing on cities as tourism destinations. Another emerging view is the attempt to examine the possible adaptation of the concept of corporate branding and specific methodologies developed in this field in place branding. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 The arguments for implementation of branding within cities are routed in the assumption that, in essence, people 'understand' cities in the same way as brands. It is in people's minds that the city takes form through the processing of perceptions and images about the city. This process is the same as that followed in the formation of images of other entities like products or corporations, which have long been managed as brands. Extending this assumption, comes the argument that the best way to attempt to influence peoples' perceptions and images about cities must be similar to the way that businesses have been successfully attempting the same for their products, 2

3 namely branding. The above assumptions are, of course, subject to scrutiny as is found in the academic literature on place and city branding. Practice shows that city administrators are ready to adopt branding as a development strategy for their city. They eagerly (and sometimes uncritically) accept the suggestions of consultants that city branding is the only way of surviving in a fiercely competitive environment. Perhaps tempted by the supposed novelty of such methods, their apparent contrast with past practices, and also perhaps fearing that they will indeed be left behind the competition that is engaged in branding, cities readily adopt branding techniques. An evident problem, though, with city branding implementation is that, all too often cities adopt only a part of the branding process, namely the development of a catchy slogan and/or the design of a new logo to be attached in promotional material. City marketing in general in its organised and more refined form is a relatively recent activity and it seems to suffer from the-not unfamiliar-delusion that marketing equals promotion. Most city marketing efforts start and finish with promotional activities and most city branding efforts start and finish with the visual elements of logos and slogans. Cases of cities that undertake a thorough and more careful implementation of the city marketing process as a whole are rather exceptions to the rule. 20 Therefore, this paper will demonstrate something that is well known to marketing academics, namely that branding needs to be thought of as a complete and continuous process interlinked with all other marketing efforts. CORPORATE BRANDING There has been, recently, a growing body of work that points to the inability of earlier positioning tools to cope with the substantially changed environment that organisations now face. One response to this inability has been the suggestions of relationship marketing, which considers as the key element of marketing the building of relationships with relevant stakeholders and, especially, customers, the relationships with which are viewed as opportunities that need to be managed 21 in order to increase customer retention. 22 Of particular relevance to place branding in this vain is the conceptualisation of the brand as something that consumers can have a relationship with. 23 Indeed, place marketing in general can be thought of as a form of relation between local authorities and local or wider audiences. In fact, '... it may be as much about communication between citizens as clients and public authorities as service providers as about attracting exogenous investment, employment or customers. A place is sending messages to itself. The purpose is the fostering of a civic consciousness and self-confidence. This is both an end in itself and a necessary precondition for external marketing'. 24 This is a concept that changes the whole attitude towards marketing activities and provides a clearer focus for the whole place branding process. A different response to the above stated inability of earlier positioning tools has recognised 'the need to deepen the marketing view of the brand to encompass organizational attributes and to shift focus from the integrity of the product brand to the organisation and people behind the brand.' 25 Currently, brands are considered valuable assets of a company and there is general agreement in the marketing literature that the brand embodies a whole set of physical and socio-psychological attributes and beliefs. 26 The notion of 3

4 corporate branding is a development of traditional product branding, necessitated and, at the same time, enriched, by the rise of other corporatelevel concepts, such as corporate image, corporate identity and corporate communications. As Balmer and Gray 27 describe 'in the early 1990s several branding and communication consultants mentioned and then went on to assess what was then called the "company brand". The later half of the 1990s witnessed a gradual crescendo of writing on the more encompassing and more strategic-sounding "corporate brand", which has since then seized the imagination of scholars and managers alike and its rise has been inexorable.' 28 Establishing successful corporate brand management practices relies on the identification of two factors 29 : first, the mix of variables that comprise the corporate brand and, secondly, the development of a brand management system for understanding the process of direction and control. A notion strongly linked with those terms is corporate identity, which is central to an appreciation of the concept of corporate brands. 30 Corporate identity is a holistic concept that 'articulates the corporate ethos, aims and values and presents a sense of individuality that can help to differentiate the organisation within its competitive environment'. 31 A strong identity is very important for transmitting a consistent internal and external image among stakeholders, creating a valuable asset. 32 A particular problem with the study of corporate identity is the ambiguity regarding the elements that constitute such an identity. 33 To address this problem, Balmer 34 undertook an investigation of the literature about the elements comprising the 'corporate identity mix' and he went on to design a new corporate identity mix, which consists of the following components: strategy (management vision, corporate strategy, product/services as well as corporate performance, corporate brand covenant, corporate ownership); structure (relationships between parent company and subsidiaries, relations with alliance or franchise partners); communication (total corporate communication, which encompasses primary, secondary and tertiary communication) and culture (the soft and subjective elements consisting of the mix of sub-cultures present within, but not always emanating from the organisation). A valuable distinction is between the elements that constitute an identity and the mix of elements that require orchestration when managing such an identity. In addition to the elements forming the identity, management needs to take into account the environment, reputations and stakeholders. 35 According to Balmer and Greyser, 'Although prevailing corporate thinking considers identity to be a monolithic phenomenon, this premise is narrow and inadequate... (A)n organisation has multiple identities, which "can co-exist comfortably within the organisation even if they are slightly different"'. 36 Balmer and Greyser 37 suggest that management needs to have understanding across those multiple identities and they provide a framework (AC 2 ID Test), which includes five types of identity. These are: Actual identity (the current attributes of the corporation); Communicated identity (revealed through controllable corporate communication); Conceived identity (perceptions of the company held by relevant stakeholders); Ideal identity (the optimum positioning of the organisation in its market in a given time-frame) and Desired identity (the vision of cor-porate leaders for the organisation). Organisations must manage their multiple identities to avoid potentially harmful misalignments. 38 Furthermore, 4

5 corporate brand management needs to take into account and is inextricably linked to the management of identity. 39 'A corporate brand is the visual, verbal and behavioural expression of an organisation's unique business model'. 40 The brand is expressed through the company's mission, core values, beliefs, communication, culture and overall design. 41 It is argued 42 that at the core of a corporate brand is an explicit covenant (other commentators use the term promise) between an organisation and its key stakeholder groups. The importance of the corporate covenant is such that it may be viewed as a distinct identity type, which in turn means that corporate brand management requires alignment of the brand covenant with the five other identity types, mentioned above. Corporate branding draws on the traditions of product branding, in that it shares the same objective of creating differentiation and preference. 43 This activity is, however, rendered more complex by managers conducting these practices at the level of the organisation rather than the individual product or service, and by the requirement to manage interactions with multiple stakeholder audiences. 44 'The entity in corporate branding has a higher level of intangibility, complexity and social responsibility, making it much more difficult to build a coherent brand'. 45 There is an agreement in the relevant literature on the need for corporate branding to be multidisciplinary, combining elements of strategy, corporate communications and culture, a view further refined by Hatz and Schultz, 46 who point to the interplay of three variables--vision, culture and image--as a context for corporate branding. Finally, Kapferer 47 claims that we have now entered a new age of brand identity, which can be viewed as comprising six variables namely, physique, personality, culture, relationship, reflection and self-image. Brands in general and corporate brands specifically are seen as the base for the long-term success of firms and organisations. In contemporary marketing, branding is central, as it integrates all the strategic elements into one success formula. 48 The whole marketing programme--objectives, strategies and tactics-- is derived from brand positioning. 49 FROM CORPORATIONS TO CITIES It is widely accepted that cities cannot be thought of simply as products. City brands may be fundamentally different from product brands, but this does not mean that they cannot be treated as corporate brands. In fact, there are many similarities between corporate branding and city marketing that can be seen if one compares the characteristics of corporate brands as summarised by Balmer and Gray 50 with the city marketing literature. Examples of these characteristics are that both corporate brands and city brands have multidisciplinary roots, 51 52, 53 both address multiple groups of stakeholders, both have a high level of intangibility and complexity, 54 both need to take into account social responsibility, 55 both deal with multiple identities, 56 both need a long-term development. 57 In this sense, corporate branding seems to offer valuable suggestions for implementing branding within cities, something that has occurred to several commentators, 58, 59, 60 who point at the metaphor of place as a corporate brand. 61 Trueman et al. 16 conclude that 'city branding can draw parallels from the corporate branding literature in terms of relationship 5

6 building, communications, personality and identity, supported by strategy, creativity and resources' and they go on to provide a useful comparison of the similarities and differences between corporate marketing and city brands. Hankinson, 62 after a review of both corporate branding and place branding literatures provides five very useful guiding principles for destination brands based on corporate branding theories. He argues that 'there are sufficient similarities between these two types of brand to allow useful lessons to be drawn' 63 and suggests that efficient destination branding depends upon (a) a strong, visionary leadership, (b) a brand-oriented organisational culture, (c) departmental coordination and process alignment, (d) consistent communications across a wide range of stakeholders and (e) strong, compatible partnerships. The argument for applying corporate branding tools on cities is made also by Trueman et al., 64 who applied the AC 2 ID Test of corporate identity 65 in the city of Bradford, in order to identify gaps in the city's official communication strategy, revealing conflicting messages between local government policy and different stakeholder groups and highlighting gaps between the vision of the city's leaders (desired or conceived identity), its official publications (communicated identity) and the reality of living and working in the city. This might be a useful tool to address a common charge against city marketing, namely the problem of the gap between the city's image and its reality, between the projected and the perceived identity of a city. The above research found 'indications that it is possible to examine the city as a brand using conventional methodologies for brand analysis provided that sufficient weight is given to different stakeholders'. 66 Rainisto 67 also asserts that '...to some extent... place brands resemble corporate umbrella brands' and that 'a place's brand image needs both the tangible "service" characteristics and the brand's personality, like corporate brands'. 68 It is certainly possible to adopt a branding philosophy for the management of cities and to use tools and principles of corporate branding particularly. It is necessary, however, to adapt such tools and models to the specific characteristics and demands of cities. Cities are neither products nor corporations in the traditional meaning of the terms and, therefore, a distinct form of branding is needed. MANAGING CITY BRANDS A major element of this distinct form of branding would have to be the development of a city branding framework that would incorporate the elements that need to be aligned. There have been attempts towards that end which this paper will examine. There is, however, an issue that needs to be clarified first, which has to do with the relations between the city brand and the nation brand and the possible ways to manage both. Corporate branding in the commercial world is related to the notion of brand architecture, which examines the relations of the corporate brand to the rest of the brands of individual products/services or product-lines that the same corporation is offering. Different business strategies may require different brand architectures. 69 Often individual brands are managed as a part of or under the 6

7 'umbrella' corporate brand but in other cases some corporations choose to manage each individual brand separately. There is perhaps a parallel of this in the field of branding places. Places exist in geographical or place-scales (country, region, city, commune) therefore it might be useful to examine place branding taking place-scales under consideration. In other words, to examine a brand architecture approach for managing all place brands that belong to the same nation. It is worth examining this point in more detail. A suggestion is to create one 'umbrella' nation brand and several sub-brands for each region and city of the country. As has been shown, 70 however, nation brands and region/city brands have different characteristics and are affected by different factors that influence their evaluation. Countries have more stable and enduring brand images, whereas cities are more dependent on the trends of the market, and fulfil more self-expression needs compared to countries. 71 'An "umbrella" [nation] brand may either become too heterogeneous (i.e. a non-brand), too bland (i.e. appealing to no-one in particular) or too skewed (focusing on certain activities at the expense of others)'. 72 That is arguably the case for any place brand, whatever place-scale they refer to, as they all attempt to cover the needs of different economic sectors and to address multiple audiences. 73 Nation brands, however, have to address the additional tensions created by the inevitable place-competition within the country itself. The solution of creating an umbrella nation brand, under which city brands will be managed is, therefore not supported here. This is not intended in the least to undermine the significance of nation brands. Indeed a country's reputation (or the nation brand) 'has a direct and measurable impact on just about every aspect of its engagement with other countries and plays a critical role in its economic, social, political and cultural progress'. 74 Therefore, a nation brand is certainly useful, especially in terms of issues of public diplomacy and the support of the country's exports--what is known as the country-of-origin effect. What is questioned here is the effectiveness of managing the regional or city brands under a general nation brand or as sub-brands of this nation brand. It is perhaps better to maintain a clear distinction between the nation and city brands but this is indeed an issue that demands more attention in the relevant literature. With this distinction in mind, the proposed city-brand-management frameworks will now be examined. A general framework of place branding is proposed by Rainisto 75 concentrating on the marketing of places as business locations and in particular the activities of inward investment agencies. The framework consists of nine success factors of place marketing and branding practices. According to this framework, the core building stones of place marketing (and most important success factors) are: Planning Group (the organ responsible to plan and execute marketing practices), Vision and Strategic Analysis (the insight of the place about its future position), Place Identity and Image (a unique set of place brand associations, which the management wants to create or maintain), Public-Private Partnerships and Leadership (the capability to conduct complex processes and obtain the organising power). These are factors that a place can actively influence and that represent the organising capacity of the place. Another four success factors assist the above to meet the challenges in the environment where place marketing practices are performed; these are Political Unity (agreement about public affairs), Global Marketplace, Local 7

8 Development and Process Coincidences (remarkable occurrences of events during the marketing process). Anholt 76 describes a framework for evaluating city brands called the city brand hexagon that is used to create the Anholt-GMI City Brands Index. It has been developed as a means of evaluating the effectiveness of branding activities. The hexagon consists of the following components: Presence (the city's international status and standing--how familiar people are with the city), Place (the physical aspects of the city--how beautiful and pleasant or otherwise the city is), Potential (the opportunities the city has to offer, for instance in terms of economic or educational activities), Pulse (the existence of a vibrant urban lifestyle or lack thereof-how exciting people think the city is), People (the local population in terms of openness and warmth; also safety issues) and Prerequisites (the basic qualities of the city; the standards and price of accommodation and public amenities). Cai's 77 framework (which mainly considers tourism destinations) regards branding as a recursive process that revolves around an axis formed by brand element mix, brand identity and brand image building. Brand elements are chosen to identify the place and to start the formation of brand associations that reflect the attributes (the perceptual tangible and intangible features of the place), affective (personal value and benefits attached to the attributes) and attitudes (overall evaluation and motivation for action) components of an image. The framework also includes the image projected by Destination Marketing Organisations through these components and goes on to suggest that imagebuilding takes place through marketing programmes, marketing communications and managing secondary associations. Marketing programmes are designed to enhance the brand identity and marketing communications select an optimal mix of media to support marketing programmes in enhancing the identity. The secondary associations do not result from programmes or communications and although normally beyond the control of the organisation, they can be borrowed or leveraged. As contextual preconditions of branding, 78 four components are suggested, namely the destination's size and composition, its existing organic image, its existing induced image and the positioning and target markets chosen. Kavaratzis 79 suggests a framework which describes the way in which brand communication takes place through the choice and appropriate treatment of different variables, which have both functional as well as symbolic meaning. It is suggested 80 that the communicated identity of a corporation includes three types of official communication: Primary (the customer experience of products and services), Secondary (advertising, PR, etc) and Tertiary (word of mouth). Accordingly, this framework suggests that the city brand is communicated through the same distinct types of communication. Tertiary communication does not lend itself to extensive control by a city's authorities. The two types of controlled communication are: Primary Communication, that relates to the communicative effects of a city's actions, when communication is not the main goal of these actions. It is divided into four broad areas of intervention: Landscape Strategies (interventions 8

9 relevant to urban design, architecture or public spaces in the city); Infrastructure Projects (projects developed to create, improve or give a distinctive character to the various types of infrastructure, whether improving accessibility to the city or sufficiency of various facilities like cultural centres, conference facilities, etc); Organisational and Administrative Structure (the effectiveness of the city's governing structure, emphasising community development networks and citizens' participation in the decision making, along with the establishment of Public-Private Partnerships); and finally, the City's Behaviour (the quality of service provision, the type and scale of events organised in the city and such issues as the city leaders' vision for the city, the financial incentives provided). Secondary Communication, that is the formal, intentional communication, that most commonly takes place through well-known marketing practices like advertising, public relations, graphic design, the use of a logo, etc. In another attempt, Hankinson 81 suggests a model of place brands based on the conceptualisation that brands form a relationship with the consumer, which can be the result of congruity with the consumer's self-image or the development of a brand-consumer fit between the consumer's physical and psychological needs and the functional attributes and symbolic values of the brand. Of critical importance for this conceptualisation (and the features that make it clearly relevant to place brands) are (a) the notion of the consumer as a co-producer of the place-product, (b) the 'experiential' nature of placeconsumption and (c) 'marketing networks as vehicles for integrating all stakeholders in a collaborative partnership of value enhancement'. 82 The starting point is the core brand, which can be defined by the brand personality, the brand positioning and the brand reality. The effectiveness of place branding relies on the extension of the core brand through effective relationships with the various stakeholders. These relationships are grouped in four categories: (a) Primary Service Relationships (services at the core of the brand experience, such as retailers, events and leisure or hotels); (b) Brand Infrastructure Relationships (access services, brandscape/built environment, various facilities); (c) Media Relationships (organic communications, marketing communications) and (d) Consumer Relationships (residents and employees, internal customers, managed relationships from the top). More recently 83 the same author provided a new framework, which reveals the leading role of the Destination Marketing Organisation, concentrating on ensuring consistent communication, both collectively and individually with all stakeholders: partners, visitors and residents. 84 A useful way to look at branding in general is to conceptualise it as managing consumers' expectations. City branding in particular should be understood as a process of generating expectations in actual and potential city users' minds and ensuring that these expectations are met in the way people experience the city. Creating or, at least, influencing expectations about the city takes place through communication and promotional activities. More importantly, however, the second part of attempting to meet the expectations demands the alignment and consistency of all other marketing activities. This distinction is evident in all frameworks described here but needs to be put across into the practice of city branding, something that has so far not been achieved. All the frameworks 9

10 described above make their own contribution but, at the same time, have to address their own limitations. The framework by Kavaratzis is clearly theoretical and certainly demands an examination of its practical applicability and then a re-evaluation of its components and clarification of any practical contribution. The same can be argued for the Rainisto framework. The Anholt framework clearly adopts a consultant's perspective and is suggested mostly as a tool with which to investigate the effects of branding activities in the fields that are included. It therefore needs first a reappraisal as to the theoretical values it is based upon and, secondly, if it is to be used as a guide for managing a city's brand, the ways and measures to ensure success in the fields included in the framework need to be clarified. Both Hankinson's and Cai's models are limiting their focus on cities as tourism destinations. They, therefore, need an expansion to other fields that branding can be useful for cities, because cities cannot function only as tourism destinations. It is clear that a lot more research is necessary in order to arrive to a comprehensive framework of city branding. THE FUTURE OF PLACE BRANDING A number of paradoxes have become evident. There is a growing academic literature exploring the nature and meaning of branding when transferred from conventional products to places: there is no widely accepted blueprint for applying such ideas to places as an instrument of place management. Cities throughout contemporary Europe have never been more engaged in place branding of one sort or another: the goals, instruments and impacts remain vaguely formulated and only partially understood. There is rapidly accumulating body of case experience as cities launch and re-launch branding campaigns but as yet no framework of comparison allowing lessons to be drawn. Each new campaign remains unique to the place that initiates it and each reinvents and rethinks the process from its fundamentals. The very competitiveness of the arena within cities now operate discourages a free interchange of ideas or experiences. The gaps between conceptualisation and practice and between commercial corporate branding and place branding remain wide but, in the interests of the effective use of a potentially powerful instrument of place management, must be bridged. Correspondence : Mihalis Kavaratzis, Urban and Regional Studies Institute, University of Groningen, P.O. BOX 800, Groningen 9700 AV, The Netherlands. Tel: ; m.kavaratzis@rug.nl 10

11 [Reference] 1. Morgan, N., Pritchard, A. and Pride, R., (eds.) (2002) 'Destination Branding: Creating the Unique Destination Proposition', Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, p Kavaratzis, M. (2005) 'Place branding: A review of trends and conceptual models', The Marketing Review, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp Kavaratzis, M. and Ashworth, G. J. (2005) 'City branding: An effective assertion of identity or a transitory marketing trick', Tijdschrift Voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Vol. 96, No. 5, pp Freire, J. R. (2005) 'Geo-branding, are we talking nonsense? A theoretical reflection on brands applied to places', Place Branding, Vol. 1, No. 4, Anholt, S. (2007) 'Competitive Identity: The New Brand Management for Nations, Cities and Regions', Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. 6. Anholt, S. (2002) 'Foreword to the special issue on place branding', Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 9, No. 4-5, pp Gilmore, F. (2001) 'A country--can it be repositioned? Spain--The success story of country branding', Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 9, No. 4-5, pp Papadopoulos, N. and Heslop, L. (2002) 'Country equity and country branding: Problems and prospects', Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 9, No. 4/5, pp Hannigan, J. (2003) 'Symposium on branding, the entertainment economy and urban place building: Introduction', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp Evans, G. (2003) 'Hard branding the cultural city: From Prado to Prada', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp Morgan et al., ref. 1, above. 12. Hankinson, G. (2001) 'Location branding: A study of the branding practices of 12 English cities', Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp Hankinson, G. (2004) 'Relational network brands: Towards a conceptual model of place brands', Journal of Vacation Marketing, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp Hankinson, ref 12, above, p Hankinson, G. (2007) 'The management of destination brands: Five guiding principles based on recent developments in corporate branding theory', Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp Trueman, M., Cornelius, N. and Killingbeck-Widdup, A. J. (2007) 'Urban corridors and the lost city: Overcoming negative perceptions to reposition city brands', Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp Kavaratzis, M. (2004) 'From city marketing to city branding: Towards a theoretical framework for developing city brands', Place Branding, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp Trueman, M., Klemm, M. and Giroud, A. (2004) 'Can a city communicate? Bradford as a corporate brand', Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp Rainisto, S. K. (2003) 'Success factors of place marketing: A study of place marketing practices in Northern Europe and the United States', Doctoral Dissertation, Helsinki University of Technology, Institute of Strategy and International Business. 11

12 20. Kavaratzis, M. and Ashworth, G. J. (2007) 'Partners in coffeeshops, canals and commerce: Marketing the city of Amsterdam', Cities, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp Saren, M. (2007) 'Marketing is everything: The view from the street', Marketing Intelligence and Planning, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp Veloutsou, C., Saren, M. and Tzokas, N. (2002) 'Relationship marketing: What if', European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp Hankinson, ref 13 above. 24. Ashworth, G. J. (2001) 'The communication of the brand images of cities', Paper presented at the Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo Conference: The Construction and Communication of the Brand Images of Cities, Valencia, Spain. 25. Knox, S. and Bickerton, D. (2003) 'The six conventions of corporate branding', European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 37, No. 7-8, pp Simoes, C. and Dibb, S. (2001) 'Rethinking the brand concept: New brand orientation', Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp Balmer, J. M. T. and Gray, E. R. (2003) 'Corporate brands: What are they? What of them', European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 37, No. 7-8, pp Ibid., p Ibid. 30. Balmer, J. M. T. (2002) 'Of identities lost and found', International Studies of Management and Organisation, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp van Riel, C. B. M. and Balmer, J. M. T. (1997) 'Corporate identity: The concept, its measurement and management', European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 31, No. 5-6, pp Simoes and Dibb, ref. 26, above. 33. Balmer, ref. 30, above. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. Balmer, J. M. T. and Greyser, S. A. (2002) 'Managing the multiple identities of the corporation', California Management Review, Vol. 44, No. 3, pp Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. Knox and Bickerton, ref. 25 above, p Simoes and Dibb, ref. 26 above. 42. Balmer, J. M. T. (2001) 'Corporate identity, corporate branding and corporate marketing: Seeing through the fog', European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 35, No. 3-4, pp Knox and Bickerton, ref. 25 above. 44. Ibid. 45. Simoes and Dibb, ref. 26 above. 46. Hatz, M. J. and Schultz, M. (2001) 'Are the strategic stars aligned for your corporate brand', Harvard Business Review, Vol. 79, No. 2, pp Kapferer, J. N. (1997) 'Strategic Brand Management', Kogan Page, London. 48. Aaker, D. A. (1996) 'Building Strong Brands', Free Press, New York. 49. Rainisto, ref. 19 above. 50. Balmer and Gray, ref. 27 above. 51. Ashworth, G. J. and Voogd, H. (1990) 'Selling the City: Marketing 12

13 Approaches in Public Sector Urban Planning', Belhaven Press, London. 52. Kotler, P., Asplund, C., Rein, I. and Heider, D. (1999) 'Marketing Places Europe: Attracting Investments, Industries, Residents and Visitors to European Cities, Communities, Regions and Nations', Pearson Education Ltd, London. 53. Ashworth 2001, ref 24, above. 54. Trueman et al., ref. 16 above. 55. Ave, G. (1994) 'Urban planning and strategic urban marketing in Europe', in Ave, G. and Corsico, F. (eds.) 'Marketing Urbano International Conference', Edizioni Torino Incontra, Torino. 56. Dematteis, G. (1994) 'Urban identity, city image and urban marketing', in Braun, G.O. (ed.) 'Managing and Marketing of Urban Development and Urban Life', Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin. 57. Kavaratzis, ref. 17 above. 58. Trueman et al., ref 16 above. 59. Hankinson, ref 15 above. 60. Kavaratzis, ref 17 above. 61. Anholt, ref 6 above. 62. Hankinson, ref 59 above. 63. Ibid., p Trueman et al., ref. 18 above. 65. Balmer, ref. 30 above. 66. Trueman et al., ref. 18 above, p Rainisto, ref. 19 above, p Ibid, p Kerr, G. (2006) 'From destination brand to location brand', Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 13, No. 4/5, pp Caldwell, N. and Freire, J. R. (2004) 'The differences between branding a country, a region and a city: Applying the Brand Box model', Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp Ibid. 72. Therkelsen, A. and Halkier, H. (2004) 'Umbrella place branding: A study of friendly exoticism and exotic friendliness in coordinated national tourism and investment promotion', Discussion Paper 26/2004, SPIRIT, Aalborg University, p Eg Ashworth and Voogd, ref 51 above. 74. Anholt, ref. 5 above, p Rainisto, ref. 19 above. 76. Anholt, S. (2006) 'The Anholt-GMI city brands index: How the world sees the world's cities', Place Branding, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp Cai, L. A. (2002) 'Cooperative branding for rural destinations', Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp Ibid. 79. Kavaratzis, ref. 17 above. 80. Balmer, ref. 30 above. 81. Hankinson, ref. 13, above. 82. Ibid., p Hankinson, ref. 59 above. 84. Ibid., p Subjects: Cities, Brands, Image, Marketing, Studies 13

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