City marketing and place branding: A critical review of practice and academic research

Abstract

[EN] This paper investigates the consolidation of currents of thought on the marketing and branding of cities and territories. It starts by an analysis of the importance of the identity of cities and briefly also of regions and countries, as a prior factor for strategic management of marketing. It puts forward a model that has an initial phase of physical planning and urban design, followed by a process of marketing in interchanges with the various groups involved. Finally, there is a phase of creation of a brand, more or less developed, ie the ‘branding phase’. This approach is analysed at the various different geographical levels of cities, regions and countries, with noteworthy cases from around the world being highlighted on these lines. Keys for institutional collaboration in the shape of networks are looked at, as are their links with the modern paradigm of relationship marketing. One of this paper’s major contributions is its exploration of the relationships among different territorial contexts, as it goes beyond the purely urban environment, considering parallelisms of cities with regions and countries. These crosswise comparisons lead to potential institutional cooperation, in accordance with modern approaches to economics business management in strategic networks and the paradigm for marketing through multiple interchanges. Furthermore, since the marketing of cities and place branding is envisaged within a process of strategic management or direction, with networked institutional governance, the paper also contributes to overcoming a simplistic view of place marketing as merely the application of promotional techniques.