Place Branding and Public Diplomacy最新文献

Place branders express a desire for their work to aid in addressing crises such as climate change through sustainable developments that assist with brand positioning, yet little is known about how place branding professionals manage tensions and contradictions that arise between sustainability and investment development. This paper qualitatively explores how place branders talk about ecological sustainability at a place branding conference. We pose the research question, how do place branders communicatively construct the meaning of place branding for sustainability? Our key finding is that place branders reframe ecological crises as an “exclusive” business and brand-building opportunity. Rather than viewing this as “business as usual,” we use defamiliarization as a method of disrupting common sense and presenting the familiar as “strange,” and we employ degrowth ideas as a tool for doing so. We show how place branding for sustainability is constructed as a matter of making a place attractive to businesses that can generate green growth, and how this is done by suppressing aspects that challenge this view. In doing this, we provide a deeper insight into how certain, pro-growth-oriented sustainability practices are communicatively maintained, and into the struggles branders face when tasked with place branding for sustainability.

Both scholars and practitioners agree that stakeholder participation in place branding processes is important for enhancing their support, often referred to as Brand Citizenship Behaviour (BCB). Stakeholder participation can be varied and is often linked to the different roles that place stakeholders can adopt in the place branding process. The literature suggests a link between different stakeholder roles taken along the branding process (from decision-making to implementation) and their voluntary and active supportive behaviours towards the brand project. Despite this recognition, many aspects related to place stakeholders’ roles and BCB remain underexplored, particularly what leads stakeholder to adopt certain roles and engage in behaviours associated with such roles. This study aims to fill this gap by using role theory as a theoretical lens to conceptually explore the different roles actors adopt in the place branding process, their motivations to adopting a certain role and the behavioural expectations that come with such roles. Given the complexity of places and interactive nature of place branding, we also reflect on the fluid and interrelated nature of such roles as they are constantly (re)shaped in the interactions between place stakeholders.

This qualitative research explores the intricate relationship between city branding and vernacular architecture within the context of indigenous villages, focusing on sustaining city identity. Leveraging data from various tourism sources, traveler blogs, and big social media data, the study identifies the most sought-after indigenous village destinations and corroborates visitor experiences. In-depth interviews further enrich and verify the collected data, incorporating research from 19 indigenous villages across Indonesia, with a specific focus on two case studies: Indigenous villages Trusmi in Cirebon, West Java, and Kajang in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The research uncovers a novel substantive theory in city branding, highlighting the profound connection between vernacular architecture and the perception of a city's identity. Indigenous villages, renowned for their rich cultural heritage, offer a unique lens through which to examine this symbiotic relationship. By reviewing the architectural elements of these villages and understanding how they contribute to the city's overall image, this study sheds light on innovative approaches to city branding. One of the significant findings of this research is the development of the "vernacular branding" theory, which elucidates how indigenous vernacular architecture plays a pivotal role in shaping a city's brand identity. Through an interdisciplinary lens that merges architecture, tourism, and cultural preservation, this research informs urban planners, policymakers, and city marketers about the potential of incorporating vernacular architecture as a cornerstone of city branding strategies. The findings the importance of nurturing indigenous villages as authentic cultural assets that sustain their identity and contribute significantly to the broader narrative of urban branding and city development.

Using the case of Louisville’s “Compassionate City” brand, the paper shows that city branding can produce discourses that can influence local politics. In 2011, Louisville became a signatory of the Charter of Compassion and began its journey of branding itself as the “Compassionate City”. The branding process created and popularized a discourse of “compassion” with the premise that acts of individual benevolence are honorable, apolitical and can solve the socio-economic issues of Louisville. The discourse of compassion gained popularity in Louisville and became the narrative of political claim-making, contestations, policy rationale, and everyday politics. The discourse reverberated in Louisville’s formal political debates, including fiscal policy, minimum wage, public safety, and neighborhood development. Additionally, it was actively used by citizens to make political claims on a wide range of issues, including LGBTQ, racial justice, homelessness, immigrant rights, and abortion. The narrative of compassion gained such momentum that it was being strategically used by various groups in Louisville, including politicians, city officials, religious organizations, activists, non-profits, and businesses. The paper also takes a critical jab at the popularity of the discourse of compassion, citing that it could be contentious with right-based politics.

Place branding studies and practices have gained much attention in the last decades. Specifically in the globalized world, we are witnessing where both economic and marketing strategies transcend geographical boundaries. Nations, countries, and regions usually compete to attract more people to boost their economy. Similarly, districts within a city are also in intense competition with each other. However, this intimate scale has not met much attention from scholars. There seems to be a recognizable gap in the literature addressing the district scale in place branding theories. The objective of this literature review paper is to shed the light on the importance of district branding, and extract dimensions for guidance for future studies and empirical applications on this scale of branding. The research aims to answer the following questions: Why is place branding important on the district level? How is district branding addressed in literature? What are the branding dimensions related to the district level? Possible answers to these questions are given throughout the paper through a content analysis of place branding literature. Content analysis was used to elicit distinct scale place brand approaches within various articles, dissertations, books, and conference proceedings published in different disciplines. Findings confirm the significant effect of district branding on both the individual and the city. The paper also proposes dimensions for district branding that involves social and functional aspects. Future studies should aim to integrate this theoretical approach to the practice of place branding.