District branding: content analysis toward identifying brand dimensions at the district scale

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.