City Branding (Place Branding) | Meaning, Stages & Examples

What is City Branding?

City Branding is the process of branding a city or place is called as geo-branding, place branding. Cities around the world are branding themselves just like other commodities as they compete to be the best .“A strong place brand helps a place compete in the global marketplace,” says Chris Fair (President, Resonance, Marketing Firm), “A business or a potential resident or a visitor can go anywhere they want today, so articulating differentiating and unique characteristics is important to attracting investment, people and capital to your place”. Cities these days contend with each other to have sustainable development and provide its citizens a decent quality of life: concerning good economic opportunities and environment. This way they brand themselves to attract investments and people to enjoy these services.

Walk down the streets of the neighbourhood and you’ll find big posters showcasing not your favourite clothes, shoes or electronics brands but cities. This is most common with tourism, Australia, Maldives, Malaysia, India have come up with different taglines which try to create images in readers’ mind. Within the ‘Incredible India,’ we have Bangalore as the ‘Silicon Valley of India’, Jaipur- ‘The Pink city’, Gurgaon-‘The millennium city’ and many more. The main idea behind city branding is that we give an image of the city to people so that it turns from a location to a destination. Similarly, Malaysia’s tourism board calls Malaysia – Truly Asia; Australia – There’s nothing like Australia; Las Vegas gives an image of Casino’s all over!

Since the earliest human settlements were created, clean water, fresh air, and abundant food supplies were the hallmark of liveable sustainable cities, and today we demand nothing less. Cities will grow and prosper when the benefits of proximity between people and businesses far outweigh the negative cost of mitigating these impacts. We as decision makers, must make clear decisions today that will have a huge impact on citizens of these cities in the future. By creating habitable, thriving cities and preserving our natural resources today, we will command the respect of future generations.

Great civilizations are measured by the greatness of their cities, Petra, Chiapas, Cairo and Rome are but a few magnificent examples of the human need, not only to coexist and prosper, but to understand and assimilate the environment into their urban plans. These great cities were homes to great civilizations albeit the Nabateans, Inca, Pharos and Romans, one thing is for certain none of the ancient civilizations could have earned their place in history if their urban settlements did not integrate environmental concerns into their city plans. Whatever their reasons were for urban settlement, it was the human ingenuity throughout the millennia that succeeded to bring people into close habitation without suffering the negative impacts associated with polluted air, water contamination and disease. The past great civilizations utilized state of the art means, available at the time, to create their sustainable cities; by comparison, employing the available technology today, we should be able to leap-frog ahead and achieve incredible results.

Urban Planners try to bring together municipalities of the region and the private sector, as well as non-governmental organizations and intergovernmental organizations, to discuss solutions to environmental challenges, which promote both economic growth and social responsibility. Urban Planners thus has a large role to play in city branding.

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Incredible IndiaAustralia - There's Nothing Like Australia


Why should cities brand themselves?

Within few years the city adds value to itself with the efficiency and efficacy of maintaining the brand name, this results in royalties in terms of good economic growth of the city, increased per capita income and increase in funds for municipalities for future development. City branding should not be perceived merely as branding or marketing; it is the art of creating an image of a city in peoples mind so that they are attracted towards it; the unique character of the city is what makes it different from the rest of the world. These days the movement of people is very fluid, and hence it is important to articulate what the city has best in it and how it is different from its other competitors, therefore making it more eye-catching for other cities.  Earlier marketing techniques were used to promote cities worldwide. Place branding is a new trend, only half a decade old, where the image of the city was considered as a pre-requisite for future investments, export of products and enhancing tourism. Place branding should not be confused with marketing, as it is more inclusive and displays cities ideals, accomplishments and aspirations apart from just concentrating on the markets to be served.

Well marketed place branding strategies strengthen communities’ sense of place; it creates a line between the communities, business, and visitors. Most of the time the city focuses on building capacities and enhancing the growth of various sectors and city branding helps in enhancing the pace. Traditionally the character of the city was mainly defined by its geography and the industry supported by it, that is primarily the physical traits. However, today culture, people, innovation, ideas generated, and experiences given by that place contribute towards its image.

Kotler et al., (1999) suggested four critical reasons explaining the need for city branding. These adapted reasons are:

  1. Cities have to compete in the modern-day world and have to adjust to it because of the continually changing environment.
  2. Cities grow due to urbanization. A powerful brand name would help to brush through economic slowdowns and would be a shield to negative publicity.
  3. Countries are more competitive these days for affluent residents and tourists. To sustain competitive advantage, countries are now more attentive to become a more attractive destination for tourists.
  4. Self-governance and local funding are the final reason. Cities these days understand the power of creating international events to place them on a world map. It is also through these efforts that different types of funding (advertisements, live telecasts’ fee, tickets revenue, food and beverage, hotels, etc.) can be generated.

City Branding

City branding is a long-term process and cannot be achieved in a few years; effective city branding requires real changes before the campaign, and public relations can come with effect.  Short-term advertising and vague goals portraying a pretty picture of the city won’t help in the long run. Systematic approach targeting each stakeholder is what works. The real-time experiences of investors should inspire this approach. The same city can hold different interests for various people, so these need to be addressed and adopted rather than incorporating a singular approach.

City branding is done in 5 stages:

  1. City audit to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the city.
  2. Construction of identity through discussions
  3. Understanding competition and position finding
  4. Creation of vision for city and listing of objectives
  5. Developing a strategy to promote the city or the process of “branding.”

Once these stages are completed the city/country gets a distinct identity as reflected in the image above! The brand name helps in getting investment for the city or country which can be for a specific sector like tourism, industry, manufacturing, research, innovation, etc.

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