Purpose – This paper deals with the importance of residents within place branding. The aim of this paper is to examine the different roles that residents play in the formation and communication of place brands and explores the implications for place brand management....

Purpose City branding has gained popularity as governance strategy. However, the academic underpinning is still poor, and city branding needs a more critical conceptualization, as well as more complex management systems. This paper challenges the use of a “one size fits all” city brand,...

Purpose – Today we have to face the challenge of competing in a globalized world for scarce goods, such as residents in general, and in particular for those with talents, the so‐called “creative class”. This class is the driving force for economic growth, so winning the competition for...

Purpose – The branding of places has gained popularity among city officials in recent years. Unfortunately, place marketers often disregard the complexity of place brands, as do their counterparts in the academic discussion: the focus repeatedly falls on the simple explorative description of...

Purpose – To develop a city, officials frequently invest a great deal of taxpayers' money in large‐scale place development projects, which are often sparsely supported by the citizens because such projects often lead to unwanted effects (such as gentrification). This results in conflicts...

Purpose – Cities increasingly compete with each other for attracting tourists, investors, companies, or residents. Marketers therefore focus on establishing the city as a brand, disregarding that the perception and knowledge of a city differ dramatically between the target audiences. Hence,...

Purpose – This paper aims to develop a participatory approach to place branding. In doing so, it offers guidance on how to implement a participatory place branding strategy within place management practice. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on theoretical insights drawn from...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on a special session entitled “Place branding: Are we wasting our time?”, held at the American Marketing Association’s Summer Marketing Educators’ conference in 2014. Design/methodology/approach – The report details the outcome of an...