Introduction

There is a small but rapidly growing body of literature pertaining to place branding. Many

streams of research have provided input to the creation of knowledge in the domain of place

branding. This diversity of sources encompasses many disciplines that rarely, if ever, attract

attention in the marketing and branding literature. For example, the fields of sociology, history,

national identity, and politics may be regarded as having a potentially important contribution to

make to the practice of place branding. Practitioners and academics involved in place branding

should therefore be prepared to scan horizons far wider than those associated purely with

conventional brand management and brand strategy. The country-of-origin literature offers

valuable insights into the effect on consumer behavior that the provenance of a product or service

can have. However, it has traditionally been beyond the scope of the country-of-origin literature

to analyze the historical and cultural dimensions of which nations are constituted. It is this

breadth of scope that characterizes place branding. This overview of the literature highlights the

multifaceted nature of place branding and identifies some of the landmark texts and emerging

avenues in the place branding literature.

FROM PLACE MARKETING TO PLACE BRANDING

Places have long felt a need to differentiate themselves from each other, to assert their

individuality in pursuit of various economic, political or socio-psychological objectives. The

conscious attempt of governments to shape a specifically-designed place identity and promote it

to identified markets, whether external or internal is almost as old as civic government itself.

Thus, any consideration of the fundamental geographical idea of sense of place must include the

deliberate creation of such senses through place marketing.

“The goal of the study is to gain an insight and understanding on how Rawalpindi is branded

to attract tourists to the destination. Through this understanding gain further light as to how

Rawalpindi can be branded to meet the international tourists’ expectations, especially Pakistani

tourists”

Research Question

How can we use Rawalpindi city as a brand, in mechanism of tourism, culture, artifacts and

economic development?

Objective

Place branding creates value for a city, region or country by aligning the messages that the place

already sends out, in accordance with a powerful and distinctive strategic vision; by unlocking

the talent of the people who live there and stimulating investment to reinforce and fulfil this

vision; and by creating new, powerful and cost-effective ways to give the place a more effective

and memorable voice and enhance its international reputation.

Literature Review

The debate relating to branding and its inception is extremely active and intriguing. Brands have

been used as marks of identification at some time in all countries and civilizations’. McNeill &

McNeill (2003) believe that branding was developed as a result of “…humans [being] drawn

together in patterns of interaction and exchange, cooperation and competition since earliest

times”. Keller (2003) considers that the origins of branding relate to craftsmen and their need to

identify the fruits of their labor from others. However, Low and Fullerton (1994) believe that the
origins of modern branding can be traced to the late 19th century with “…the development of

branded consumer products such as Gillette and Quaker Oats”.

Destination and place branding however, is considered to be a relatively new field of study

(Hankinson, 2001, Kavaratzis, 2004), in which there remains an apparent lack of empirical

research (Caldwell and Freire, 2004) and little clarity or agreement about terminology or

definitions (Anholt, 2004). Nevertheless, it is generally recognized that concepts of place

branding are grounded in corporate branding and marketing theories that have been modified for

the purpose (Kavaratzis, 2004). Many authors have acknowledged the multiple dimensionalities

of brands and there are a plethora of models and metrics which attempt to classify and measure

the various brand components.

focusing on the functional and emotional/symbolic attributes (Cooper, 1979; de Chernatony and

McWilliam, 1989). This concept has been further developed through application of the Brand

Box Method (de Chernatony and Dall’Olmo Riley, 1997) and specifically applied to destination

branding where it has been

used to explore areas such

as city brand image

attributes (Hankinson,

2005), organic (historical

and cultural heritage)

images (Hankinson, 2004)

as well as country and

regional differences

(Caldwell and Freire, 2004). Others (e.g. Goodyear, 1993; de Chernatony 1993) have developed

brand typographies which explore the evolutionary nature and developmental sequence of a

typical brand, starting as an unbranded commodity and developing through a brand icon, and a

brand culture, into a policy driver or even a brand religion (Kunde, 2000).

At the same time, a range of multifaceted models have been developed, many of which tend to

measure aspects such as brand equity, brand esteem and brand potential. Rubenstein (1995), for

instance, developed a model for Brand Chartering, which presents key dimensions of a brand,

against its communication, management and implementation objectives. Kapferer (2003)

introduces a range of models to explore different brand facets, for instance, a brand prism,

exploring such questions as “why? When? , for whom? and against whom” (Kapferer, 2003; p97)
and further presents a model to identify positive and negative, latent and patent brand

associations (Kapferer, 2003; p119), and has also developed a brand hexagon which seeks to

explore more nebulous brand dimensions such as “personality, reflection, self-image and

“physique”. Keller (2000) introduced the Brand Report Card in which brand managers are asked

to score their brands against 10 pre-determined facets, and later presented a Brand Tracking

model, which provides a practitioner approach to brand building (Keller, 2003; Kotler and

Keller, 2006). This model consists of a brand pyramid which starts with “salience” at the base (to

define awareness and identity), and moves through “performance, imagery, judgments and

feelings towards resonance”, at the apex, denoting the relationship with the brand.

The destination brand literature has complimented these typologies, often with more specific

brand attributes that include the physical environment, weather and food (Embacher and Buttle,

1989), or the creation of a geographical marketing mix (Ashworth and Voogt, 1989) focusing on

promotion, spatial-functional measures, organizational measures and financial aspects, whilst

Kotler et al (2002) have developed a model of place improvement which embraces place as a

character, the fixed environment, service provision and the entertainment or recreational value.

Hubbard and Hall (1998) further include aspects such as cultural regeneration, large-scale

physical redevelopments and mega events.

The purpose of this study is not to re-examine the extensive literature on corporate and product

branding but to focus specifically upon the self- conscious application of branding to places as an

instrument of urban planning and management. The application of place marketing is largely

dependent on the construction, communication and management of the city’s image, because, at

its simplest, encounters between cities and their users take place through perceptions and images.

Marketing therefore cannot other than be ‘the conscious and planned practice of signification and
representation’ (Firat & Venkatesh 1993, p. 246), which in turn is the starting point for

examining place branding. One of the cornerstones of marketing thought is undoubtedly

consumer orientation; thinking about the product, the company and the way we ‘do business’

from the consumer’s viewpoint. In city marketing and especially in the case of the city’s existing

residents, consumer’s orientation would have to be how the residents encounter the city they live

in, how they make sense of it, which physical, symbolic or other elements they evaluate in order

to make their assessment of the city. The field of cultural geography has dealt with such matters

and has developed an understanding, which is useful at this point. In general, people make sense

of places or construct places in their minds through three processes (see e.g. Crang 1998;

Holloway & Hubbard 2001). These are first, through planned interventions such as planning,

urban design and so on; second, through the way in which they or others use specific places; and

third, through various forms of place representations such as films, novels, paintings, news

reports and so on. It is generally acknowledged that people encounter places through perceptions

and images. As Holloway & Hubbard (2001, p. 48) describe, interactions with places may be

‘through direct experience or the environment or indirectly through media representations’.

However, what is critical is how, this information is processed, via mental processes of cognition,

to form stable and learned images of place, which are the basis for our everyday interactions with

the environment. It is the mental maps that individuals create that allow them to navigate through

complex reality, because ‘our surroundings are often more complex than the sense we make of

them’. Branding deals specifically with such mental images. Place branding Centre’s on people’s

perceptions and images and puts them at the heart of orchestrated activities, designed to shape

the place and its future. Managing the place brand becomes an attempt to influence and treat
those mental maps in a way that is deemed favorable to the present circumstances and future

needs of the place.

Conclusion

This study, which sought to clarify the application of ‘Place’ and its associated vocabulary by

discipline and in relation to geographical entities, is considered timely as the discipline of Place

Branding has become increasingly important for practitioners and is receiving more attention

from researchers. Researchers have emphasized the need for an agreed vocabulary in the place-

branding arena.

The research has revealed that the focus of discussion for place branding has shifted from

tourism to business and marketing; case studies in the discipline of Branding and Business (65.2

per cent) were double that in Tourism (34.8 per cent), with the majority of case studies relating to

countries (52.8 per cent) and cities (32.6 per cent).

The content analysis of paper titles and abstracts affirmed that the term ‘Destination’ is used

predominantly in the tourism literature, articulated in various geographical entity forms and

accounting for the majority of case studies, second to which is ‘Place’. ‘Place’ and ‘Location’ are

the most dominant terms used in Branding and Business. The absence of ‘Town’ as a possible

place brand term has been noted (town was generally identified as ‘Location’), as was the lack of

case-study research relating to towns (6.7 per cent), second to which were regions, states and

counties (7.9 per cent), respectively, calling for supplementary research. To describe a city the

terms most used were ‘Destination’ and ‘Location’, region was mostly described as a

‘Destination’ and a ‘Place' while a country was most described as a ‘Destination’, ‘Place’ and a

‘Nation’ but not as a ‘Country’.

Within the context of rising competition between territories, identity has become the most

important element of recognition, differentiation and commodification in the communicative

process within which cities, regions and countries position themselves. Geographical spaces

thus compete in terms of this identity, which is then subjected to fierce comparison and

competition (Nogué, 1999; Anholt, 2007a). The territorial brand thus entails the reinvention

of places through a process of brand construction (branding) based on the promotion of

the individual and collective identities of geographical spaces; these identities, in turn, are

imbued with the intangible factors associated with their respective territorial identities.

THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF BRANDS ASSOCIATED WITH

It is difficult to put a date on the origins of the place brand, as there are two principal reference

points on the timeline of the development of this concept. One the one hand, we should consider

the hidden branding that nations and countries have implicitly carried out throughout history.

Anholt (2008a) contends that the link between brands and territories dates back as far as the

times of Alexander the Great (356 B.C. to 323 B.C.), who was one of the first people to consider

that the success or failure of places depended largely on the image they projected beyond their

borders.

Within the literature, the first examples of explicit documented references to the brand territory

dyad –in which the significance of the concept of the brand is real rather than token, as occurs

within the ambit of promotion– are found at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. In

this period, Bartels and Timmer published their work City Marketing: instruments and effects

(1987), Ashworth and Voogd published Selling the City (1990), and 1993 witnessed the

appearance of one of the fundamental reference works within the academic literature linking
brands, marketing and places: Marketing places: attracting 468 Boletín de la Asociación de

Geógrafos Españoles N.º 62 – 2013 Jordi de San Eugenio Vela investment, industry, and tourism

to cities, states, and nations, by Philip Kotler, Donald H. Haider and Irving Rein.

FROM THE COMMERCIAL BRAND TO THE PLACE BRAND

Corporate branding has become established as the point of reference for the branding of places.

The dichotomy that this creates –corporations versus places– within the context of branding

allows for the development of a comparative analysis from which it is possible to specify the

basic differences encountered in the application of a process of brand construction in both cases.

Although there is a convergence between the end goals of corporations and places – that is, the

creation of a positive image and reputation – the path followed in the achievement of these goals

differs substantially. Divergences appear, however, due to the inherent public-domain nature of

places, this meaning that the two spheres have working environments with social implications

which are radically different. The sphere of place involves management which crosses into

politics, domain and public goods, whereas the sphere of corporations involves business

management and private ownership

Variables

Brand Knowledge Brand knowledge refers to brand awareness (whether and when

consumers know the brand) and brand image (what associations consumers have with the brand).

The different dimensions of brand knowledge can be classified in a pyramid (adapted from

Keller 2001), in which each lower-level element provides the foundations of the higher-level

element.
Brand Awareness

Brand awareness measures

the accessibility of the brand

in memory. Brand awareness

can be measured through brand recall or brand recognition. Brand recall reflects the ability of

consumers to retrieve the brand from memory when given the product category, the needs

fulfilled by the category, or some other type of probe as a cue.

Brand Recognition

Brand recognition reflects the ability of consumers to confirm prior exposure to the brand

(i.e., recognize that it is an “old” brand that they have seen before and not a “new” brand that

they are seeing for the first time). In a recognition task, consumers see a stimulus (e.g., an ad for

the brand, a brand name) and must say whether they have seen it before (e.g., last night on

television, in magazine X, etc.).

Methodology

As mentioned earlier, the case under scrutiny, here is the place branding or city branding , and

data on this event is mainly derived from the website of one of its organizers, Pindi.com and

different sources includes interviews and questionnaires since it’s qualitative research. This

naturally entails certain limitations as Pindi.com or Facebook pages has an interest in presenting

their activities in a favorable light, thereby justifying their actions. Attention was also given to

the short documentaries of the place, which did not, however, add any perspective to the data
available on the other sites and published papers. People’s observation at the focused places hae

been great advantage as the actual execution of the branding Idea and level and nature of the

visitor involvement could have been registered. This would also have facilitated direct contact

with visitors in terms of investing toward city Rawalpindi.

References

http://www.boletinage.com/62/27-SAN%20EUGENIO.pdf
Aaker, D. A. (1996) ‘Building Strong Brands’, Free Press, New York, NY. Anholt, S. (2002)

‘Foreword to special issue on place branding’, Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 9, Nos 4–5,

pp. 229–239.

Ashworth, G. J. (1994) ‘Marketing of places: What are we doing? ’, in Ave, G. and Corsico, F.

(eds) ‘Marketing Urbano International Conference’, Edizioni Torino Incontra, Turin, Italy.

Anholt, Simon. “Anholt-GMI Nation Brands Index, 2006 Q4 General Report.” Nation Brands

Index. www.nationbrandsindex.com.

Anholt, Simon. Places: Identity, Image and Reputation. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Papadopoulos, N. and Heslop, L. (2002), “Country equity and country branding:

Problems and prospects”, Journal of Brand Management, Vol 9, No. 4-5, pp 294-314

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