Original Article

Putting city branding into practice

Received (in revised form): 9th January 2011

Erik Braun
is senior researcher and lecturer in urban economics and city marketing at the Erasmus School of Economics of Erasmus
University Rotterdam. His primary research interests are the application of marketing and branding concepts by cities
and regions, the governance of place marketing and branding, the role of place brand perceptions and place brand
management. His teaching subjects are urban and regional economics, city marketing and city branding.

ABSTRACT City branding has joined the vocabulary of a growing number of politicians
and city officials across Europe. While most academic research in this field has
focused on the concept of city branding itself, the subject of this article is the
implementation of city branding. In this conceptual paper it is argued that the
governance setting in which city branding takes place, as well as the impact of specific
choices made in the branding process, greatly affect the implementation of city
branding. This research identifies eight factors: the first four are governance factors
concerning the fit of city branding with the citys wider policy framework; the last
four factors are intrinsically linked to the concept and application of branding itself.
The first four factors identified are especially important for bolstering the significance
of city branding in relation to the citys traditional policies: they could help marketing
professionals avoid mistakes previously made with the introduction of city marketing.
At the same time, the strategic branding choices of city marketers could have a
direct impact on the political decision-making process as well. Hence, city branding
requires the combination of marketing excellence with the sensitivity of operating
in a political environment.

Journal of Brand Management (2012) 19, 257267. doi:10.1057/bm.2011.55;

published online 14 October 2011
Keywords: city branding; place branding; branding; place marketing; city marketing;
governance; cities

INTRODUCTION

Correspondence:
Dr Erik Braun
Erasmus University Rotterdam,
Erasmus School of Economics,
Room H12-23, PO Box 1738,
3000 DR, Rotterdam,
The Netherlands

A growing number of cities in Europe have

discovered the value of branding. Indeed,
prime locations such as London, Stockholm,
Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Berlin all
claim to have a city branding strategy. Of
course, these names represent only a small
selection of European cities that have adopted

an official branding strategy; the number of

cities utilizing branding in some capacity has
been growing steadily (Kavaratzis and
Ashworth, 2005). Nonetheless, many cities
are struggling to effectively apply city
branding: for example, there is confusion
about its concepts, application, anticipated
effects, and the political and organizational

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responsibility (see Hankinson, 2001; Anholt,

2008; Ashworth, 2008; Braun, 2008;
Kavaratzis, 2008). Most of the academic
research in this field has either focused on
the concept of the city brand or the translation of marketing and branding concepts for
cities (see for an overview Kavaratzis, 2008).
The struggle of cities to effectively apply
branding indicates that the issue of proper
implementation deserves much more attention in marketing academia.
This article puts the issue of implementing
city branding central. The starting point of
our analysis is the governance setting in
which city branding takes place thus bringing
two different academic fields branding and
urban governance together. The underlying assumption is that city branding is part
of urban governance, or to put it differently:
that city branding cannot be isolated from
city politics. In this article, city branding will
be considered in the context of urban governance and it is argued that understanding
this setting is crucial for putting city branding
into practice. The aim of this conceptual
paper is to identify factors that affect implementation; in other words, to uncover factors
that allow professionals to more easily put
city branding into practice. Those factors are
directly related to urban governance, but the
article also reviews specific strategic choices
made in city branding that impact the political decision-making process and the wider
support for city branding.

SETTING THE SCENE: CITY

BRANDING
Medway and Warnaby (2008) observed that
places are being conceptualized as brands,
referring to the work of Hankinson (2004)
and Kavaratzis and Ashworth (2005) in particular. Kavaratzis (2008, p. 11) considered city
branding as a new application of city marketing because he identified a change of focus
from the rational character of marketing interventions to creating emotional, mental, psychological associations with a city. Nonetheless,

258

the main argument for the use of marketing

and branding by cities is the same: the competition among cities for tourists, businesses,
residents and other target groups (for example,
Van den Berg and Braun, 1999; Medway and
Warnaby, 2008; Zenker, 2009).
It is important to note that city branding
is part of the wider place branding family.
Many observers have pointed out that place
marketing and place branding could involve
different types of places and different spatial
scales (see for example: Ashworth and
Voogd, 1990; Kotler et al, 1999; Van den
Berg and Braun, 1999; Kavaratzis, 2008;
Ashworth and Kavaratzis, 2009). In practice, place branding could be applied to
neighbourhoods, districts, tourist destinations, cities, rural areas, regions, states and
countries. Metaphorically speaking, place
branding is the family tree, with family
members such as city branding, destination
branding, nation branding and location
branding acting as the branches.
Generally speaking, city branding strategies
feature a wider scope than the typical destination branding. The latter is primarily directed
toward tourists, whereas city branding
addresses all of the citys users, potential users
and other stakeholders that are important for
the functioning of cities (Braun, 2008). Pike
(2005) concluded that academia has produced
a paucity of research into destination branding;
a few years later, Balakrishnan (2009) reached a similar conclusion. Despite the relatively small number of academic papers,
Balakrishnan (2009) was still able to develop
a framework for the strategic branding of destinations on the basis of a literature review.
Doing a similar job for city branding would
prove quite the challenge: even though the
Journal of Place Branding and Public Diplomacy
has existed since 2004, the growing popularity
of city branding in practice is not (yet)
reflected in the mainstream marketing literature
and does not feature the same depth as destination branding. Granted, the number of interesting contributions is growing (for example,

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Iversen and Hem, 2008; Kavaratzis, 2008;

Medway and Warnaby, 2008; Ashworth and
Kavaratzis, 2009; Zenker, 2009), but the current academic debate still needs a stimulus
from marketing academics given that most
of the early publications on place marketing
and place branding were written by geographers, urban planners, sociologists and regional
economists.
In recent years, the most promising theoretical developments for city branding
have been based on corporate branding
theory. Kavaratzis and Ashworth (2005),
Kavaratzis (2008) and Trueman et al (2004)
underpin their analysis of city branding
with insights from corporate branding.
Additionally, Hankinsons (2004) model of
places as relational brand networks moves
away from product branding and develops
a holistic view on place brands. Having said
that, many critical issues for city branding
still need to be addressed, such as the implementation of city branding.
Hankinson (2001) was one of the first
authors to address the implementation of
place branding empirically. He published
the results of qualitative research conducted
in 12 cities across the United Kingdom.
These cities considered branding to be relevant, but still expressed confusion about
the concept. That study also indicated that
branding was not always applied effectively
and identified four factors that were particularly important for the development of
location brands: organizational complexity
and control, the management of partnerships, product complexity and the measurement of success (Hankinson, 2001). It is
immediately clear that most of these factors
are concerned much more with the context
of the branding process than the substance
of branding itself. Likewise, Balakrishnan
(2009, p. 612) summarized seven unique
characteristics of a destination which differentiate it from corporate, product and
service brands. Most of these characteristics are not connected to the specifics of

using branding, but to the context in which

destination branding is applied such
as the strong dependency on macroenvironmental factors (terrorism, currency
fluctuations, politics), geographical constraints (accessibility, location), past history
(inherited names, heritage, culture, perceptions), diverse and influential stakeholders
(including governments), along with feedback and control issues (no top-down
decision-making structures) (Balakrishnan,
2009). Generally speaking, most of these
unique characteristics are also relevant for
cities and hence for city branding.
What the papers mentioned above lack
is a more in-depth analysis of the governance setting in which city branding takes
place, as well as the impact of specific
choices made in the branding process that
are particularly relevant for the implementation. The comparative urban study of
Braun (2008) into the implementation
of city marketing concluded that embedding city marketing in urban governance
and creating the right conditions for city
marketing management will become key
challenges for cities that want to make
the most of their marketing efforts in the
coming years (Braun, 2008, p. 193). The
assumption follows that this observation
for city marketing is also relevant for city
branding.

CITY BRANDING AS PART OF

URBAN GOVERNANCE
This article considers it crucial that city
branding be seen in the context of what
political scientists would describe as urban
governance. A straightforward description
of urban governance is how and by whom
city policies are produced, decided and
implemented (Braun, 2008, p. 82). A
detailed discussion of governance theory
goes beyond the scope of this article, as
there are several interpretations, concepts
and definitions of (urban) governance
(see for further reading: Stoker, 1998;

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Pierre, 1999; Kearns and Paddison, 2000;

Kooiman, 2002). A suitable interpretation
should incorporate the (potential) variety
of stakeholders involved, as well as the
fact that many city policies are joint initiatives of public and private stakeholders.
Healey (2007, p. 65) broadly defines governance as the array of mechanisms for
structuring collective action, whether by
government, by business associations or
associations arising from within civil
society. Hence, urban governance refers
to governance in an urban region, city
or neighbourhood (Healey, 2006).
In practice, this definition implies that
both public and private stakeholders are
involved in city branding; and further, that
city branding is a subject of political decision-making that cannot be isolated from
politics nor from administrative procedures.
This is a crucial argument also supported
by the observation of Anholt (2008, p. 1),
that one important message is finally beginning to permeate the general consciousness:
that communications are no substitute for
policies. The fact that city branding (and
city marketing) is part of the political
process makes the translation of marketing
and branding insights fundamentally different when applied to the context of
cities.
There have been a few suggestions for
how to handle this political context. Kotler
et al (1999) proposed the establishment
of a planning group (in which all relevant
public and private stakeholders participate)
to oversee the places marketing and
branding policies. This is easier said than
done, due to the potentially conflicting
interests of the public and private stakeholders (for example, Van den Berg
and Braun, 1999; Trueman et al, 2004).
Furthermore, in most European cities such
a planning group would not eliminate the
political influence on the place branding
process. Rainisto (2003) took the idea of
a planning group and added political unity

260

as an important condition for successful

place marketing and branding. According
to Rainisto (2003, p. 68), political unity
is needed to manage the process of the
necessary decisions in a rational and consistent way. Anyone with some experience in city politics knows that political
decisions can result from a rational analysis,
but that these decisions could just as well
be influenced by emotions, the shifting
interests of political parties, well-organized
interest groups, the media and many other
factors. In addition, political unity is a difficult concept to achieve: its realization is
the exception rather than the rule in city
councils; and although councils may contain stable political majorities, agreements
could change over particular issues. Also,
marketing and branding are long-term
processes that usually last beyond the terms
of elected city officials. Maintaining longterm political unity that is unaffected by
changing city governments cannot be
taken for granted: marketing professionals
and politicians have to work hard to implement city branding in such a way that their
eventual successors also subscribe to those
policies.
Essentially, the problem with the two
suggested approaches is that city marketing
and city branding are in fact positioned
outside the administrative and political context of cities. However, this context cannot
be treated as an exogenous variable because
city marketing and city branding are part
of it.

FACTORS AFFECTING THE

IMPLEMENTATION OF CITY
BRANDING
After acknowledging that city branding is
inherently part of urban governance, the
question arises: what does this mean for
the implementation of city branding? As
said earlier in the definition of Healey
(2007), governance is the array of mechanisms for structuring collective action.

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Consequently, we need to review mechanisms that structure collective action in

this case city branding. Instead of mechanisms we use the term factors, which is more
common in marketing research. These factors are presented in the form of
hypotheses.
The first factor concerns the interpretation of city branding by the citys political
leadership and other key decision-makers.
In other words, is there a clear majority
view on the interpretation of city branding
on the level of the citys decision-makers?
It is argued here that a shared majority view
on city branding among the citys decision-makers stimulates a more coherent
and integrated approach to branding,
whereas confusion, conflicts and fragmentation hamper the implementation of city
branding. Hankinsons (2001) study already
touched upon this issue, showing that most
of the surveyed city departments had limited appreciation of what branding is
(Hankinson, 2001, p. 139). Furthermore,
branding as a concept was seen as relevant
but not always understood, and this has to
be born in mind when considering the
results. In particular, branding techniques
were often limited to the development of
logos, straplines and symbols (Hankinson,
2001, p. 139). He also found that more
progressive cities tried to develop a more
customer-focused approach to branding,
while less progressive cities worked with a
product-oriented approach. The lack of
understanding among the citys decisionmakers can also be attributed to the weak
consensus among marketing academics. As
Kavaratzis and Ashworth (2005, p. 508) put
it: Unfortunately there is no single accepted
definition of place branding and the marketing experts have often compounded the
problem by their attempts to elaborate.
Currently, there is at least a general agreement in the marketing literature that
the brand is more than an identifying
name given to a product. It is also not

(as some marketing commentators seem

to be suggesting) a synonym for a single
catchy slogan, however much of this
might embody the aspirations of the city
authorities.
Hence, it comes as no surprise that a
misunderstanding persists about the definition of city branding. A politician or senior
city official that opens his or her marketing
textbook from the 1990s reads that a brand
is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design,
or combination of them which is intended
to identify the goods and services of one
seller or group of sellers and to differentiate
them from those of competitors (Kotler
1991, p. 442). This definition is still used
by the American Marketing Association.
However, a colleague of the politician or
senior official who has read an academic
paper, such as the overview paper of
Balmer (2001), will possess a rather different interpretation. And a third colleague
who speaks with an influential branding
consultant will develop yet another view
on branding. This leads us to the first
hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: A shared majority view
on the interpretation of city branding
among the citys political leadership
and other city decision-makers positively affect putting city branding into
practice.
The second factor relates to the citys political priorities. A (newly) elected city government will present its programme and
political priorities for the time in office.
Some cities also work to sustain a long-term
vision that stretches beyond the office term
of one particular government. Explicitly
including the city branding objectives into
the citys political priorities, programmes
and long-term vision significantly helps
those responsible for the branding. Firstly,
this approach reinforces the position of
city branding in relation to the set of other

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city policies. Secondly, if city branding

objectives are set by the elected officials,
branding is safeguarded from the status of
an outsider that might compete with the
official city policies. Finally, the inclusion
of the city brand objectives yields an effect
similar to a firms mission, setting a limit
on the type of brand concepts that can be
considered (Park et al, 1986). By basing the
city brand concepts on the included objectives, branding agents can minimize the
potential confusion discussed above. Our
second hypothesis addresses this issue:
Hypothesis 2: Including city branding
objectives in the political priorities,
programme and long-term city vision
has a positive effect on putting city
branding into practice.
The third factor concerns the political
responsibility for city marketing and city
branding, as well as the position of city
marketing and branding in relation to other
functional policy areas, programmes and
projects. Van den Berg and Braun (1999)
already pointed to the importance of leadership based on formal and material competence in city marketing and branding.
Rainisto (2003) and Braun (2008) also
denoted the importance of leadership. City
branding leadership at the political level
both formal and material is very important. The political systems of most European
countries need clear political responsibilities
for separate policy fields (for example,
transportation, economic development,
education and social welfare). In that way,
elected politicians can be held accountable
for their activities. This practical subdivision of policy fields is usually also reflected
in the departmental organization of the
city administration. Depending on the
citys political system, the responsibility
for city branding could lie with the mayor,
the aldermen in the city cabinet, leaders of
the council, or other powerful stakeholders.

262

In most European cities, the political

responsibilities are organized through
aldermen, such as an alderman for economic development and tourism or an
alderman for sports and culture. A clearly
defined political responsibility for city
branding (together with city marketing)
would fit the political systems of most of
Europes cities. Moreover, the absence of
a clear political responsibility could imply
that city branding has little political backing,
thus weakening its position in relation to
other city policy fields. In short, it is imperative that the political responsibility for city
branding be clear. This is expressed in the
third hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: Unambiguous political responsibility for city branding increases
the chance of successful implementation of city branding.
The fourth factor is stakeholder management.
A key element in the governance literature
is that many decisions, policies and actions
are not just a matter of government and
its traditional planning procedures: they at
least partly arise from strategic networks of
public and private stakeholders (for example
Koppenjan and Klijn, 2004; Agranoff and
McGuire, 2001; Van den Berg and Braun,
1999; Kooiman, 2002). Stakeholder management is a central element in many different
branding theories and it appropriately features
prominently in city branding frameworks (for
example, Hankinson, 2004; Trueman et al,
2004; Kavaratzis and Ashworth, 2005) as
well as destination branding frameworks (see
Balakrishnan, 2009). City branding is by
definition branding in a network setting;
therefore, it is also the collective action of
public and private stakeholders. This resonates with the recent debate in the branding
literature on brand co-creation (see Hatch
and Schulz, 2010). Furthermore, Hankinson
(2004) argued that the citys products are
managed by a complex organization of

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public and private sector stakeholders, making

place branding first and foremost a coordinated process rather than a managed activity
(Hankinson, 2004, p. 112). In practice, city
brand management is very much stakeholder
management, involving decisions about
which stakeholders to include and during
which part of the branding process, as well
as organizing support in the community. The
two dimensions of this process involving
the right stakeholders to help build the brand
and orchestrating the right political involvement to safeguard the branding process
are not easily separated. Hence, the fourth
hypothesis is:

services, and so on). Kavaratzis (2008) called

the latter form primary communication and
the former secondary communication.
Effective city branding requires that the secondary communication be in line with the
primary communication. The possible gap
between exaggerated claims in secondary
communication and the primary signals of
the citys reality could negatively affect the
city brand. In turn, this could lead to bad
word of mouth (tertiary communication in
the framework of Kavaratzis) for the city
brand. In other words, city branding has to
be genuine to remain believable. Thus,
hypothesis number five is:

Hypothesis 4: Adequate stakeholder management affects the implementation of

a city branding strategy positively.

Hypothesis 5: Putting city branding into

practice requires that city branding is
genuine and credible.

The next four factors concern specific

choices made regarding the city brand and
the process of building the city brand.
These choices are particularly relevant in
the urban governance setting because of
their potentially significant effect on the
progress of the city branding effort.
The fifth factor deals with the authenticity
of the city branding effort. Is the city branding
genuine and credible? The choices made for
the substance of the brand could make or
break the city brand. Herbig and Milewicz
(1995) have argued that brands are signals of
quality and value for customers: the objective
of brands is to create symbolic meaning
which assists the customer in the decisionmaking process (Herbig and Milewicz, 1995,
p. 8). In the decision-making process customers experience these signals created by the
brand; likewise, a city brand sends signals to
(prospective) costumers too. As Kavaratzis
(2008) observed, a city communicates not
just through its deliberate communication
policies (for example, public relations, campaigns, the Web, and so on), but also through
its landscape, infrastructure, organizational
structure and behaviour (of city users, events,

The sixth factor concerns the strategic

choices made regarding the target audiences of city branding. Who are cities targeting with city branding? The easiest
answer to this question is all the people
and organizations that are important for the
functioning of the city. A related issue is
how cities are dealing with the wide variety
of customers that could be targeted through
city branding. In many ways, a city brand
could benefit from the main ideas that
support the concept of umbrella branding.
In lieu of this, Iversen and Hem (2008)
have developed a framework for place
umbrella brands. They argue that it should
be possible to market a group of very different products under the umbrella of the
places reputation. The difficult part,
according to Iversen and Hem (2008), is
to identify a few core brand values that
encompass the complexity of the total
offerings of the place; it concerns, in their
words, the essence of the place and the
spirit of its people (Iversen and Hem,
2008, p. 611). Contrary to the analysis of
Iversen and Hem, it is argued here that
umbrella branding in the case of city

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branding is not a geographical umbrella

with sub-brands for (smaller) geographical
areas included in the umbrella. The
umbrella city brand refers to all the people
and organizations that are important for the
functioning of a city that is, all the
existing and potential customers.
At the same time, one of the basic rules
in marketing is to identify target groups and
communicate directly to this audience
(Achrol and Kotler, 1999). Van den Berg
and Braun (1999) and Braun (2008) have
identified four general categories of (existing
and potential) city customers: residents,
companies, visitors and investors. They
chose to include the last group of customers
investors explicitly. This group consists
of professional investors such as pension
funds, real estate companies, banks, venture
capitalists, and so on. They invest capital
into locations and projects in the city, but
do not necessarily locate in a particular
place. Depending on the characteristics of
the city, one could also add special customer groups such as students, commuters
and of course the intermediary organizations that affect the perceptions of these
customer groups. These could be travel
agents, property developers, the media
(Avraham, 2000) and many more. In this
line of thought, cities need to work with
sub-brands for particular target audiences to
be more effective. For example, the destination branding of the city of Amsterdam
is different from Amsterdams efforts to
attract inward investment. This implies that
it is more appropriate to work with subbrands for different city target groups.
Consequently, the challenge is to combine
these sub-brands with the umbrella brand
as stated in Hypothesis 6:
Hypothesis 6: A combination of umbrella
branding for all target audiences with
sub-brands for particular city customers groups affects the implementation
of city branding positively.

264

The seventh factor is about another strategic option in the city branding process:
utilizing the opportunities that most cities
have for co-branding. Among others, Knox
and Bickerton (2003) have argued that
branding is a deliberate process of selecting
associations that add value to the offering.
Successful brands within the city can be
used to strengthen the city brand. The idea
is similar to co-branding where marketers
try to transfer the positive associations
of one co-branding partner to the other
(Washburn et al, 2000). In the case of city
branding, examples could be a university,
an internationally successful football
club (see Smith (2005) for the impact
of Manchester United on Manchesters
sporting image), a museum (see Plazas
(2000) analysis of the Guggenheim effect
for Bilbao), or any other company, individual or institution with a positive and
reliable reputation.
Even without a co-branding strategy
there are already many links between the
city brand and those brands within the city.
These individual brands can be successful
or unsuccessful, and the links could be
desirable or undesirable. Taking full advantage of positive co-branding opportunities
is a strategic choice for the city brand.
Of course, those brands have to complement the strategic branding framework
adopted by the city, but these successful
brands do not need to be perfectly on
brand. The point of importance is establishing (or strengthening) an explicit link
between the city brand and the successful
brand(s) in the city, thus creating a positive
association for the city. Not only is this
strategy cost-effective, but it could also help
to organize stakeholder support for the
citys branding efforts. That said the seventh
hypothesis on co-branding is presented
below:
Hypothesis 7: The implementation of city
branding is stimulated by co-branding

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the city with successful brands in the

city of companies, institutions, events
and people.
The eighth and final factor is also inherent
to the choices made in the city branding
process: it is the balancing act that many
practitioners will recognize between the
distinctiveness of city branding choices and
the wider support from the citys community. According to Keller (2003), one of
the main objectives of branding is to differentiate your offering from the offerings
of competitors. Brands should create differentiation. Kotler and Gertner (2002)
claimed that the desired place (brand) image
must be close to reality (see also Hypothesis
5), believable, simple, appealing and distinctive. This notion is also highly relevant
for city branding. However, city branding
is inevitably a process that involves a great
deal of stakeholders (see Hypothesis 4).
Creating a distinctive brand while incorporating the input of relevant stakeholders
presents one of the main challenges of
city branding today. A serious risk arises
when support falls behind a bleak, undifferentiated and compromising city brand.
However, developing a strong differentiated brand with just a small group of experts
could potentially jeopardize support for
the citys branding initiative. Cities thus
need to walk the tightrope between these
extremes as reflected in hypothesis number
eight:
Hypothesis 8: Putting city branding into
practice requires striking a balance between a distinctive focus for the city
brand and wider support in the citys
communities.

CONCLUSIONS
This article has identified a critical issue
that has received too little attention from
place-related marketing academia: namely,

putting city branding into practice. The

central idea underpinning the analysis in
this article is that the implementation of
city branding takes place in the context
of urban governance. The previous
attempts to deal with this administrative
and political dimension of city branding
have turned it into an exogenous variable.
This article argues that city branding is by
definition part of the administrative and
political process. It is a crucial observation
that has raised the question: what does
this mean for the implementation of city
branding?
In total, the article identified eight factors
that can (positively or negatively) affect the
implementation of city branding. All of
these factors are relevant because of the
urban governance context in which city
branding occurs. The first four factors
directly link with the context: the majority
view on city branding; the inclusion of
city branding in the political priorities;
unambiguous political responsibility; and
stakeholder management. Of course, these
factors are not just relevant to city branding,
but to city policies in general. However,
these factors are especially important for
reinforcing the significance of city branding
in relation to the citys traditional policies.
The pitfall is to present such a relatively
new phenomenon as city branding as
a clinical method or technique that can
work independently of the political process
and be applied to cities without proper
adaptation. The same happened with the
introduction of city marketing in the late
1980s and early 1990s (see Paddison, 1993;
Braun, 2008), the consequences of which
are still visible in city marketing practice
today.
The remaining four factors link to the
urban governance context through strategic
choices regarding the substance of the brand
and the approach to building the brand:
genuine and credible city branding; umbrella
city branding versus sub-brands; strategic

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co-branding with strong brands in the city;

and the balancing act between distinctiveness and wide support for the brand.
Obviously, these choices are specific to
branding and not to other city policies.
Nonetheless, the choices made concerning
these factors could seriously impact the
effectiveness of city branding in the urban
governance setting. On one hand, they
could significantly help the implementation
of city branding, but at the same time, the
wrong choice with regard to these factors
could negatively affect the progress of the
branding process, and sometimes even
create considerable political problems. The
negative affect could especially happen for
the aforementioned balancing act, as well
as to the issue of city branding being genuine and credible.
Ultimately, these eight factors could
serve as a guideline for decision-makers and
marketing professionals responsible for the
implementation of city branding. In addition, there are implications for the way city
branding is coordinated as well as for the
organizations involved in its implementation. Regarding organizations, it is important to note that simply being good at
marketing is not enough for the individuals
working in such organizations: they need
to combine marketing excellence with the
sensitivity of operating in such a political
setting. As far as the coordination is concerned, the analysis does not offer a blueprint for the organizational structure
enabling implementation of city branding.
In fact, this would be contradictive to the
analysis. The urban governance setting differs among cities and thus requires tailormade solutions. What can be derived from
the analysis is that establishing city marketing or city branding agencies without
a direct or indirect link with the citys
political leadership is counterproductive.
There are of course limitations to this
analysis. First, it is a conceptual paper and
the hypotheses put forward should be tested

266

empirically. This limitation is also an opportunity for future research. The next step
would be to test and develop these hypotheses further through a series of in-depth
case studies; it is imperative to test both the
individual hypotheses as well as explore the
relationship among these hypotheses.
Another limitation is that the financial
resources for city branding are not included
as a factor in our analysis. Understanding
the issue of availability of financial resources
and establishing the real budgets for city
marketing and city branding is a research
project of its own. The budgets of the
directly responsible marketing organizations are only a part of the story as the
financial means for marketing activities and
related investments come from various
public and private sources. Finally, some
observers might see a limitation in the
attempt of this article to bring together
insights from two different academic fields:
branding and urban governance, both using
very different terminology. However, this
article adopted the different view that these
two fields together create more depth in
the academic debate on city branding. This
is imperative for both academics and
practitioners.

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