IMPLICATIONS FOR MARKETERS

Place Branding:
Promoting a Nation
teaching Marketing

Alex Mari
University of Lugano (USI), Switzerland
visiting student at Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE), Beijing, China

International Marketing Course - Fall Term 2008

Beijing, January 2008

DEFINITION OF PLACE BRANDING

Place branding (also known as destination branding, place marketing or place promotion) is a
relatively new umbrella term encompassing nation branding, region branding and city branding.
The term was first developed by Philip Kotler1 and could refer to a city, country or a tourist
detination, and to their competition for tourists, visitors, investors, residents and other resources2.
Place Branding is based on a strategic approach to public relations, stating that a change of image is
an ongoing, holistic, interactive and wide-scale process, requiring much more than a quick change
of logo or slogan3. In other words, brand management for a city, country or a tourist destination
does not merely consist of attaching new labels, but consolidates the essential characteristics of the
individual identity into a brand core 4. As Gary C. Sherwin pointed out, brand development was not
a logo or tag line, but instead a commitment to a community-wide strategy on what distiguished the
community from others, as well as a community-wide effort to effectively communicate and create
that unique destination experience to the customer. Rather than being advertising-based, this brand
effort focused on delivering an exceptional experience that was memorable and emotional. As part
of this holistic process, the creation of a brand sets social, economical and cultural processes in
motion which can nuance, strengthen or correct others' perceptions. The routine development of
mechanisms leading to a strong and consistent brand is highly important for place branding5.
Nowadays, the conideration of a place as a brand becomes common and even the most important
experts of branding included “place” in their definitions. For instance, De Chernantony and
McDonald defined a brand as: “An identifiable product, service, person or place augmented in such
a way that the buyer or user perceives relevant unique added values which match their needs most
closely.”

INTRODUCTION

Starting from the assumption that places are increasingly seen to be products, as subject to brand
management practices as a book or a hat. The principle that cities and regions can be branded is a
natural extention of corporate brand theory. Although, more and more nation are using place
branding approach to develop their economy and tourism, there ramain foundamental differences in
the implementation of marketing theories in the place environment. Some of the difficulties are due
to the broad definition of the entity to be branded (city, regions, or country), understanding the role
of government, the challanges of aligning internal stakeholders (residents, business owners,
frontline workers etc...) and the difficulty of sustaining brand consistency and resources over time.
Researchers also exposed that the place branding concept emerged from contemporary society is
probably the strongest tool society will ever have to protect and maintain its identity and fight the
trend of standardisation.
A place, like any other product, is evaluated not only by its functional aspects but also by its
symbolic faetures, which implies a place embedded with symbolic meaning 6. In this respect, is
interesting to consider how, from a consumer point of view, a place will always mean something
even do, the country is not managed under a branding conceptual framework.
Even if we assume that a place could actually be managed like a brand, there is a huge resistence to
the application of these techniques. In fact, very often people do not accept that branding or any
other marketing concept should be applied to places because they immediatly establish a negative
link between marketing and the commercialisation of nation or local culture7.
1 Kotler, P. Haider, D.H. & Rein, I. (1993). Marketing Places, New York: Free Press.
2 Available on http://wikipedia.org
3 Avraham, Eli and Ketter, Eran (2008). Media strategies for marketing places in crisis. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann
4 Branding territory: Inside the wonderful worlds of PR and IR theory, Millennium, 31, 2, 249–269, by Peter Van Ham, 2002
5 Marie Spiekermann (2007). Building Reputation - Communicating Identity. Identity and the Place Branding Process
6 Caldweill, N. and Freire, J. (2004). The differences between branding a country, a reagion and a city.
7 MacCannel, D. (1999). The tourist: A new theory of Leasure Class.
Having a clear, differentiated positioning gives a country an advantage in attracting investment,
business and tourism, and in building markets for its exports.
A clear positioning strategy sets out, for each stakeholder group (tourists, overseas consumers,
foreign direct investors, etc) a superiority claim (how the nation is better) and the reason why the
superiority claim should be believed. As a rule of thumb, a clear positioning can be articulated in 20
words or less.
Singapore, for example, traditionally positioned itself as the best entry point to Asia for Western
multinationals — a position backed up by the reality that its laws, institutions and educated English-
speaking workforce made doing business from there safe and easy8.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF NATIONS

In past reseaches it has been on analysing the nation’s industries, economies and the opportunities
that the nation’s industries hold or can produce very much intact with brand management. Less
focus has been on other factors that influence nation brands or the nations’ brand portfolio 9.
The reason for this is probably that some of the elements cannot be seen as brands, such as people
or culture, but are clearly very influential features in nation brands’ performance in global markets.
Porter10 deals with the issue in ‘The Competitive Advantage of Nations’ when he discusses the
determinants of national advantage or competence, and he names four different factors:

1. Factor conditions. The nation’s position in factors of production, such as skilled labour or
infrastructure, necessary to compete in a given industry.

2. Demand conditions. The nature of home demand for the industry’s product or service.

3. Related and supporting industries. The presence or absence in the nation of supplier
industries and related industries that are internationally competitive.

4. Firm strategy, structure and rivalry. The condition in the nation governing how companies
are created, organized, and managed, and the nature of domestic rivalry.

If a nation goes through an international conflict, for instance, due to its government’s
environmental policies, it is likely that the nation’s brands will not endure if the nation’s image is
not strong enoughto protect them. This can depend on the knowledge other nations have or do not
have about the nation in question11.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN CORPORATE BRAND AND PLACE BRAND

Corporate Brand is defined here as brand as applied to products & services within a corporate
organizational framework. Differently, Place Brand is defined ad as applied to products and services
within political/geographical framework12. As you can see from the table below, the implementation
of a place brand may differ in important respects.
Nowadays, tourism is seen as a quintessentially consumerist activity. Indications now suggest that
travel has become a “significant lifestyle indicator for today's aspirational consumers” and, indeed,
may even be regarded as a fashion accessory13

8 Quelch, J. (2005). Positioning the nation-state.

9 Kotler et al. (1997). The marketing of nations. A strategic approach to building national wealth.
10 Porter, M.E. (1998). The competitive advantage of nations.
11 Gudjonsson, H. (2005). Nation branding.
12 Allen, G. (2003). Branding Beauty: Super, Natural British Columbia.
13 Morgan, N. et al. (2002). Destination Branding: Creating the unique destination proposition.
As prof. George Allen14 pointed out, the concept of place branding is the need to provide clear
product differentiation in an incresingly competitive, globalizing marketplace that rests on
memorability and emotional connection with consumers, delivered throught all points of contact in
the product/service value chain. This inscreasing substitutability can be observed in the
standardization of serveces offered. Every destination have fantastic hotels, attractions and a huge
number of differentiated services. Thus, every country claims a unique culture and heritage, each
place describe itself as having the friendliest people and the most costumer-focused tourism and
service and facilities15. This lack of differentiation make me appreciate even more the strategic role
that place branding could have in tourism industry development.

Table 1 – Distinction between Corporate Brand and Place Brand

Corporate Brand Place Brand

Single component product/service Multiple component product/service
Cohesive stakeholder relationships Fragmanted Stakeholder relationships
Lower organizational complexity Higher organizational complexity
Functional Experiential/hedonic
Individual orientation Collective orientation
Sub-brand coherence Sub-brand inequality & rivalry
Private enterprise Public/private partnerships
Lack of overt government role Overt government role
Product attributes consistent Product attributes subject to seasonality
Flexibility of product offering Inflexibility of product offering

Source: Allen, G. (2003). Branding Beauty: Super, Natural British Columbia.

THE PLACE BRAND EXPERIENCE

According to Allen (2003), the place brand experience begins with a formulated image of place
prior to arrival (pre-place experience), followed by the aactual experience of place (place
experience), followed by momories of the place experience (post-place experience), figure 1. Each
stage feeds into the other in a self-reinforcing process sometimes referred to as the virtuous circle16.
In Internet era, the touchpoints between customers and service provider are multiplied. Internet may
provide a two-way communication with a customer at both the pre- and post- stage of the place
experience. During 2.0 web generation will be possibile meet guests of a resort before leaving, have
an experience with them and exchange contents producted like photos or videos online (post-
experince). In this respect, the resort will be always in the middle of discussions and has the
opportunity to influence customer experience, using the contents to promote its business17.
I personally assume that, each of the elements that compose post- place experience can give its
contribution to successfully promote a place, especially through buzz or worrd-of-mouth
generation.
The experience of a place extends ahead of the physical experience of being there. In fact, there is
a period during which the intent to visit a specific place is formed. The expectations toward this
place are mainly composed by two elements: past experince (memory formation, loyalty
reinforcement) and communication (word-of-mouth dissemination and communication of the
brand). As prof. Leisen18 claims: “The travelers choice of a given vacation destination depends

14 Allen, G. (2007). Place branding: New tools for economic development.

15 Morgan, N. et al. (2002). Destination Branding: Creating the unique destination proposition.
16 Gilmore, F. (2002). A country: can it be repositionated?Spain: the success story of country branding.
17 Available on http://alexmari.blogspot.com (International Marketing Communication)
18 Leisen, B. (2001). Image segmentation: The case of a Tourism destination.
largely on the favorableness of his or her image of that destination. [...] The image connotes the
traveler's expectation of the destination and a positive image promises the traveler a rewarding life
experience. Conequently, the images held by individuals in the marketplace are crucial to
destination's marketing success.” Having said that, can be easly understood why the ability to enrich
the pre and post-physical experience of a place increases significantly. Thus, particular attention
must be given to the creation of a compelling virtual brand experience outside the physical place.
This process will substantially increase the overall service's perception and the service's satisfaction.
A place branding activity can be also seen as a complex amalgam of strategic and tactical initiavites
involving the management of multiple layers of stakeholder groups and multiple channel
communication that, in a certain sense, can stimulate the predisposition and intent to buy of
prospects19.

Figure 1 – The Place Brand Experience Model

Source: Allen, G. (2003). Branding Beauty: Super, Natural British Columbia.

ROLE OF STAKEHOLDERS AND GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS IN A PLACE

BRANDING STRATEGY

In a Place Brand implementation's strategy there are two principal elements to take into
consideration. First of all, stakeholder groups need to be align behind brand objectives. This
represent a challeging task and for some extention even impossible to control. For instance, a
stakeholder may include resort owner, transportation authorities and government agencies. At large,
everyone with whom the visitor interact can influence his experience's perception. This acotors
could be residents, the media or others, that are in any case part of tourism industry and will

19 Allen, G. (2007). Place branding: New tools for economic development.

influence brand experience. The communication between the marketers and the place's stakeholders
plays a key role. Thus, the relationships among these various elements of the brand are negotiated
and aligned only if stakeholders understand and accept the policy of promotion.
While in a fashion store, the experience depends in large part on the quality of its frontline
employees, in the branding of places there are hundreads of perception's influences impossible to
control.
Government has a central role in constructing the brand framework since the tourism agencies are
often the one that decide about marketing strategy. Thus, they decide the budget available and, as a
consequence, the promotional tactics.
Hence, the conclusions that successful place branding requires that attention be focused on the
following20:

 Understanding the role and dynamics of government

 Isolating key points of brand contact
 Focusing marketing campaigns internally, as well externally
 Understanding the physical and virtual requirements of the brand experience
 Developing new research frameworks that drive meaningful customer experience

THE ANHOLT-GFK ROPER NATION BRANDS INDEX

The Anholt Nation Brands Index (ANBI) is one thought leader in this category. ANBI founder,
Simon Anholt, developed a nation brand hexagon which can be used to measure and benchmark a
country ’ s global brand equity. Compiled from more than 25,000 respondents from 35 countries
and published quarterly, this framework provides an analytical brand index based on the following
six areas: (1) tourism; (2) exports; (3) governance; (4) investment and immigration; (5) culture and
heritage; and (6) people21.

 Tourism – Captures the level of interest in visiting a country and the draw of natural and
man-made tourist attractions.
 Exports – Determines the public's image of products and services from each country and
the extent to which consumers proactively seek or avoid products from each country-of-
origin.

 Governance – Measures public opinion regarding the level of national government

competency and fairness and describes individuals' beliefs about each country's government,
as well as its perceived commitment to global issues such as democracy, justice, poverty and
the environment.

 Investment and Immigration – Determines the power to attract people to live, work or
study in each country and reveals how people perceive a country's economic and social
situation.

 Culture and Heritage – Reveals global perceptions of each nation's heritage and
appreciation for its contemporary culture, including film, music, art, sport and literature.

 People – Measures the population's reputation for competence, education, openness and
friendliness and other qualities, as well as perceived levels of potential hostility and
discrimination.

20 Allen, G. (2007). Place branding: New tools for economic development.

21 Berkowitz, P. et al (2007). Brand China: Using the 2008 Olympic Games to enhance China's image.
Each country's score across these six dimensions is succinctly captured in the Nation Brand
Hexagon, a visual rendering of the total Index score. This easy-to-understand tool provides a
consistent framework for country-to-country comparisons against the key factors impacting a
nation's reputation, so you can see just where your nation's brand ranks and why. Together with the
Index analysis, the Nation Brand Hexagon provides a thorough assessment of your country's
standing, making it one of the most effective tools available for managing your country's reputation
around the world.

CASE STUDY - BRAND CHINA: USING OLYMPICS AS A BRANDING TOOL

In the Q2 2005 ANBI survey, China’s overall ranking was 21st out of 25. While China shows a
strong ranking for culture and heritage, it ranks in the bottom third for all other aspects of the
index22. As can be seen, exports and governance are the two lowest scoring categories. China’s
government is commonly criticised for its lack of transparency.
When global citizens do not have visibility into the actions of government, it impairs their
willingness to trust the country’s leaders. Other legacy decisions in China’s past may also play into
the Governance score including decisions that impact the environment as well as human rights
(Figure 2)23.

Figure 2 – China Brand performance results based on Anbi

Source: Berkowitz, P. et al (2007). Brand China: Using the 2008 Olympic Games to enhance China's image

As for exports, China’s score in this category should be no surprise either. This is where China’s
mass production of low cost — and in many cases, low quality — items is a doubleedged sword.
While the country has benefi ted by amassing a large percentage of the world’s manufacturing
output, its image suffers as it attempts to gain recognition as an innovator and producer of high-
quality goods24.
According to the reserchers, while China has a long way to go in improving its nation brand equity,
it has proven its resilience by capitalising on its rapidly growing economy. China does have the
opportunity to rise quickly by executing on a carefully planned strategy.
For the Olympic Games, host cities take centrestage in the international spotlight increasing tourism
and global visibility both before and after the games. Host countries also have the opportunity to
project their images to the world and the potential to boost their national GDP25.
When branding a nation, it is important to have the right strategy. This should include some kind of
professional model for the brand in such a way that the brand concept will be communicated; while

22 Anholt, S. (2005). How the world sees the world.

23 Ibid
24 Berkowitz, P. et al (2007). Brand China: Using the 2008 Olympic Games to enhance China's image
25 Ibid
bearing in mind that different audiences will need different areas of interest (tourism is usually quite
different than investment although they obviously are connected). China’s strategy seems to be
fairlyrudimentary in nature: focus directly on the areas that require the most attention. The main
goal that China would like to achieve is full acceptance from the international community.
Furthermore, prof. Berkowitz, P. et al (2007) claim “China is addressing the core issues that have
been raised in the past as a barrier of China’s acceptance.” The three most commonly held views of
China are: (1) a general lack of human rights; (2) low-quality manufacturing of other countries’
goods; and (3) country with a poor record of environmental awareness. These themes are directly
addressed in each of theOlympic committee’s stated initiatives: People’s Olympics, High-Tech
Olympics, and Green Olympics.

CHINA'S IMAGE AFTER BEIJING OLYMPICS

A survey organized by the Communication University of China (CUC) in Beijing shows that
foreigners like China better after the Beijing Olympics, but still hold negative opinions about some
of the Chinese people's behavior.
According to the results, the more foreigners know about China and visit the country, the higher
positive image it gets. Ashley Esarey, of the Fairbank Center of Chinese Studies at Harvard
University, agreed at the forum that the Olympics did change the way most people look at China.
Before the Games, some Americans were against China because of human rights and environmental
issues, according to Esarey. “Today, many people's perspectives changed during the Olympics. They
were astonished at how well the Olympic Games were organized, and showed more interest in
China," he said26.
A total of 2,400 foreigners took part in the survey through either face-to-face interview or online
questionnaire from July 23 to September 9 before, during and after the Olympics were held. Online
survey was carried out among citizens in the United States, Britain and Singapore. Face-to-face
interviews covered foreigners from Europe, America and Asia who were staying in Beijing during
the Olympics. Last November results were showed by professor Ke Huixin at the Asia
Communication and Media Forum in Beijing.
The survey was designed using the format of a typical five-level Likert items, the most widely used
psychometric method in questionnaires developed by American educator and organizational
psychologist Rensis Likert. When responding to a Likert questionnaire item, respondents specify
their level of agreement to a statement, namely, "strongly agree", "agree","disagree", "strongly
disagree", "don't know" or "not sure".

Statements on China's politics, culture and economy, of the Chinese people and the city of Beijing,
such as "I think the Chinese people always keep their promises", "Most of the stuff I buy is made in
China", "I love Chinese food", "In China, people enjoy religious freedom" were used in the survey.
The answers were transferred into figures which reflected the degree of affection toward China.
According with the results, the higher the figures are, the better the images of China and the
Chinese people are.

FINDINGS
According to the survey, foreigners' general impressions of China were better after the Olympics,
whether they came to the Games or not. The main findings are the following:

26 Available on www.chinadaily.com.cn
 ● China's economic image in their eyes rose from 3.1 to 3.2;
● Cultural image rose from 3.0 to slightly higher;
● Political image remained the same (at 2.6);
● Image of the Beijing city rose from 3.0 to 3.127.

Those interviewed got to know China by watching the Olympic Games, touring around China,
making friends with the Chinese, watching Chinese films, using goods made here, eating in Chinese
restaurants and so on. In any case, criticisms still existed, infact, the image of the Chinese people
remained the same at 2.8 after the Olympics.
The interviewees who had traveled more to China gave lower ratings for Chinese people's
friendliness, enthusiasm toward work and their ability to keep promises than those who have only
limited travel experience.
In a interview professor Ke state: "This is very
surprising and it is also beyond my expectation
that they are less critical about littering after more
contact with the people and the culture."
The survey found that foreigners who were staying
in Beijing during the Olympics had more positive
impressions of China than those who were not.
According to Ke, this was because they had more
chances to be in direct contact with Chinese
society.
However, the statistics also point out an increasing
usage of Chinese elements within films, the
Beijing Olympic Games and Chinese products are
the top three communication channels which have
the strongest relationship with China's cultural
image, the image of Beijing and China's economic
image respectively.
Media outside of China, Chinese products, Chinese
cities or Chinatown restaurants, and films with
Chinese elements rank the top of the list of how foreigners to get access to China.
But of all the channels to become familiar with China, Chinese media was at the bottom of the list,
even though the credibility of Chinese media improved during the Olympics.
In the some survey was also showed that foreigners' knowledge about China was still at a low level.
As Ke explained: "This low knowledge about China can be observed by lots of vague answers. For
example, when asked who is the President of China now, even those who were staying in Beijing at
the time didn't know it was Hu Jintao. Only 40 percent of them gave the right answer.”

CONCLUSION
The Place Branding concept has been attacked by different sectors of society, and using branding
techniques in regions and countries has been seen as sacrilegious. Although it is sometimes difficult,
and even not recommended, to seek reconciliation of opinions, in the present case the arguments
that are used to attack the geo-brand concept are flawed and should be reviewed28. Place Branding is
27 Available on www.chinabusinessreview.com
28 Freire, J. (2005). Geo-branding, are we talking nonsense? A theoretical reflection on brands applied to places
not a creation of ‘clever’ entrepreneurs but is a result of changes in society. In a semiotic society the
communication process is conducted through the use of signs that are passed via brands. It is those
signs that identify individuals in society. There are several objectives for the development of a place
brand system model. First, a place brand system can be used to manage stereotypes. As argued
above, the worst a community can do is not intervene in the creation of its own brand image.
Secondly, this concept is extremely important for the protection of local culture, which contributes
to local development by promoting diversity29.
The implementation of a Place branding strategy has impact and relevance not only locally but also
globally. Thinking about the great potentiality of developing countries, brand concept apllied to
these realities cuoiuld contributes to sustainable local development.
When allorganisations and agents in a specific place decide to embrace the promotion strategy, there
are no limit to the positive effects a marketing campaign can generate.

“Branding places is not only possible, but a positive thing to do in order to help construct a better
society.”

29 Ibid