Place Branding: Sensing the Difference?

Abstract

The increasing competition among places, which is occurring at various scales and dimensions (e.g. Ashworth and Voogd, 1995; Kotler Haider and Rein, 1993; Ward, 1998; Van den Berg and Braun, 1999; Ward and Gold, 1994), is forcing them to develop some forms of sustainable competitive advantage undertaking some types of marketing actions (Petruzzellis, 2002). Places are more than a congeries of individual men and of social conveniences, more than a mere constellation of institutions and administrative devices. They are, rather, a state of mind, a body of customs and traditions and of the organized attitudes and sentiments that inhere in these customs and are transmitted with this tradition (Park et al., 1967). Given the complexity of the territorial matter that strongly requires a marketing oriented approach, places are increasingly conceptualized as brands (Hankinson, 2004; Kavaratzis, 2005), since branding is to differentiate a particular offering from competitors.