Rethinking virtual and online place branding

Abstract

This chapter discusses the impact technology and the internet have had on the reputations of places, how online tools are used in place branding and what the future might look like. The discussion is interspersed with case studies such as Queensland’s Best Job in the World campaign, the @Sweden Twitter rotation account, the Province of Limburg, Netherlands, and social media analysis on Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar. It is concluded that because of the importance of personal experience and word-of-mouth in place marketing, information technologies and social media will soon replace mainstream media advertising as the main tool for ‘branding’. Today, however, technology is still too often used in place branding as an end in itself, in order to reflect commoditised virtual brand values of modernity, openness and innovation, as opposed to being a tool to reflect meaningful, distinctive, relevant and real brand values through substance and symbolic actions.