How to Brand Nations, Cities and Destinations: A Planning Book for Place Branding

Citation

Fetscherin, M. (2010), "How to Brand Nations, Cities and Destinations: A Planning Book for Place Branding", International Marketing Review, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 480-483. https://doi.org/10.1108/02651331011058626

In the last few years, an increasing number of articles about place branding have been published. Local, regional and national government officials, and governments are turning to branding techniques to differentiate themselves on the global stage in order to find a competitive edge over rival cities, regions, or nations. A positive place brand may provide the necessary competitive advantage to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) and tourism. It can even attract foreign talents as well as help increase exports from that place. Place branding focuses on the political, economic, social, environmental, historical, and cultural issues related to the concept of place. Since there is a substantial amount of real world activity and multiple examples on the subject but little academic research, the possibilities for the field are wide open. However, place branding is complex because it encompasses multiple dimensions, levels, disciplines, and stakeholders beyond conventional corporate, product, or service branding. As a highly politicized activity, it can spark conflicting viewpoints and opinions that have repercussions for international relations and public diplomacy.

In this context, Teemu Moilanen's and Seppo Rainisto's book, How to Brand Nations, Cities and Destinations: A Planning Book for Place Branding, is very timely and relevant. Dr Moilanen, a place brand management specialist and principal Lecturer at Haaga‐Helia University of Applied Science in Finland and Dr Rainisto, a leading specialist in place marketing and branding, both have impressive experience in the field. As Philip Kotler notes in the Foreword, the book recounts the history of place marketing and presents a framework that place marketers can use to build visibility and attractiveness. It consists of four chapters, or sections, which revolve around:

1. 1.

   A theoretical framework for developing a place brand.

2. 2.

   The process of building a country brand and the cornerstones of success.

3. 3.

   City and destination branding.

4. 4.

   The operational plan.

Each chapter comes with multiple cases and examples. The up‐to‐date references at the end of the book are useful for those interested in exploring the topic further.

The first chapter examines the theoretical background and process of building a place brand, including its importance and benefits. The authors discuss the similarities and differences among services, products, and place brands. They outline the challenges in building a place brand, such as multidimensionality, complexity, controllability, and limited financial resources. They present a framework for the success factors necessary for place branding which consist of: creation of a working group, research and consultation, a strategic vision, a SWOT analysis, identifying a value‐based point of difference, understanding national identity, communication, and public‐private partnerships.

Unfortunately, the authors engage in only a limited discussion of how place branding “fits” into the current branding literature, although they provide a list of selected articles dealing with the subject. It would have been helpful to show the relationship between the literature of the related disciplines, such as marketing, tourism, public diplomacy, or international relations. They also deal too briefly with how place branding compares to corporate branding and country image and identity. A more detailed discussion would have also been useful by outlining the structure of place branding and how the various disciplines and stakeholders interact and shape place branding. Also, they talk about success factors in their framework; it would have been helpful to provide more information of the measurement of those success factors as well as providing empirical data to support it.

The second chapter describes a number of country brand‐building processes including three in‐depth case studies from Norway, Australia, and Scotland. They can be seen as “how to” or “how not to” examples. The Norway case represents a failure and the Australian and Scotland success stories. Each case is between six and 18 pages long and starts with describing the process for building a country brand, followed by the challenges and problems and a final assessment of what went right or wrong. The chapter also covers very briefly other country cases, including the Baltic Sea Region, Denmark, Estonia, Greenland, Iceland, Latvia, Poland, South Africa, and Spain.

However, what is missing in this chapter is a structured and detailed comparison of the three in‐depth country cases, which could take the form of a table summarizing more qualitative and specifically quantitative measurements. Each of the three main cases also needs “key performance indicators”, such as tourist arrivals, inward FDI, migration and exports over time to substantiate the project results, and impact on various industries. Another important point missing is how the proposed framework from the previous chapter applies to those cases and the value added of using it. By providing a summary, relating it to actual key performance indicators and data as well as relating it to the framework presented in the first chapter, the authors could have significantly strengthened their argument for how to plan and undertake place‐branding activities.

The third chapter explores place‐branding practices in the context of cities and tourism destinations. It opens with two in‐depth city cases, one from Northern Europe (Copenhagen) and another from North America (Chicago). For each city, the authors review major events over the last few decades and include an overview of place marketing and branding processes and outline success factors. They also discuss briefly the similarities and differences between Northern European and US city branding, and point out correctly that most European countries and major cities have inward investment agencies such as Invest in Britain or Invest in Finland while the USA has no nationwide agency. European place marketing and branding projects tend to have larger budgets and more staff than comparable US branding efforts. The USA has hundreds of economic development organizations competing with each other, which poses challenges for smaller cities especially. The second part of this chapter discusses tourism destination branding, with a focus on ski destinations. The authors present two in‐depth case studies of world‐class ski destination brands. The chapter ends with a short discussion of the main abilities and core competences required for ski destination branding based on nine short case studies of ski destinations in the USA, Australia and Finland.

Although the Copenhagen and Chicago case studies are well written and provide valuable and detailed information, case examples of other large cities from the same regions (e.g. New York, Las Vegas, Orlando, Paris, London, or Berlin) would have been a welcome addition. Examples of major cities from other regions and continents such as Bangkok, Moscow, Dubai, Shanghai, or Sao Paulo would also add to the evidence. Again, some additional quantitative measurements and structured comparison tables between different cities would have broadened the picture. As for the tourism destinations, the authors do not name the actual places. This tactful approach makes it hard to imagine exactly what the authors are referring to. One also wonders how tourism place branding might apply to other sports destinations such as water‐related ones (e.g. Florida beaches in the USA, Costa Del Sol in Spain, Koh Samui in Thailand, or other islands). These limitations illustrate clearly that more research is needed to better understand the multiple facets of place branding.

The final chapter of this book describes an operational plan for creating a place brand for a country or other destination. The plan consists of five steps:

1. 1.

   startup and organization;

2. 2.

   research;

3. 3.

   forming brand identity;

4. 4.

   making, executing and enforcing the plan; and

5. 5.

   implementation and follow‐up.

The steps required to implement the plan are described in great detail and the authors identify who should be responsible for managing the plan and give suggested timetables. The tables in this chapter are useful for anyone involved in country or destination branding projects. The authors point out that the launching stage may take up to five years while the actual country‐brand development often takes 10‐20 years. They include essential information about financing these projects and note that current country brand projects have allocated about $20 million annually for a five‐year effort. However, merely spending money does not guarantee success, as Norway's failed country brand project has shown.

In sum, after reading the book, it was not always clear how the various chapters are related to each other and how the framework presented in the first chapter can be used for a country, city and a destination. Moreover, there is a limited discussion of how the success of place branding activities has been measured. Unfortunately, an in‐depth discussion on place branding metrics is missing as well as solid empirical data to support this. Although the framework presented in the first chapter is a step in the right direction, it lacks empirical testing and validation.

However, overall, I would like to congratulate Drs Moilanen and Rainisto for writing this book, the first planning book for place branding of its kind. It makes a very thoughtful contribution to place branding for both scholars and practitioners. For scholars, it may broaden their perspective on the discipline of place branding or serve as a good starting point for additional research. The book also offers worthwhile supplemental reading in any undergraduate or graduate branding and specifically place branding course. For scholars interested in creating a seminar or teaching a course about place branding, this book is very hands‐on. The work of Kotler et al. (1997), Anholt's (2007) book on Competitive Identity: The New Brand Management for Nations, Cities and Regions and Dinnie's (2008) recent Nation Branding: Concepts, Issues, Practice are also relevant and useful reading. For managers from the tourism industry and especially mayors, governors, and other government officials as well as public policy makers dealing with place branding, this book is essential reading for its many hands‐on examples and practical suggestions and guidelines.

About the reviewer

Marc Fetscherin is an Assistant Professor of International Business and Marketing at the Crummer Graduate School of Business and the International Business Department at Rollins College. He is also an Associate of the Rollins China Center as well as an Asia Programs Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. He received his PhD from the University of Bern (Switzerland) and his Master's degrees are from Hautes Études Commerciales, University of Lausanne (Switzerland) and the London School of Economics (UK). He has published in leading academic journals such as International Marketing Review, International Journal of Market Research, International Business Review, Journal of Brand Management, Management International Review and the European Journal of International Management.