From commercial retail environments to branded urban villages, brands are now a salient feature of contemporary cityscapes and are deeply entwined in people’s everyday lives. Drawing on extensive empirical material and recent theoretical developments in the sociology of brands, this book explores the complex relationship between brands, consumption and urban life. Covering a range of brands and branding in the city, from themed retail stores to branded cultural quarters, it considers how brands provide new ways of mediating identities, lifestyles and social relations. At the same time, the book reveals how brands are bound up with forms of socio-spatial division and exclusion in the city, defining what kinds of practices, images or attitudes are acceptable in a particular place, constituting cultural boundaries that keep certain people and activities out. With attention throughout to the social and cultural implications of the presence of brands in urban space, Brands and the City examines how people engage with brands, and how brands shape urbanites’ experiences and sense of self, society and space. An extensive exploration of the processes through which brands are integrated into cities, their effects on everyday experiences and their role in the policing and governance of urban space, this book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in urban studies, consumption and branding.

Globalization affects urban communities in many ways. One of its manifestations is increased intercity competition, which compels cities to increase their attractiveness in terms of capital, entrepreneurship, information, expertise and consumption. This competition takes place in an asymmetric field, with cities trying to find the best possible ways of using their natural and created assets, the latter including a naturally evolving reputation or consciously developed competitive identity or brand. The Political Economy of City Branding discusses this phenomenon from the perspective of numerous post-industrial cities in North America, Europe, East Asia and Australasia. Special attention is given to local economic development policy and industrial profiling, and global city rankings are used to provide empirical evidence for cities’ characteristics and positions in the global urban hierarchy. On top of this, social and urban challenges such as creative class struggle are also discussed. The core message of the book is that cities should apply the tools of city branding in their industrial promotion and specialization, but at the same time take into account the special nature of their urban communities and be open and inclusive in their brand policies in order to ensure optimal results. This book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners working in the areas of local economic development, urban planning, public management, and branding.

Since the 1990s, city branding has become a key factor in urban development policies. Cities all over the world take specific actions to manipulate the imagery and the perceptions of places, both in the eyes of the inhabitants and in those of potential tourists, investors, users and consumers. City Branding: The Ghostly Politics of Representation in Globalising Cities explores different sides of place branding policies. The construction and the manipulation of urban images triggers a complex politics of representation, modifying the visibility and the invisibility of spaces, subjects, problems and discourses. In this sense, urban branding is not an innocent tool; this book aims to investigate and reflect on the ideas of urban life, the political unconscious, the affective geographies and the imaginaries of power constructed and reproduced through urban branding. This book situates city branding within different geographical contexts and ‘ordinary’ cities, demonstrated through a number of international case studies. In order to map and contextualise the variety of urban imaginaries involved, author Alberto Vanolo incorporates conceptual tools from cultural studies and the embrace of an explicitly post-colonial perspective. This critical analysis of current place branding strategy is an essential reference for the study of city marketing.

The practice of city branding is being adopted by increasing numbers of city authorities around the world and it is having a direct impact on public and private sector practice. The author captures this emerging phenomenon in a way that blends a solid theoretical and conceptual underpinning together with relevant real life cases.

This book introduces a comprehensive conceptual framework which examines the impact of ecological modernization on city branding, using Chinese megacity regions as examples. Focusing on city branding efforts led by local governments, it delves into practices driven by vertical inspiration, horizontal imitation, and self-reflection. It explores the influence of ecological modernization on different aspects of city branding, such as the branding process, strategy, and governance. The book also compares how ecological modernization affects city branding in terms of local government promotion and individual perceptions. Lastly, it scrutinizes city images associated with ecological modernization initiatives in symbolic urban projects, shedding light on implementation barriers from the perspective of policy network theory. This book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Chinese urban and environmental studies, urban geography and urban sociology. It will also appeal to policy-makers, practitioners and private companies working in the fields of place promotion, city marketing and branding.

Overview The fun and easy way to build your brand and increase revenues. Content - Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Branding - Building a Brand, Step-by-Step - Launching Your New Brand - The Care and Feeling of Your Brand - Protecting Your Brand - Ten Truths about Branding - Ten Branding Mistakes and How to Avoid Them - Resources for Brand Managers Duration 9 months Assessment The assessment will take place on the basis of one assignment at the end of the course. Tell us when you feel ready to take the exam and we’ll send you the assignment questions. Study material The study material will be provided in separate files by email / download link.

This book is an investigation of the cultural phenomenon of branding and its transformational effects on the contemporary spatial – and urban – reality. It develops a novel understanding of the rationale behind the construction of large-scale architectural complexes that relate to corporate brands, and of its tremendous cultural effects. The author suggests that what we see today is the creation of "global mass ornaments", of a thorough ornamentalization of the entire globe. The origins of this are discussed with regard to examples of corporate brand-building from Europe and China (Autostadt Wolfsburg, BMW Welt Munich and Anting New Town). Additional cases are several simulated spaces in Berlin and the space-branding activities of companies like Apple or Prada. Theoretically, the author develops an innovative poststructuralist framework, combining ideas from Gilles Deleuze with the space philosophy of Peter Sloterdijk. He analyzes how the corporate redefinition of space makes the city enter into a mode of virtual urbanity. This idea leads to a notion of a "global urban" and, ultimately, the "global mass ornament". This concept of a global mass ornament is developed here with reference to Sloterdijk’s concept of a world of "spheres". The latter is used to understand the new mode of spatiality of mediatized spaces. The book makes the point that our world is involved in a process of mass ornamentalization that has only just begun. The concept of the global mass ornament is the first to come to grips with a culture in which branding is effectively changing the physiognomy of the earth. The global mass ornament is a banner for a cultural transformation that employs architecture, sign theory and mechanisms borrowed from traditional advertising and from social media, as well as social processes – and that we have yet to properly understand. This book is a significant step forward in this respect.

City branding is a contemporary issue which is getting more important continuously as the competition between cities is growing. It helps to make a place desirable as a business location, tourist destination or a place to live. As Kavaratzis states, “The beginning lies in the realization that all encounters with the city take place through perceptions and images”. According to Charles Wrench, “anything for which you can construct a mental inventory is a brand”. People connect brands of cities with certain historical aspects. Over time, cities have developed their unique reputation and converted more and more into own brands, due to globalization. City branding is comparable with product branding, where products and services with a strong brand can be sold easier, attracting people and investment compared to the poor branded. While some cities have prospered over the years, others have suffered. Furthermore every city has to compete against other city for its share of the world’s consumers, tourists, businesses, investment, talents, respect and attention on the international level. The objectives of this assignment is to examine how to brand a city properly and to understand the essential steps for implementing a significant brand strategy. For a better understanding of the approach, an anonymous online primary research was done in December 2013, to reflect and explain individual methods. The questions from this result can be founded in the appendix. Additionally one successful branded and one less successful branded city will be discussed.

This book explores theoretical concepts of strategic promotion and place branding in cities. It outlines the issues associated with strategic management of urban territories and highlights various types of development strategies that seek to encourage socio-economic development, growth and city branding, particularly within the tourism industry. It examines the rules and methods for analysing the current branding of a city and how new branding and promotion strategies are created. Through a range of international examples the book considers the missions, aims and implementation of branding strategies and the importance of monitoring and controlling procedures. The first part of the book provides theoretical context, followed by a detailed exploration of the promotional and branding strategy prepared for the city of Tomaszów Mazowiecki in Poland. This book provides the reader with theoretical and practical insights on city branding and will appeal to scholars and students in urban studies, geography, tourism, management and economics.