Branding the nation: Towards a better understanding

This paper aims to clarify some misunderstanding about nation branding. It examines the origins and interpretations of the concept, and draws a comparison between nation branding and commercial branding. A new definition is offered that emphasises the need to shift from “branding” the nation to nation image management

Political branding: sense of identity or identity crisis? An investigation of the transfer potential of the brand identity prism to the UK Conservative Party

Brands are strategic assets and key to achieving a competitive advantage. Brands can be seen as a heuristic device, encapsulating a series of values that enable the consumer to make quick and efficient choices. More recently, the notion of a political brand and the rhetoric of branding have been widely adopted by many political parties as they seek to differentiate themselves, and this has led to an emerging interest in the idea of the political brand. Therefore, this paper examines the UK Conservative Party brand under David Cameron’s leadership and examines the applicability of Kapferer’s brand identity prism to political branding. This paper extends and operationalises the brand identity prism into a ‘political brand identity network’ which identifies the inter-relatedness of the components of the corporate political brand and the candidate political brand. Crucial for practitioners, this model can demonstrate how the brand is presented and communicated to the electorate and serves as a useful mechanism to identify consistency within the corporate and candidate political brands

Super diversity and city branding: Rotterdam in perspective

As many other cities around the world, Rotterdam has been investing in improving its image to stimulate urban development and to attract visitors, residents and investors. In particular, during the last 15 years the municipality of Rotterdam has intensified its attempts to develop a ‘brand’ that fits the ‘new Rotterdam’, which was gradually rebuilt after destructive bombardments during the Second World War (Riezebos 2014). In 2014 Rotterdam was ranked 8th by ‘Rough Guide’ in the list of ‘Top 10 Cities to See’, whereas the ‘New York Times’ listed Rotterdam in the top 10 of 52 Places to Go. These rankings demonstrate Rotterdam’s success in repositioning itself, using the physical interior of the city as a key element in its branding strategy.</p

The role of place branding and image in the development of sectoral clusters: the case of Dubai

This paper contextualizes how place branding and image influence the development of Dubai’s key sectoral clusters, including the key determinants of growth and success under the impression of Porter’s cluster theory. The approach is exploratory and of a qualitative inductive nature. Data was collected through conducting 21 semi-structured interviews with Dubai’s marketing/communication managers and stakeholders. Findings suggest that Dubai’s traditional clusters, namely, trading, tourism and logistics that have strong place branding and image show strong signs of success owing to Dubai’s geographical location (i.e., physical conditions). Among the new clusters, the financial sector is also benefitting from place branding. The results suggest that the success of traditional clusters have a positive spill over effect on the new clusters, in particular on construction and real estate. For policy makers it is worth to note that the recent success of the financial services cluster in Dubai will have positive impact on both, the traditional as well new clusters. The marketing and brand communication managers must consider the correlation and interplay of strength of activities amongst trading, tourism and logistics clusters and its implication while undertaking place branding for clients in their sector

Identity and destination branding among residents: How does brand self-congruity influence brand attitude and ambassadorial behavior?

Residents of a particular destination are potentially the largest and most powerful stakeholders of destination brands. However, the basis of residents' attitudes toward destination branding is not widely understood. In this study, it is proposed that selfcongruity (the degree of match between the perceived self and perceived brand identity) is a possible antecedent of these attitudes. We empirically demonstrate that brand self‐congruity is a likely indicator of destination brand attitude and that subsequent ambassadorial behavior among residents is probable. Implications for practitioners and future research opportunities are finally suggested

Nation Branding, Cultural Relations and Cultural Diplomacy at Eurovision: Between Australia and Europe

This chapter explores Australia’s Eurovision history – and its ‘Asiavision’ future – as an articulation of the nation’s complex and ongoing relations with Europe. It considers the ideological dimensions of Eurovision’s own history and the impact this might have on the contest’s future in Asia. While Australia’s participation in Eurovision was tolerated as part of the sixtieth anniversary in 2015, its return performance in 2016 was greeted with some ambiguity, and even outright hostility. The announcement that an Australian broadcasting service (SBS), together with the European Broadcasting Union, would be collaborating on the establishment of a song contest for the Asia-Pacific region brought some commercial sense to the engagement, but also foregrounds a particular conceptualisation of Australia as a bridge between Europe and Asia