SUMMARY
In a globalizing word, cities are under pressure and have to face an increasing competition. Territories are considered as strategic places
using public marketing and branding processes. Indeed, city brand strategy defined by internal stakeholders (i.e. managers) can improve
attractiveness by affecting the representation of external stakeholders (i.e. residents, companies and visitors). In a broad evolutionary shift, weconsider the city brand in a progressive approach, and the city brand co-ownership as a collaborative and participatory process.
The gap identified in the literature refers to the differences and the matchesbetween the city brand strategy and the city brand perceptions. Indeed,the research question of this paper is: how city brand strategy frominternal stakeholders is linked with city brand perceptions from externalstakeholders?
We opted for an exploratory and qualitative research design with a multiple case study targeting three European metropolises: Amsterdam,Lyon, and Metz. The data collection is twofold, because we confront thecity brand strategy defined by the internal stakeholders with the citybrand perceptions of the external stakeholders. Indeed, on the onehand, public reports (i.e. secondary data) about the three city brandstrategies deal with the goals and values of each city brand. On the otherhand, a computer assisted web interview (i.e. primary data) has beenaddressed to 200 persons representative of the French population to putinto perspective the city brand perceptions. Secondary and primary dataare analyzed with a thematic content analysis. We propose a dynamic city brand co-ownership model within the relationship between the city brand strategy and the city brand perceptions. This model is moderated by structuring factors.
Paper presented at a peer-reviewed conference - International Place Branding Association - November 2019 - Volos, Greece
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Contact the authors of the article
Christophe ALAUX, Director, Chaire Attractivité et Nouveau Marketing Territorial (A&NMT) and Institut de Management Public et Gouvernance Territoriale (IMPGT) - christophe.alaux@univ-amu.fr
Laura CARMOUZE, Deputy Director of the Attractiveness and New Territorial Marketing Chair (A&NMT) - laura.carmouze@univ-amu.fr
Christine CUENCA, Head of Research and Development at the Attractiveness and New Territorial Marketing Chair (A&NMT) - christine.cuenca@univ-amu.fr
