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Since early 2000s, several efforts have been initiated to market the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) globally, and the BaltMet Promo project is among them. Simultaneously, several other cases of supra‐national branding have emerged, e.g. the Greater Mekong region, Danube region, and Visegrad countries. Little attention has yet been paid in the literature to branding of supra‐national entities. The purpose of this paper is to discuss branding of BSR using the examples of supra‐national product building of the BaltMet Promo project (2010‐2011).

Branding BSR has faced criticism against its supra‐national perspective which may be seen as a direct competitor to city or nation branding. To shift from competition to cooperation BaltMet Promo acknowledged a bottom‐up approach and nine organisations from six countries created supra‐national products to promote tourism, talent attraction, and investments. Each product concept was built on intensive background research and transnational triple‐helix cooperation.

The case of BaltMet Promo shows that supra‐national branding benefits from a bottom‐up approach that uses concrete products and services as the core of the brand identity. To shift from competition to cooperation the partnership promoted BSR as a common region with a common work plan. Different scales of branding serve different markets. The more distant the market, such as Japan in the case of BaltMet Promo, the more cost effective supra‐regional branding becomes compared to more narrow scales of branding.

The paper introduces recent developments in supra‐national branding using data of the BaltMet Promo project. The analysis aims to contribute to product building, triple helix stakeholder cooperation, and policy making.

Ideas related to “the Nordic” are important in the reconstruction of national identities in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, and these countries’ modern national narratives are structurally highly similar. At the same time, there are clear differences between the Nordic countries regarding their national images. The purpose of this study is to a examine the relationship between ideas of the Nordic and national images through a qualitative study of brand manifestations on Nordic web portals for foreign visitors.

The two guiding research questions are: How do Nordic branding strategies and national stereotypes impact on nation-branding content toward visitors in the Nordic region? What traces of the Nordic as a supranational concept can be found when the Nordic is translated into concrete national brand manifestations? The analysis focuses on brand manifestations such as brand visions, codes of expression, differentiation, narrative identity and ideologies.

The analysis shows that clichés about the nations prevail in contemporary brand material and that Nordic branding strategies impact on the portals in diffuse and implicit ways. There are, however, some important common denominators, pointing toward a new Nordic brand related to exotic, untouched yet easily accessible nature, with a focus on pure, fresh and clean food with new tastes, in combination with happy and welcoming people.

The results from the study contribute with insight in how ideas of the Nordic on a supranational level transform when used in concrete and practical branding material. Further, this paper proposes a new Nordic branding focus, which contests traditional Nordic ideas.

This study aims to address a heretofore neglected area in research, nation branding, for the purpose of attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). It compares and contrasts the well-established literature on decision-making and location choice in FDI with studies in the nascent field of nation branding, with a view to developing directions for future research that result from the identification of research gaps at the intersection point between the two areas.

The study is based on a systematic and integrative review of several streams within the relevant literatures, from the theory of decision-making in FDI to the similarities and differences between advertising, promotion, branding and marketing for investment on the part of nations and sub- or supra-national places.

Each of the two areas is characterized by lack of consensus as to the principal factors that affect investor and nation decisions and actions, resulting in several knowledge gaps that need to be addressed by new research along the lines suggested in the study.

A large number of avenues for potential future research are identified, from assessing the importance of target country image in location choice to the adverse effects arising from the emphasis on “promotion” rather than “marketing” on the part of places engaged in nation branding efforts.

The study examines several problems that affect the practice of nation branding for FDI and points to alternative approaches that may enhance place marketers’ effectiveness in their efforts to attract foreign capital.

Notwithstanding the global growth of FDI in volume and importance, and the omnipresence of nation branding campaigns to promote exports or attract tourism and investment, there has been virtually no research to date on the core issue, nation branding for FDI. The study uses a strategic perspective that highlights key nation branding issues related to FDI, and FDI issues related to nation branding, and suggests a comprehensive agenda for research in the future.

This paper aims to firstly depict the theoretical links between place branding and strategic spatial planning to provide further theoretical and conceptual foundations. Secondly, it aims to explore the roots of place branding theory and practice in Portugal, as well as how place branding has been approached (or not) in spatial development plans, strategic initiatives and policy documents by stating the territorial, spatial-economic and sectoral development trajectories for the country and its northern region.

A content analysis of 20 spatial development plans, strategies and policy documents (of 30 identified), published by Portuguese authorities, the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, mainly for the period between 2014 and 2020, has been used.

Empirical evidence shows that tourism-oriented promotion initiatives, investment-oriented marketing campaigns and communication strategies uniquely supported by visual elements and aesthetic values (e.g. logos and slogans) deserve more attention from authorities in charge of spatial planning and policy-making. Place branding is an absent term. Moreover, there is inconsistency between current research and practice on place branding and how it has been incorporated in strategic spatial planning at EU, national and regional levels.

Whilst some of the research findings are place-specific (Portugal and its northern region), this exploratory paper aims to present a better understanding of the way in which places and branding can be conceptually addressed, primarily by assigning a spatial dimension to the idea of branding places and its alignment with strategic spatial planning and spatial plan-making.

This paper critically explores the actual or potential roles of place branding as an instrument for the attainment of strategic spatial planning goals through its integration in plan and policy-making. By guiding the attention of academics, practitioners and policymakers towards a strategic spatially oriented approach to place branding, the paper brings an alternative view to the scholarly and professional debate on place branding.

This research finds out to what extent companies’ names are influenced by the place’s attributes versus the official branding policies of a place and, consequently, whether and how local companies “buy into” the place’s strategies put forth by official bodies.

This paper is both conceptual and empirical, as a mixed quantitative and interpretive approach is used. The companies’ names of a tourist industry (the tour and guiding companies) in three destinations are compared and pitched against the branding of these cities. The companies' names are classified into categories to ascertain whether they reflect (or diverge from) the official strategies. Finally, a conceptual model is developed to explain the findings: the strategic naming model (SNM).

Our main finding is that the overall business features of a place being stronger determinants to the naming strategies than tourist destination branding initiatives. The intrinsic features of a place seem thus to be “above” destination branding policies. The researched features account for different naming strategies, such as highly original names, flat names or non-strategic names.

As the work is based on a convenience sample, it cannot claim strong representativity. The fact that each of the three data sets was processed by a different researcher might bring up personal biases.

This work is a call for a more intensive use of naming strategies to the companies’ advantages, as naming is found out to be strategy used to a very low degree. Thanks to this research, companies will understand the different naming possibilities and be able to apply them to their strategies by choosing names which express “uniqueness” or “belonging”. Practitioners will also be aware of whether they are communicating towards the industry or towards the market.

No works were found that empirically pursue our research goals. Therefore, this research might be considered as a novelty. The proposed SNM model explains and relates the most usual company naming techniques, which were unrelated up to date.

This paper aims to explore the characteristics (i.e. complex, specific) of destination image as perceived by visitors and non-visitors to a tourist place.

Overall, 42 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Czech and Greek visitors and non-visitors to London, the UK. From the 21 interviews in each country, 11 conducted with visitors and 10 with non-visitors to London.

A number of characteristics of the image of London were identified that differed across visitors and non-visitors, irrespective of respondents’ nationality, including accuracy, specificity, completeness and complexity.

The characteristics of image of different types of destinations (i.e. rural, seaside resorts) need to be assessed in the future, as this paper focused on a well-known urban destination.

This paper provides support for effective and innovative solutions to place marketing and branding of tourist destinations. For example, greater complexity and more specific images should be used to attract the repeating visitors market.

The paper’s originality lies in providing a better understanding of the characteristics of destination image, as perceived by visitors and non-visitors to a tourist place.

The purpose of this paper is to propose cultural equity as a construct to better understand the characteristics that define a culturally symbolic brand and the downstream consequences for consumer behavior and nation branding in the era of globalization.

This paper is an empirical investigation of the knowledge and outcome aspects of cultural equity with a total of 1,771 consumers located in three different countries/continents, 77 different brands as stimuli, and using a variety of measures, surveys, lab experiments, procedures and consumer contexts.

Cultural equity is the facet of brand equity attributed to the brand's cultural symbolism or the favorable responses by consumers to the cultural symbolism of a brand. A brand has cultural equity if it has a distinctive cultural symbolism in consumers' minds (brand knowledge aspect of cultural equity: association with the central concept that defines the culture, embodiment of culturally relevant values and embeddedness in a cultural knowledge network), and such symbolism elicits a favorable consumer response to the marketing of the brand (outcome aspect of cultural equity: favorable evaluations and strong self-brand connections).

This paper offers a framework that allows marketers to develop cultural positioning strategies in hyper-competitive and globalized markets and identify ways for building and protecting their brands' cultural equity.

This paper advances our understanding of brands as cultural symbols by introducing cultural equity and integrates prior research on brand equity, cross-cultural differences in consumer behavior, country-of-origin effects and nation branding.

Cross-cultural research constitutes a pivotal topic for marketing; however, the literature indicates that there are a few studies analyzing social media reviews from a cross-cultural perspective using cultural proximity (supra-national level) as a proxy of culture. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify cross-cultural differences in service evaluations and specifically, in hotel appraisals among tourists from Central, Eastern (including Post-Soviet States), Northern and Southern Europe.

A quantitative approach has been taken by studying online user-generated ratings of hotels on Trip Advisor. In total, 1,055 reviews of five hotels in Greece were used for the study.

Multivariate analysis of variance and analysis of variances results confirm cultural differences in overall service evaluations and attributes (value, location, sleeping quality, rooms, cleanliness and service) of tourists from various European regions. Specifically, Eastern Europeans uploaded more reviews than any other European group, whereas Northern Europeans were more generous in their appraisals than Eastern, Southern and Central Europeans.

The results of the study could be used for segmentation purposes of the European tourism market and for recognizing, which aspects of their services need to be improved based on the segments they serve. Moreover, managers should encourage Northern and Eastern Europeans to upload their reviews as both groups are more generous in their evaluations. Moreover, the findings are useful to marketers of other services.

To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that examines cross-cultural differences in hotel appraisals from a supra-national perspective including developed (Northern and Western Europe), developing (Southern Europe) and emerging tourism markets (Eastern Europe).

Food, notably its logistics, security, quality, sustainability and social inclusiveness, is increasingly considered as a crucial element in urban settings, deserving specific institutional and strategic instruments. This is testified by the proliferation of urban food strategies, that is municipal strategic documents that various European cities have adopted during the last decade.

This chapter examines the emergence and diffusion of the concept in Europe, contextualizing it in connection with broader thesis on ‘alternative’ food systems, ‘new localism’ and ‘strategic planning’, in order to unpack how the notion has been constructed. The first part of the chapter reviews the existing literature on urban food strategies, by presenting the debate over the definition of the concept and discussing the normative stance of scholars in regard to ‘alternative’ practices.

After providing a working definition of urban food strategies, the second part presents an overview of their diffusion in Europe and briefly maps the historical diffusion of the model since the first appearance in Toronto in 2000.

The fast adoption of urban food strategies in different urban contexts suggests the necessity of further investigations on the motivations behind the cities’ drive towards food governance. In this sense, the chapter argues in favour of a more cautious assessment of food strategies on behalf of scholars, beyond the positive enthusiasm that has been so far connected to them. In particular, the chapter calls for a critique on the political implications of food strategies, which urgently need to be assessed within strategies of city branding, and to be tested on their actual consequences on urban regeneration and development processes.