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This paper aims to investigate place marketing and branding at the micro-place scale through the case study of St Christopher’s Place in London (UK). This study illustrates the distinctive differences of micro-place marketing, in comparison to city and country levels.

An exploratory case study was conducted through a sequential mixed methods approach involving direct observation, semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and social media analysis. Analysis of data was performed by using thematic analysis and triangulation of quantitative measures collected through the questionnaire and social media analysis.

Analysis of data illustrated noticeable differences of place management at the micro-place level compared to city or country scale of place marketing and branding. The function of emotional marketing leading to value co-creation is more effective at this level, establishing close and personal ties between occupiers and customers. Yet, measurement of micro-place marketing and branding value creation is difficult to achieve.

This study draws attention to the unique value and benefits of place branding at smaller spatial scales. Findings contribute to the place micro-brand concept by adding knowledge of micro-places through place management activities comparing them with city and country scales, and emotional marketing value co-creation practices, including challenges relating to measurement.

This study aims to examine an emerging product–place co-branding marketing practice in China’s rural areas. The role of this practice in inclusive development is analyzed from the perspectives of value proposition innovation, market legitimacy, media coverage and brand value. Both research and practice indicate value proposition innovation to exert an important influence on brand value enhancement, but little is known about the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this relation.

A moderated mediation model is constructed to examine whether market legitimacy mediates the relationship between value proposition innovation and brand value. vWhether this mediating process is moderated by media coverage is also examined. The primary data are collected from semi-structured interviews and observations conducted with two common cases to develop proper scales for value proposition innovation and market legitimacy. The research includes 100 product–place co-brandings published by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in 2019. Hypotheses are tested using hierarchical regression and a Bootstrap model.

Value proposition innovation has a positive effect on brand value, and market legitimacy partially mediates this relationship. Media coverage positively moderates the relationship between value proposition innovation and market legitimacy, and positively moderates the mediating effect of market legitimacy; the higher the media coverage, the stronger the mediating effect of market legitimacy.

Based on data availability and accessibility, the study sample focused on indicators from 100 brands in 2019. If the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs discloses consecutive annual information for other years, future studies could explore panel data to further test the study’s conclusions from a longitudinal perspective.

First, this paper adds to the emerging literature on product–place co-branding business models by examining the relationship between value proposition innovation and brand value. Second, this paper enriches institutional theory by including market legitimacy as a mediator between value proposition innovation and brand value. Third, this paper identifies the moderating role of media coverage, thus broadening the theoretical implications of institutional theory with respect to improving market legitimacy.

This paper aims to explore the rationale, the process and the outcomes and risks of place branding in rural China.

An in-depth case study analysis, including interviews, has been conducted.

Place branding in the case of China is practiced and dominated through administrative entities by using subsidies and regional development programs to coordinate, organize and promote local agricultural resources. Although this government-led place branding has effective effects on rural development, it is unsustainable and unstable because it lacks sufficient market and stakeholder participation.

The effectiveness of place branding in China has been examined and proved.

The government’s role in place branding in China should be adjusted. The government should position itself as a service and auxiliary role. Simultaneously, it should strengthen market-oriented operations and stakeholder participation in place branding.

This paper is one of the first contributions to examine the impact of place branding as a rural development policy tool in China, and the in-depth case study examines and proves the effectiveness of place branding in rural China.

Although the place stakeholders play a key role in participatory place branding, surprisingly little interest has been shown in the people involved in participatory place branding initiatives. The purpose of this study is to explore place stakeholders’ perceptions of the meaning and scope of place branding.

This paper is based on two cases of participatory place branding, and the research design is inspired by participatory action research. The empirical material comprises observations, qualitative questionnaires and interviews.

This study identifies and describes four paradoxes in place stakeholders’ perceptions of the meaning and scope of place branding, embracing the target group (internal vs external), the objective (explore vs exploit), the stakeholders’ role (active vs passive) and the main value of place branding initiatives (process vs outcome). Furthermore, in this study, the place stakeholders’ paradoxical perceptions of place branding meant that, during the participatory processes, the authors encountered and needed to manage various opinions and behaviours, for example, “critics”, “innovators” and “relators”.

This paper contributes with a new perspective on participatory place branding. By capturing place stakeholders’ perceptions and understanding of place branding, this paper develops our knowledge and understanding of the starting point of participatory processes.

This study aims to propose resident-based brand equity models on green, creative and smart development themes through a multi-sample telephone survey on Hong Kong residents (n = 751).

This research adopted a quantitative approach with a round of questionnaire-based survey carried out anonymously on adult citizens who have stayed in Hong Kong for more than one year. Telephone survey was performed by a professional survey research centre with trained interviewers between May and July 2022.

The study identifies the magnitude of these city brand equity attributes and reconfigured their composition under separate samples of Hong Kong residents. The results reveal the relatively stronger brand equity for developing Hong Kong as a smart city brand compared with green and creative branding.

The research findings might carry a major limitation of varied interpretations and stereotypes of each city theme (green, creative and smart) by local residents. To minimize the expected bias, two core questions were added to provide respondents with information on each theme before the main survey questions. The questions’ wording was also simplified to ensure the constraint and inconsistency of layman effect.

The common attributes across the themes, including distinctiveness, uniqueness, confidence, positive image, liveability, long-term residence, feature familiarity and top-of-mind, indicate the most prominent aspects of brand equity formation and enhancement. Since urban sustainability does not follow a single path of strategies and infrastructure development, city brand process should also follow a selective approach, which clearly identifies a multiplicity of local interests that could create the best outcomes and the strongest brand equity for the city.

The factor allocation and regression analysis elucidate different configurations of the determining factors with a three-factor model for green city brand equity and two-factor models for the other ones. The findings encore some previous studies supporting the differentiation between common attributes and distinctive attributes, and the overlapping approach to unleash the strongest integration of attributes of brand equity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the in situ place experiences of people in Luton and Darlington.

The study used 109,998 geotagged tweets from Luton and Darlington between 2020 and 2022 and conducted topic modelling using latent Dirichlet allocation. Lexicons were created using GPT-4 to evaluate the eight dimensions of place experience for each topic.

The study found that Darlington had higher counts in the sensorial, behavioural, designed and mundane dimensions of place experience than Luton. Conversely, Luton had a higher prevalence of the affective and intellectual dimensions, attributed to political and faith-related tweets.

The study introduces a novel approach that uses AI-generated lexicons for place experience. These lexicons cover four facets, two intentions and two intensities of place experience, enabling detection of words from any domain. This approach can be useful not only for town and destination brand managers but also for researchers in any field.

Drawing on the literature on brand–consumer relations in an attempt to apply the concept of brand love to a city tourism destination, this paper aims to explore the antecedents and consequences of city brand love.

Based on quantitative research and cluster sampling, study data was collected from 330 international tourists who visited six Iran cities. The research model is tested using partial least square structural equation modeling.

According to the results, city brand attractiveness, city brand identification and memorable city brand experience are the antecedents of city brand love. Moreover, the city brand attractiveness, both directly and indirectly through memorable experiences and identification with the city brand, is one of the antecedents of city brand love. Finally, the results suggest that word of mouth and revisit intention are major behavioral outcomes of city brand love.

By providing a validated conceptual model that traces the antecedents and consequences of city brand love, this study attempts to answer prior calls for examination from the viewpoint of city tourism scholars.

本研究基于定量研究和整群抽样, 研究数据来自访问伊朗六个城市的330名国际游客。研究采用偏最小二乘结构方程模型对研究模型进行了检验。

借鉴品牌-消费者关系的相关文献, 本研究试图将品牌爱的概念应用于一个城市旅游目的地, 探讨城市品牌喜爱的前因和后果。

结果表明, 城市品牌吸引力、城市品牌辨识度和令人难忘的城市品牌体验是城市品牌喜爱的前因。城市品牌吸引力通过城市品牌直接或间接通过难忘体验和认同产生, 是城市喜爱的前因。最后, 研究结果表明, 口碑和重访意愿是城市品牌喜爱的主要行为结果。

通过提供一个经过验证的概念模型, 追溯城市品牌喜爱的前因后果, 本研究试图从城市旅游学者的角度回答先前检验的呼吁。

A partir de una investigación cuantitativa y muestreo por conglomerados, los datos del estudio se recogieron de 330 turistas internacionales que visitaron seis ciudades iraníes. El modelo conceptual se analizó mediante un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales de mínimos cuadrados parciales (PLS).

Basándose en la literatura sobre las relaciones entre marca y consumidor para aplicar el concepto de amor de marca a una ciudad como destino turístico, la presente investigación analiza los antecedentes y las consecuencias del amor de marca de ciudad.

Conforme a los resultados, el atractivo de la marca ciudad, la identificación con la marca ciudad y la experiencia memorable con la marca ciudad son los antecedentes del amor a la marca ciudad. Adicionalmente, el atractivo de la marca ciudad, tanto directa como indirectamente a través de las experiencias memorables y la identificación con la marca ciudad, es uno de los antecedentes del amor por la marca ciudad. Finalmente, los resultados sugieren que la comunicación boca-oído y la intención de volver a visitar la ciudad son los principales resultados comportamentales del amor de marca de ciudad.

Al proporcionar un modelo conceptual validado que analiza los antecedentes y las consecuencias del amor de marca de ciudad, este estudio trata de responder a las llamadas para su estudio desde la óptica del turismo urbano.

This paper aims to develop a cross-border regional brand management model to help enhance cooperation for developing such localities. It analyzed its applicability in the Brazil–Argentina and Italy–Austria cross-border regions comprising several cities.

A systematic literature review was conducted to obtain a theoretical basis and select elements for creating the cross-border regional brand management (CRBM) model. To apply the model, in-depth interviews were conducted with 19 specialists of different nationalities and distinct expertise on cross-border governance and regional branding. In addition, to validate the proposed model, a focus group was carried out, and specialists were consulted using forms, providing 22 additional opinions.

The results show good managerial practices and gaps that must be overcome to create and manage the brands from the two regions analyzed.

The theoretical contributions consist in extending the literature in place branding by presenting the first CRBM model and the conceptual explanation of each of the model's elements.

The study's practical implications occur through the suggestion of good management practices for the studied localities arising from the applicability of the CRBM model. Furthermore, it is expected that the model developed can be applied in other locations, bringing practical contributions to the management and creation of cross-border regional brands in other countries.

This study presents the first CRBM model and its applicability to two cross-border regions.

The authors aimed to identify the opinions of young adult consumers regarding food processing companies’ (FPCs) credibility in terms of food safety (FS).

The authors surveyed Generation Z (GenZ) consumers. The authors assessed the reliability of the research questionnaire using Cronbach’s alpha statistics. The authors used descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA analysis of variance in the data analysis to determine intergroup variability. The authors performed statistical analyses using IBM SPSS Statistics. 27.

The most valued determinants for consumers were competence and skills, and the most valued family members’ opinions on FS, followed by experts’ opinions. FS concerns are more associated with FPCs than with farmers. The ethics of conduct and moral responsibility play an important role in assessing the FPCs’ credibility.

The questionnaire did not focus on specific food industries, such as fruit and vegetables, fish, meat, dairy, etc. In the future, a similar survey on producers’ credibility should consider the issue of FS risks associated with the specifics of a particular industry.

The authors proposed a set of factors that may determine young adult consumers’ perception of the FPCs’ credibility, which they may use for research within other consumer groups.

This paper aims to examine the unique Chinese context by analyzing the city labels (e.g. smart city and eco city) used by Chinese local governments at or above the provincial capital level to represent themselves (adopted city labels) and the developmental pathways they actually pursued (adopted developmental pathways).

The authors compared the city brand choices to those anticipated based on their geographic and economic contexts (predicted city labels and developmental pathways) as well as the directives outlined in national planning documents (imposed city labels and developmental pathways). The authors identified ten main categories of city labels used to designate themselves and establish the frequency of their use based on municipal plan documents, economic and geographic data and national plan documents and policy reports, respectively.

The authors discovered that both local economic development and geographic factors, as well as top-down administrative influences, significantly impact city branding strategies in the 38 Chinese cities studied. When these models fall short in predicting adopted city labels and pathways, it is often because cities favor a service-oriented reputation over a manufacturing-focused one, and they prefer diverse, multifaceted industrial images to uniform ones.

The originality and value of this paper lie in its contribution to the academic literature on city branding by developing a predictive model for brand development at the municipal level, with explicit attention to the national-local nexus. The paper’s approach differs from existing research in the first cluster of city branding by not addressing issues of stakeholder involvement or adoption and implementation processes. Additionally, the paper’s focus on the political power dynamics at the national level and urban governance details at the municipal level provides a unique perspective on the topic. Overall, this paper provides a valuable contribution to the field of city branding by expanding the understanding of brand development and its impact on the socioeconomic environment.