Abstract
The capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, has taken to the discipline of urban branding in order to gain prominence on the global map. This article attempts to unpack the Abu Dhabi brand by analyzing current practices of urban branding in the city's newly planned Cultural District, Saadiyat Island. The article is structured into four sections. In the first section, a literature review of branding is provided to help situate the reader in the theoretical framework. Section two presents a brief history of Abu Dhabi's development, followed by an examination of the efforts of the Office of the Brand Abu Dhabi as part of the city's efforts to place itself among the list of globally significant cities. The third section (un)covers the paradoxes of the city's branding efforts by looking closely at the brand's target audience, as well as the players involved in the branding process, using Saadiyat Island (Abu Dhabi's Cultural District) as a case study. That is, the questions branding for whom? and branding by whom? are addressed. Section four holds concluding thoughts, arguing that those who are quick to dismiss the emirate as merely an elitist tourist development, in which art, history and regional identity are reduced to marketing commodities, might be missing the larger picture.
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Notes
Since 2005, Abu Dhabi real estate and development has been handled by a conglomeration of newly launched property developers – Aldar Properties, Sourouh Real Estate, Reem Investments and Tourism Development Investment Company (TDIC), to name some of the major players and operators.
Ole Jensen, in his article titled Culture Stories: Understanding Cultural Urban Branding, writes that, ‘according to the German sociologist Gerhard Schulze, we are living in the Erlebnisgeschellschaft or experience society, where the primary concern has shifted from subsistence to making sense of the world by seeking ever more stimulating experiences’ ( Jensen 2007).
Saadiyat Island means Island of Happiness.
This is particularly true when reading the explosive number of news articles surrounding the negotiations of what kind of art would be permitted for display in the Louvre Abu Dhabi (see, for instance, Astier, Henri. ‘Gulf Louvre deal riles French art world’ in BBC News, 7 March 2007), as well as the various articles linking Abu Dhabi's hosting of the Guggenheim museum to the city's attempts to replicate the ‘Bilbao effect’ (for example, Tatchell, Jo. ‘Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi: artistic oasis takes shape amid the dunes’ in Telegraph, 24 August 2009).
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Hashim, A. Branding the brand new city: Abu Dhabi, travelers welcome. Place Brand Public Dipl 8, 72–82 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/pb.2011.34
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/pb.2011.34