Abstract
Place brand managers often disregard the complexity of place brands, as do their counterparts in the academic arena: they repeatedly use simple explorative descriptions of certain place brands, rather than a precise measurement. Thus, this chapter aims to identify and discuss measurement approaches that could prove useful in place branding. Therefore, we will define the brand and examine various options regarding what to measure in place branding. Finally, we will discuss the different approaches of brand measurement for their use in place branding, namely the approaches to measuring the brand in the form of free brand associations of target customers with qualitative methods; in the form of attributes with quantitative methods like standardized questionnaires; and with mixed methods that combine qualitative research with quantitative methods. Two mixed methods, namely the network analysis and the advanced brand concept map method, are explained in more detail. In conclusion, we also outline current and future challenges in measuring place brands and their outcomes.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Aaker J (1997) Dimensions of brand personality. J Mark Res 34:347–356
American Marketing Association (2013) Dictionary American Marketing Association. http://www.marketingpower.com/_layouts/Dictionary.aspx?dLetter=B. Accessed 24 Dec 2013
Anholt S (2006) Anholt city brand index—“how the world views its cities”, 2nd edn. Global Market Insight, Bellevue
Anholt S (2010) Places—identity, image and reputation. Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Anholt S, Hildreth J (2005) Let freedom and cash registers ring: America as a brand. J Place Branding Public Dipl 1(2):164–172
Ashworth GJ, Kavaratzis M (2009) Beyond the logo: brand management for cities. J Brand Manage 16(8):520–531
Avraham E (2000) Cities and their news media images. Cities 17(5):363–370
Baxter J, Kerr G (2010) The meaning and measurement of place identity and place image. Paper presented at the 50th European Regional Science Association Congress, Jönköping, Sweden, 19–23 Aug
Berglund E, Olsson K (2010) Rethinking place marketing—a literature review. Paper presented at the 50th European Regional Science Association Congress, Jönköping, Sweden, 19–23 Aug
Braun E (2008) City marketing: towards an integrated approach. Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), Rotterdam
Braun E (2012) Putting city branding into practice. J Brand Manage 19(4):257–267
Calder BJ (1977) Focus groups and the nature of qualitative marketing research. J Mark Res 14:353–364
Carrol JD, Green PE (1997) Psychometric methods in marketing research: part 2, multidimensional scaling. J Mark Res 34:193–204
De Carlo M, Canali S, Pritchard A, Morgan N (2009) Moving Milan towards Expo 2015: designing culture into a city brand. J Place Manage Dev 2(1):8–22
Eggers F, Sattler H (2009) Hybrid individualized two-level choice-based conjoint (HIT-CBC): a new method for measuring preference structures with many attribute levels. Int J Res Mark 26(2):108–118
Farsky M, Völckner F (2008) Entwicklung und empirische Anwendung eines neuen Instrumentes zur Imagemessung am Beispiel von Universitäten [Development and implementation of a measurement tool for brand image with the example of universities]. Die Betriebswirtschaft (DBW) 6(08):706–728
Fazio RH, Olson MA (2003) Implicit measures in social cognition research: their meaning and use. Annu Rev Psychol 54:297–327
Federal Statistical Office of Berlin-Brandenburg (2009) Berlin in Zahlen 2009 [Berlin in numbers 2009]. Federal Statistical Office of Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin
Gertner D (2011) A (tentative) meta-analysis of the ‘place marketing’ and ‘place branding’ literature. J Brand Manage 19:112–131
Grabow B, Henckel D, Hollbach-Grömig B (1995) Weiche Standortfaktoren [Soft location factors]. Kohlhammer/Deutscher Gemeindeverlag, Berlin
Grunert KG, Grunert SC (2005) Measuring subjective meaning structures by the laddering method: theoretical considerations and methodological problems. Int J Res Mark 12(3):209–226
Gutman JA (1982) Means-end chain model based on consumer categorization processes. J Mark 46(Spring):60–72
Hamburg Marketing GmbH (2009) Discover Hamburg—the city on the waterfront. City of Hamburg, Hamburg
Hankinson G (2001) Location branding: a study of the branding practices of 12 English cities. J Brand Manage 9(2):127–142
Hankinson G (2005) Destination brand images: a business tourism perspective. J Serv Mark 19(1):24–32
Henderson G, Iacobucci D, Calder BJ (2002) Using network analysis to understand brands. Adv Consum Res 29(1):397–405
Hildreth J (n.d.) The Saffron European city brand barometer. Saffron Brand Consultants website. http://saffron-consultants.com/news-views/publications/. Accessed 21 Dec 2013
Insch A, Florek M (2008) A great place to live, work and play—conceptualizing place satisfaction in the case of a city’s residents. J Place Manage Dev 1(2):138–149
Jacobsen BP (2009) Investor-based place brand equity: a theoretical framework. J Place Manage Dev 2(1):70–84
Jacobsen BP (2012) Place brand equity: a model for establishing the effectiveness of place brands. J Place Manage Dev 5(3):253–271
John DR, Loken B, Kim K, Monga AB (2006) Brand concept maps: a methodology for identifying brand association networks. J Mark Res 43:549–563
Kavaratzis M (2008) From city marketing to city branding: an interdisciplinary analysis with reference to Amsterdam, Budapest and Athens. PhD thesis, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Groningen
Keller KL (1993) Conceptualizing, measuring, and managing customer-based brand equity. J Mark 57(January):1–22
Keller KL (2003) Brand synthesis: the multidimensionality of brand knowledge. J Consum Res 29(4):595–600
Kotler P, Haider DH, Rein I (1993) Marketing places: attracting investment, industry, and tourism to cities, states, and nations. The Free Press, New York
Lee HJ, Jain D (2009) Dubai’s brand assessment success and failure in brand management—part 1. Place Branding Public Dipl 5(3):234–246
Louviere JJ, Johnson RD (1990) Reliability and validity of the brand-anchored conjoint approach to measuring retailer images. J Retail 66(4):359–382
Lucarelli A, Berg PO (2011) City branding—a state of the art review of the research domain. J Place Manage Dev 4(1):9–27
Merrilees B, Miller D, Herington C (2009) Antecedents of residents’ city brand attitudes. J Bus Res 62(3):362–367
Morgan N, Pritchard A, Piggott R (2002) New Zealand, 100 % pure. The creation of a powerful niche destination brand. J Brand Manage 9(4/5):335–354
Papadopoulos N, Heslop L (2002) Country equity and country branding: problems and prospects. J Brand Manage 9(4–5):294–314
Schnittka O, Sattler H, Zenker S (2012) Advanced brand concept maps: a new approach for evaluating the favorability of brand association networks. Int J Res Mark 29(3):265–274
Stedman RC (2002) Towards a social psychology of place: predicting behavior from place-based cognitions, attitude, and identity. Environ Behav 34(5):561–581
Supphellen M (2000) Understanding core brand equity: guidelines for in-depth elicitation of brand associations. Int J Market Res 42(3):319–338
Trueman MM, Cornelius N, Killingbeck-Widdup AJ (2007) Urban corridors and the lost city: overcoming negative perceptions to reposition city brands. J Brand Manage 15(1):20–31
Vanolo A (2008) The image of the creative city: some reflections on urban branding in Turin. Cities 25(6):370–382
Wagner O, Peters M (2009) Can association methods reveal the effects of international branding on tourism destination stakeholders? J Place Manage Dev 2(1):52–69
Wansink B (2003) Using laddering to understand and leverage a brand’s equity. Qual Market Res Int J 6(2):111–118
Zenker S (2009) Who’s your target? The creative class as a target group for place branding. J Place Manage Dev 2(1):23–32
Zenker S (2011) How to catch a city? The concept and measurement of place brands. J Place Manage Dev 4(1):40–52
Zenker S, Beckmann SC (2013) My place is not your place—different place brand knowledge by different target groups. J Place Manage Dev 6(1):6–17
Zenker S, Braun E (2010) Branding a city—a conceptual approach for place branding and place brand management. Paper presented at the 39th European Marketing Academy Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1–4 June
Zenker S, Eggers F, Farsky M (2013a) Putting a price tag on cities: insights into the competitive environment of places. Cities 30(February):133–139
Zenker S, Petersen S, Aholt A (2013b) The citizen satisfaction index (CSI): evidence for a four basic factor model in a German sample. Cities 31:156–164
Zenker S, Gollan T (2010) Development and implementation of the resident migration scale (ReMiS): measuring success in place marketing. In: Witte EH, Gollan T (eds) Sozialpsychologie und Ökonomie. Pabst Verlag, Lengerich, pp 156–172
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zenker, S., Braun, E. (2015). Rethinking the Measurement of Place Brands. In: Kavaratzis, M., Warnaby, G., Ashworth, G. (eds) Rethinking Place Branding. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12424-7_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12424-7_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-12423-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-12424-7
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsBusiness and Management (R0)