Place Brand Communities: From Terminal to Instrumental Values: An Abstract

Abstract

“Innovation, part of Lyon’s DNA” is the slogan used by ONLYLYON, the place brand developed by the French city of Lyon, to align its community around three roles: raising awareness about Lyon, attracting people, and helping recruiting new ambassadors. But, why do Lyon citizens voluntarily promote the city? Is innovation, a mode of conduct that relates to instrumental values, the best argument for engaging various stakeholders to join the ONLYLYON community? Should the city brand be better of insisting on end-states of existence, aka terminal values, like sense of accomplishment?

Grounded on the value place brand community framework—particularly the conceptualization of terminal and instrumental values (Rokeach 1973)—this article seeks to draw a parallel between place brands and commercial brands by reflecting on the community marketing strategies that place brand managers develop to manage the relationships among and coordinate various stakeholders.

The authors propose a two-step research design. First, a content analysis of websites provides a description of French integrated region brands according to an observation grid. Two categories of French integrated region brands are found according to their degree of communal orientation. Among communal region brands, in contrast with non-communal region brands, one form reflects terminal values, and the other is based on instrumental values. Instrumental values appear more efficient for promoting the place through members than terminal values. Second, two French region brands are further investigated based on the communal orientation they display. Using in-depth interviews, the authors explore the wide range of terminal and instrumental values that twenty stakeholders express for joining their region brand community.

This exploratory research highlights some particularities of place brand communities and adds instrumental value to the classic terminal value identified within commercial brand communities. First, literature on community marketing stresses the importance of terminal values for federating consumers, for example, animal rights for vegans (Dinhopl et al. 2015). However, this research further proposes that in the context of a place brand, it is possible to federate the members of a brand community around more instrumental values. Second, this research contributes to the field of integrated marketing communications by including in the integration process, the values around which stakeholders of a place brand can align; notably, instrumental values might represent a good opportunity to unify place branding efforts. The practical implications for place brand managers include insights into the values around which they can align stakeholders of their brand.