Place Branding for the Economic Developer: AE Weighs in on the ‘Big Debate'

Place branding is a hot topic within the economic development community, and rightly so. In a world where marketers typically have ‘one shot’ to instantly get the attention of -- or introduce themselves to -- site selectors, consultants, tourists, potential workforce, and their own constituents, having and presenting a cohesive and enticing community identity has profound conscious and subconscious impact.

When the topic of place branding is debated in public and private forums, typically two factions become the primary contenders: The economic development practitioner faced with limited marketing resources but that first and foremost ‘need to get their [city, region, state, country]’s name out there’ vs. The marketing consultant that argues that a brand is not simply a logo and a tagline, but rather a collective of perceptions, messages, and mechanisms that a logo just happens to be a part of.

The former, in many cases, ultimately just wants to hire a graphic designer to create a visual identity that grabs the attention of target audiences and is popular among local decision makers and business constituents. The latter wants to analyze the region’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, competition, resources, and character in order to present a promise and vision statement that ultimately will impact how the community presents itself internally and externally.
AngelouEconomics’ (AE) perspective sits exactly in the middle. The fact is AE has unique perspective because we provide place branding services to economic development practitioners and place marketing consultancy to marketing firms based on unique client need. Having often been asked our stance in ‘this debate,’ it has always been our contention that both factions are correct –- only if they achieve an effective end-result.

And, to us, the end-result resides in a criterion of four parts: Read more here.