Building a place brand from the bottom up

Abstract

In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, the need for towns and cities to create a unique identity, to differentiate themselves from competitors, has become critical. Many places promote spectacular scenery, good quality of life, friendly people, and a sound business infrastructure. However, these factors are no longer differentiators, so places need a strong brand identity to stand out in order to attract people to live, work, and play. But brand development is often driven by short-term top-down approaches with limited community participation, where the primary tool of brand expression becomes the final marketing campaign. This article reports on a qualitative approach to build a place brand from the bottom up, with wide participation from all members of the community. With a methodology based on place brand-building theory, charettes and in-depth interviews were conducted with local stakeholders, resulting in a positioning statement that was used to develop brand communications materials. Based on the research process and results of the case study, the authors present a community-based place brand development model.

Keywords

Community stakeholders destination marketing place branding residents

Introduction

Over the last few decades, an increasing number of towns, cities, and even countries have moved beyond destination marketing to embrace the concept of place branding (Allen, 2007; Kavaratzis, 2004). They are branding themselves not just to attract tourists but to attract investments and woo talented foreign workers (Ooi, 2008). Compared to destination marketing, place branding requires a broad set of efforts made by governments and multiple stakeholders such as local residents and more industry disciplines and businesses (Aitken and Campelo, 2011; Papadopoulos, 2004). But the branding of places has unique challenges, encompassing more than just creating a compelling marketing campaign or a new logo. In fact, there continues to be confusion in the marketplace that a logo or an identity is all that constitutes a brand (Allen, 2007). These logos and promotional materials are often developed without conducting research and/or a defined strategy (Hankinson, 2007; Zenker and Martin, 2013). In addition, key stakeholder groups in the community are not always consulted (Garcia et al., 2012). As a result, brand strategy tends to be driven by short-term top-down approaches, with narrow-scope thinking in which the primary tool of brand expression becomes the marketing campaign executed through traditional media channels (Miller and Merrilees, 2013). However, branding should be built on a solid platform of research and planning and be incorporated into a community’s broader economic development plan. A new place brand needs complete buy-in from all citizens (Ferguson and Bourke, 2013; Hem and Iversen, 2004). Bramwell and Rawding (1996) report that a challenge for community leaders is to promote their city in ways that will work for the collective and equitable benefit of all residents. If the local community agrees with the image projected of their place of residence, they will “live the brand” (Zouganeli et al., 2013). By developing a close connection with the place brand, they are more likely to hold a positive attitude toward the brand and subsequent marketing and will play a vital role in providing support and patronage of the branded offerings of the destination (Blichfeldt, 2005; Kemp et al., 2012). In branding itself as a creative city, for example, the authorities of Singapore cultivated popular acceptance and support for the new image, nurturing a creative consumer population and training a workforce suitable for the creative economy (Ooi, 2008).

Likewise, in an increasingly competitive global marketplace, the need for towns and cities to create a unique identity, to differentiate themselves from competitors, has become critical. Many places claim to have spectacular scenery, good quality of life, friendly people, and a sound business infrastructure. However, these factors are no longer differentiators, so places need a strong brand—or strong brand equity (Papadopoulos, 2004)—to distinguish themselves in order to attract people to live, work, and play (Hanna and Rowley, 2008; Zenker and Martin, 2013). In 2013, stakeholders from a small coastal town in the United States, Bluffton, South Carolina, conducted research that would support such a new place brand, and this article outlines the brand-building exercises employed in the study.

Literature review

In a recent book on branding for small cities, Baker (2012: 27) has defined a place brand as “the totality of thoughts, feelings, and expectations that people hold about a location. It’s the reputation and the enduring essence of a place and represents its distinctive promise of value, providing it with a competitive edge.” In the same book, Baker describes the process of place branding as “a framework and toolkit for differentiating, focusing and organizing around the location’s competitive and distinctive identity.” The literature on place branding has gathered momentum ever since Anholt’s 1998 seminal article that first highlighted a distinction between place marketing and place branding. The debate continues concerning this distinction, but in essence, place marketing typically includes the promotion, sales, and distribution of a location attributes packaged as products and services; place branding on the other hand refers to the symbolic interpretation as well as communication of associations and expectations centered around the experience of place (Lucarelli and Berg, 2011).

In his meta-analysis of the place branding literature, Gertner (2011) identified 212 articles on place marketing or place branding published in 43 different journals between 1990 and 2009. He concluded however, that in spite of the fact that “place marketing” and “place branding” research has steadily intensified, the assessment gave rise to more questions than answers about the future of the field. While research topics varied from specific places and associated brands (e.g. Brand China) to particular regions (e.g. rural communities or cities), or architectural features, the concepts of place branding and place image appear to have received the greatest attention, although the terms were typically used interchangeably (Gertner, 2011).

In a tourism context, Hosany et al. (2006) have demonstrated (using canonical correlation) a relationship between place image and personality, with the emotional components of place image accounting for most of the variance in the personality construct (Hosany et al., 2006). Gertner (2011) notes that brand personality has gained increasing attention in the literature, although identifying measurement scales to capture the concept has proved somewhat problematic. Aaker’s five-dimensional brand personality scale (1997), for example, was not successfully adapted in place branding research studies (Murphy et al., 2007). But certainly, a destination’s distinct personality characteristics can provide the platform for an emotional connection and further assist in developing an image that is desirable for tourists (Apostolopoulou and Papadimitriou, 2015).

A number of researchers have suggested that corporate branding offers valuable guidance for implementing branding within places (Ashworth and Kavaratzis, 2007; Kavaratzis, 2004; Trueman et al., 2007). Trueman et al. (2007), for example, conclude that city branding can draw parallels from the corporate branding literature in terms of relationship building, communications, personality, and identity, supported by strategy, creativity, and resources. Trueman, with Klemm and Giroud (2004), applied the AC²ID Test of corporate identity to the city of Bradford, in order to highlight gaps in the city’s official communication strategy. Their findings revealed conflicting messages between local government policy and different stakeholder groups, and highlighted gaps between the vision of the city’s leaders, its official publications, and the reality of living and working in the city.

There seems to be consensus that the first stage in building a brand is to establish the core values of the place. This requires an objective viewpoint including the perspectives of all community stakeholders in order to capture an independent analysis of the marketplace (Garcia et al., 2012; Kinucan, 2002; Knapp and Sherwin, 2005; Zenker, 2011). It also involves recognizing not just where a place comes from by defining core values but painting a picture of what the opportunity is for the future—where the town or city should be headed. Residents play a critical role in this process (Choo et al., 2011), as a resulting place brand needs complete buy in from all citizens, ensuring that they will serve as brand “ambassadors” after having played an integral part in creating a sense of place (Ferguson and Bourke, 2013; Hem and Iversen, 2004). Baxter et al. (2014: 1084) refer to this process as measuring “the voice within,” that is, what residents think and feel about their place.

Guba and Lincoln (2005) argue that such brand meaning cannot be fully understood or explored through quantitative means. Similarly, Anholt (2007: 75) refers to “mining rather than forging …. it has to be dug out of the history, the culture, the geography, and the society of the place.” This need to dig deeper might explain why Gertner (2011) found that the majority of place branding studies were qualitative and descriptive in nature, with a large proportion being case studies. Hem and Iversen (2004: 92), for example, conducted in-depth interviews with destination stakeholders to assist in the development of a vision and new logo for Fjord Norway. Their research focused on four dimensions: the vision of how the destination should be perceived, logo familiarity, logo design that signals destination meaning, and aspects of similarity between the logo and the destination. Their findings gave “reasonably” good insight into the stakeholders’ visions and preferences for the development of the new destination logo.

Freire (2007) was also of the opinion that local residents and workers have a significant role to play in the development of place brands. His in-depth interviews with British tourists in Portugal revealed that local people were often perceived as a strong factor in differentiating the place brand as far as interviewees were concerned. Freire concluded that brand construction should strongly focus on the “local people” factor. Ferguson and Bourke (2013: 444) examined the role that workers in a resort setting play in the brand experience, in particular how employees represent and cocreate brand experiences with and for consumers. They found that seasonal workers are “evangelical brand ambassadors,” who create a sense of unique customer experience within the destination that actually contributes to the meaning of the destination brand itself for their experience and that of the customer. Ferguson and Bourke’s and Friere’s research further illustrates that not only are the local communities impacted by place branding, but they can and should provide valuable guidance in the place branding process. Bramwell and Rawding (1996) similarly suggest that involving and emphasizing local residents can enhance people’s sense of pride in the distinctiveness and achievements of their locality, promote commitment to local volunteer activity, encourage loyalty to local buyers and sellers, boost indigenous traditional culture and economic activity, and add vigor to the efforts of local government to invest in local economic development, landscape protection, and historic conservation.

Stakeholder engagement is a crucial step in the sustainable tourism and community development process (Byrd, 2007). A stakeholder is defined by Freeman (1984: 46) as “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization objectives.” Community stakeholders are typically classified as residents, local business owners, community leaders, and government officials (Byrd, 2007). Much research has been conducted establishing the importance of engaging community members and specifically local residents in the tourism planning process (Harrill, 2004; Hung et al., 2011; Jurowski et al., 1997; Lankford and Howard, 1994; Nunkoo and Ramkissoon, 2012; Sahin and Baloglu, 2014). Collaboration (Jamal and Getz, 1995) and active informed participation (Byrd et al., 2008) among stakeholders not only provides the community with the opportunity to share their values and vision of the destination but is key in establishing a balance of power (Duffy et al., 2013), building trust among community members with the goal of improving the community members’ quality of life (Nunkoo and Ramikisson, 2012).

With respect to place branding, limited research has focused on the engagement of the community stakeholders and no model or framework has been developed specifically to assist practitioners and academics with a community-based place branding process. This research project used the Reid et al. (1993) community-based tourism development framework as a guide (see also Reid et al., 2004). The framework aims to map out how communities establish tourism from their perspective at the local level. It includes four major phases: (1) gear up, (2) community assessment, (3) organization and planning, and (4) monitoring. The first phase includes having a stimulus/spark or need for tourism planning and development of a planning taskforce. Phase 2 includes establishing the core values and identity of the community. Phase 3 is the development of the plan and the final phase includes the implementation and continued evaluation of the plan. The model makes significant contribution as it suggests that leadership is critical in the process as the catalyst and development taskforce, but the community involvement is equally important, if not more important, in the tourism development process. Therefore, it is essential to encourage community involvement, assess readiness, and generate dialogue in the community during the tourism development planning stage.

Methodology

An innovated and nontraditional method for data collection was used in this study, which included a formation of a task force, charettes, and in-depth interviews. To begin with, a committee of business and community leaders was assembled as the Bluffton Branding Task Force to help guide the 6-month branding process. The formation of a branding committee is often the first step in brand building (Clark et al., 2010), and Hankinson (2007) has stressed that to be successful, destination branding depends upon a strong visionary leadership, and consistent communications across a wide range of stakeholders. Baker (2012) has also commented that economic development and destination marketing organizations are usually the best-suited entities to plan, coordinate, and manage the branding process. The Task Force was involved throughout the branding process, holding regular meetings with the academic research team, who were contracted from the state’s largest university to conduct the research. The Task Force also provided valuable insight about the area’s resources and attractions and provided access and connections to the stakeholders in the region.

To decide on the methods to be employed for the branding research, the research team conducted an extensive review of branding work of this nature. Some places make more extensive use than others of market research to derive and evaluate their image (Bramwell and Rawding, 1996), but few involve the community throughout the process. However, the research team decided that the informed participation of community stakeholders should be part of every stage of the place brand development (Ashton, 2014). To establish the core values and paint a picture of the future therefore, the research team conducted four charettes attended by an average of 25–30 people. A charette is a “workshop in which designers work intensively on a problem and present their findings and proposals in a public forum” (Kelbaugh, 1997: 14). They are often used in the development of place brands (Mendoza, 2011) but have not been used extensively in tourism research. These intense planning sessions are intended to provide practical, stakeholder-driven solutions based on collaborative vision and values from the general public (Mara, 2006). In addition, the workshops allow stakeholders to be engaged in the planning process by giving them a forum to share their ideas and offer the unique advantage of giving immediate feedback to the researchers. The four charettes were open to the public and were widely advertised through websites and blogs, e-mail blasts, newspapers, radio news programs, social media, and key town organizations. Previous researchers have stressed the importance of involving local media in the place branding process (Clark et al., 2010). Participants of the charettes included local residents, political officials, civic leaders, business owners and operators, retirees, and college students. After an introduction to the process, participants were randomly divided in two groups of 12–15, for the brand assessment and development exercises. Each subgroup rotated between stations after about 90 min, ensuring that every respondent took part in each exercise.

The first exercise in the charette, explored the town’s experience through appreciative inquiry. Appreciative inquiry places emphasis on identifying strengths within an organization or community (Stowell and West, 1991). The focus is on process rather than outcome, where participants help to guide researchers to insights that can then be communicated in a shared language. Researchers asked participants for words to describe the town. Wordle was then used to generate “word clouds” from the text that was provided. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. Participants were then prompted to discuss their most memorable or favorite experiences in the town—or, if they had family or friends visit the town, to talk about the experiences they would recommend. Post-it note responses were grouped (by participants) to create themes about “the best of the town.”

In the second exercise, researchers used metaphors, imagery, and association games to explore the brand personality of the town. Participants were first asked to associate the town with a celebrity by describing the “appearance” and “personality” of the town. Such projective techniques are common in brand image research (Hofstede et al., 2007). Numerous pictures of the town were then provided to participants (buildings, natural resources, traffic, etc.) illustrating the unique tangible and intangible qualities of the community (Wagner and Peters, 2009). For each image, participants were asked to describe the picture and tell a story about the image (such as an event that was associated with that image). This type of projection technique is known as construction and is quite common in uncovering feelings, attitudes, and motivations toward a brand (Burns and Lennon, 1993). Participants were then given a small number of colored dots to place on the pictures that for them represented the ideal town for them and the least desired.

Finally, the second exercise involved visioning which is widely used for planning decisions (Shipley, 2002). Facilitators asked participants to close their eyes and imagine they were walking through their neighborhood as it should be 15 years into the future. Participants recorded their visions in written or pictorial form and the group as a whole was asked to vote for their favorite. The group was then asked to make one positive, declarative one-sentence statement about how the community would be in the future.

The second part of the qualitative research involved conducting in-depth interviews with key decision-makers and stakeholders in the region. The Task Force and Chamber of Commerce provided a list of over 50 names of potential participants. Potential interviewees were recruited by telephone or email. A total of 36 stakeholders agreed to be interviewed which included, but were not limited to, the Mayor, newspaper editor, hotel general manager, restaurant owner, pastor, college professor, city council, incubator director, and realtor. Questions again were based on the place branding literature, and explored quality-of-life issues in the town, the current and desired image of the town, the economic development opportunities, and a vision of the future. Interviews took between 40 and 60 min and were recorded. Transcriptions were analyzed using NVivo software and were organized and subsequently analyzed around the main questions or key themes accordingly. This form of analysis is analogous to template analysis which, in general terms, is a technique that allows for a comparison of perspectives (King, 1998), in this case between respondents, and is helpful in organizing large amounts of text (Crabtree and Miller, 1999).

Results

Charettes

In the charettes, respondents were very engaged and were clearly passionate about their community. A Bluffton personality that is strongly linked to the Old Town, the beauty of the river, and the rustic, relaxed, laid-back (but caring) nature of the people was identified. Preserving the Old Town’s unique characteristics was highlighted. In this respect, cultural and historical features as well as more artistic and eccentric elements associated with the Old Town were noted. A strong bond with local businesses such as art galleries and activities such as the farmers’ market was also suggested. Respondents further emphasized preservation of the natural environment. Quality of life in Bluffton was described in terms of recreational opportunities, educational standards, and job opportunities. Figures 1 and 2 show the word clouds generated when participants discussed the current and future quality of life in Bluffton. The town’s proximity to Hilton Head is clearly important for the quality of life for current and potential residents, and residents envisage having a healthy, thriving, diverse community, and one that maintains the local charm for residents. While recognizing the importance of tourism, participants would prefer economic development that emphasizes soft/clean jobs (technology, health care, education, and aerospace). Such development should be closely tied with the quality of education, sustainability, infrastructure, and the natural and economic environment.

Figure 1.

Word clouds generated for the town’s current quality of life according to charette participants.

Figure 2.

Word clouds generated for the town’s future quality of life according to charette participants.

Further analysis of the data from the appreciative inquiry exercises revealed five common themes across the four sessions. The most obvious theme centered around the people, who were described as truly “Southern” in their hospitality but also “funky,” “quirky,” and “unique,” with an appreciation for diversity and integration. Second, discussions focused on the natural resources of the area as being a key influence on residents’ quality of life. People wanted to protect the local river and see manufacturing jobs as threatening the natural beauty of the area. The town character was also a key theme with respondents showing an appreciation for the preservation of the Old Town and its important relationship with the “New Town.” Fourth, arts, festivals, and activities were seen as important to respondents as an avenue for expression and community bonding. The final theme centered on economic development; distaste was expressed for large manufacturing job growth, whereas there was a desire to attract development associated with technology, medicine, and research and development.

In the projection techniques, favorite and memorable experiences in Bluffton were associated with attributes such as the May River, Old Town, the farmers market, the environment, festivals, and oyster roasts. Emotional engagement included references to community, respect, family, and friendliness. Attributes describing Bluffton included beauty, peacefulness, artistic, green, safe, and progressive. Descriptors for future quality of life included opportunities, education, jobs, preservation, and development. Finally, economic terms to describe economic development included technology, clean industry, white-collar jobs, and research. Visitors identified the Old Town, Hilton Head, the May River, local restaurants, churches, shops, golf courses, the farmers market, and the Oyster Factory as points of pride.

Celebrities most often associated with the town were Jimmy Buffet, Andy Griffin, Will Rogers, and Sandra Bullock. The most common descriptors of these personalities were easygoing/laid back/low key/relaxing; caring/big heart/giving/kind/friendly; historic/history; small town/rural; fun/funny; and nature/environment. When the various images were discussed, many referred to the hidden historical and recreational treasures of the town, as well as the beautiful natural resources. Popular images amongst participants were those associated with the Old Town and the river, whereas images of big-box development (such as a picture of Wal-Mart) were by far the least favorable images. However, when discussing the future, participants acknowledged that controlled and targeted economic development was critical for the town to survive and grow, and that the New Town therefore was integral to future prosperity and a high quality of life.

Interviews

The results of the in-depth interviews tended to mirror that of the charettes, and certain quotations have been replicated below. Common words or phrases used to describe the town were “a sense of community,” “strong connection to nearby resorts/cities,” “small,” “the river,” “growing,” “Old Town,” and “beautiful.”

There’s something about being in Bluffton that triggers a sense of inner peace. The environment, everyone is proud of who we are. It’s so beautiful …. And in my view, that does something to the human psyche. When you’re in this gorgeous, serenely beautiful place that’s full of history, it’s calming.

Important to the quality of life of residents were the quality of the river, the proximity to a well-known nearby resort, a good education, job opportunities, recreational resources, and the natural environment (in that order).

You can’t emphasize the pristine May River enough .… The resource that Bluffton has got to preserve is our historic heritage in Old Town, and of course the river.

The most important features of the town that would attract new residents according to interviewees are a good education, development opportunities, the proximity to nearby resorts/cities, and recreational activities (in that order). New visitors are most likely to be attracted by the proximity to the nearby beach resort (Hilton Head Island), shopping opportunities, and festivals/activities.

I think the number one thing that attracts visitors in our area is the beach, is the South Carolina coast, the lure of the beach. You can get that of course with the Bluffton Hilton Head combination. Number two, I think it is the historical aspect of South Carolina and Lowcountry South Carolina.

On the other hand, business investors are likely to be attracted by the promise of sustainability, quality education, a low tax rate, a pristine river, and basic infrastructures. To attract high-quality and high-paying jobs to the town, respondents recommended an improved educational environment, a strategic plan, more of a technology focus, and an available workforce.

Tax incentives would be number two, maybe number one depending on the size of the company, sustainability, and then quality of education. The same thing is true for our environmental commitment. We have a huge commitment from the town council, the staff, and the residents to protect our resources here. It’s reflected in the work product …. It’s reflected in our ordinances …. Those things signal future employers that, “It’s a good place to put my investment.” It’s going to be protected.

Based on the findings of this brand-building exercise, the researchers developed positioning statements that could be used to develop brand communications materials (e.g. logo and taglines). The statements recommended came under the following headings: “the charm of the place,” “character of the people,” “connection of communities,” and “connecting old and new.” The final positioning statement chosen by the Branding Task Force was:

Bluffton, South Carolina, is a quintessential Southern town on the banks of the historic May River. Dedicated to a strong, progressive economic future, Bluffton is the center of our Lowcountry coastal region, providing abundant opportunities for a desirable work/life balance.

The Task Force decided that communications should be built around this statement as it encompassed both the quality of life and economic indicators that are important to all stakeholders. But it emphasized economic development—an area where the town needed to strengthen its image. The final phase of the project involved developing the “message” or written and visual components through which the brand identity would be communicated, and this was undertaken by a professional marketing agency. The final tagline selection by the Task Force was “Bluffton. Heart of the Lowcountry,” because they could see the power of the connection to the heart (emotion), location, quality of life, and the heart icon. The logo selected was Bluffton in lower case (confidence, it reflects who they are, understated and authentic/real), with the two hearts in the negative space formed by the two “fs” in Bluffton (see Figure 3).

Figure 3.

The new Bluffton logo and tagline.

Discussion

The study showed the importance of using place brand-building theory to understand a place’s core values and to map out a vision for the future. In place branding theory, the notion of identity is central, in that the core values that underpin it provide an anchor around which all communications should be built (Dinnie, 2008). This particular study revealed a town’s identity that is strongly linked to its Old Town, the beauty of the river, and the rustic, relaxed, laid-back (but caring) nature of the people. This authentic but understated personality seemed to be the differentiator, and as Robeson (2013) has said, a key outcome of place branding needs to be finding out one or two things that make you different. The town’s proximity to major cities is also clearly important for the quality of life for current and potential residents, and residents envisage having a healthy, thriving, diverse community, and one that maintains the Old Town feel for the residents. While recognizing the importance of tourism, participants would prefer economic development that emphasizes soft/clean jobs (technology, health care, education, and aerospace). Such development should be closely tied with the quality of education, sustainability, infrastructure, and the natural and economic environment. This is consistent with previous research that has shown that if the local authority retains a lead role in place branding, they make business interests more influential (Bramwell and Rawding, 1994).

The study has also highlighted the importance of involving residents in tourism planning, a key stakeholder who is often overlooked (Blichfeldt, 2005; Choo et al., 2011, Zouganeli et al., 2013). Including residents in the brand-building process from the bottom-up fills in the possible “place identity–place brand identity” gap (Baxter et al., 2014). The place identity was generated from local stakeholders, which was used to further develop the brand identity, which make the two identity sets consistent. As Zenker et al. (2013: 156) point out, residents simultaneously fulfill different roles in place branding. First, they are clearly an important target group for any subsequent place marketing, but less obvious is that they shape the place brand with their characteristics and behavior and then serve as ambassadors for their place brand, granting credibility to any communicated message. Finally they are citizens—in terms of an active part of the place—“who are vital for the political legitimization of place branding.” Zouganeli et al. (2013) similarly argue that local people need to agree with the image projected of their place of residence, so that they “live the brand.” Otherwise, the gap between reality and induced image can create dissonance when tourists, investors, or prospective businesses discover that the projected image of a place does not correspond to reality. As mentioned previously, when the local residents develop a connection with the place brand, they are more likely to hold a positive attitude toward the brand and will play a vital role in providing support and patronage of the branded offerings of the destination (Blichfeldt, 2005; Kemp et al., 2012).

Based on the research process and results of this project, the authors have generated a community-based place brand development model (see Figure 4). The model, based on the tourism development framework of Reid et al. (1993) referred to earlier, provides a general, macro framework explaining how community stakeholders should be involved in the place brand development. Unlike Reid et al.’s original framework, the new model specifically addresses the community involvement in the phases of gearing up, community assessment, organization and planning, and monitoring. It suggests that any place brand development group/party should closely interact and collaborate with the community stakeholders, which include but are not limited to, the local residents, businesses, government, and community leaders, in the place brand development process (Sahin and Baloglu, 2014). The informed participation of community stakeholders should be part of every stage of the place brand development (Ashton, 2014). This new model specifically emphasizes that community stakeholders are the most important component in the process and play a critical role in raising community awareness, identifying the core values of the community, defining their quality of life, recognizing their current and desired image, forming the local business climate, and providing hospitality and tourism resources. They should participate in the brand identification and positioning, and their active involvement will motivate them to serve as informed ambassadors and marketers of their self-established place brand. Furthermore, community stakeholders should join in the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation stage, as they are the group who will eventually benefit or suffer from the established place brand. This new model therefore improves Reid et al.’s model (1993, 2004) by particularly emphasizing the community stakeholders’ involvement in the gearing-up phase and community assessment phase to illustrate the specific steps in developing a community-based place brand. Based on the bottom-up approach and co-creation paradigm, the model provides a more detailed and practical structure on who to involve and how to raise community awareness and value identification in the place brand development process. Such an approach in place branding development enhances community ownership and thus strongly helps to achieve authenticity, commitment from stakeholders, and brand sustainability (Aitken and Campelo, 2011).

Figure 4.

Community-based place brand development model.

Limitations and conclusion

This study is limited by the scale of the research, that is, the findings are reflective of just one town in Southeastern United States. Future research could use the same methodology to examine other destinations in different geographic locations. The study also used qualitative research methods only to explore the viewpoints of local stakeholders. Follow-up research could apply quantitative methods and collect survey data using appropriate sampling to reveal generalizable findings. In addition, the study focused solely on perspectives of local stakeholders, so future research could involve external stakeholders such as visitors and potential businesses. Finally, longitudinal studies could be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness and success or failure of the new brand, both from the local stakeholders and visitors’ perspectives (Pike and Mason, 2011).

Despite the limitations, the study is an important one, and the research conducted provides strong support for using place brand-building theory to build a brand from the bottom up. The place identity communicated is one that is grounded in reality, a strategy recommended by previous place branding experts (Baxter et al., 2014; Metaxas, 2009). Of course, consistency in communicating this identity to a variety of internal and external stakeholders is critical for ensuring the brand’s success in the long term (Ruzzier and Petek, 2012). But as Baker (2012) points out, an important starting point is for town leaders to recognize that there is a direct link between the town’s image and reputation and its attractiveness as a place to visit, live, and invest. An even greater realization is that inaction is not a viable option if they genuinely want to improve local prosperity. For the Town of Bluffton, commissioning this research is a move in the right direction.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research was funded by The Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce.

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