Five typical city branding

mistakes: Why cities tend to fail

in impiementation of rebranding
strategies
Received (in revised form): 24th October. 2013

RAM HERSTEIN
is Associate Professor of Brand Marketing, College of Law & Business, Ramat-Gan, Israel. He has a doctorate in brand
Marketing and his work has been published in leading marketing and business academic journals such as Cross Cultural
Management, European Journal of Marketing, Managing Service Quality. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management and others.

RON BERGER
is Head of Marketing at the Jerusalem Academic Center, Lander Institute. His research area is international marketing,
cultural industries and knowledge management. His work has been published in The Journal of" Business Ethics, Service
Journal of business and Industrial Marketing and International Journal ofTechnology Management.

EUGENE D.JAFFE
is Head of MBA Programs and Professor of International Marketing, Ruppin Academic Center and Emeritus Professor,
Graduate School of Business Administration, Bar-Nan University, both in Israel. His work has been published in The
Journal of Marketing Research, Columbia Journal ofWorld Business, Long-Range Planning, European Journal of Marketing and
International Marketing Review.

Abstract
City branding has become a widespread phenomenon throughout the world and relevant agencies
such as municipalities, local government, media and commercial firms spend large sums of money
and vast efforts in order to brand or rebrand cities. Despite these efforts, it appears that many city
branding campaigns have not met their objectives. This conclusion resulted from studies of the branding/
rebranding campaigns in ten Israeli and several US and European cities. Residents of these cities were
questioned about their opinions of the branding campaigns.This was followed by an examination of the
branding processes that were undertaken by the sampled city management. Protocols of meetings held
to plan the campaigns were examined, followed by in-depth interviews of main decision makers. Five
categories of mistakes were identified and analysed. As a result, suggestions are made as to how to avoid
such mistakes in the future.

Euguit D.JjJft Keywords

city branding, strategies, municipality, planning

Ram Herstein
College of Law & Business.
THE RISE OF THE CITY BRAND over their neighbours.'-- Objectives of city
26 Ben Gurion St.,
Ramat Gan,
City branding has become a widespread branding/rebranding campaigns include
PO Box 852 Bnei Brak 51 108,
Israel
phenomenon throughout the world and changing consumer perceptions, such as
municipahties spend large sums of money occurred in Glasgow, Scotland (change
Tel: +972 36000800;
E-mail: ramh@clb.ac.il and effort to create competitive advantage from a 'smokestack' image to one of a

HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 2045-855X JOURNAL OF BRAND STRATEGY VOL 2. NO. 4, 392-^02 WINTER 2013-2014

'city of culture') or to create an image as a
high-tech place to work with a high qual-
ity of life, eg Denver, Colorado.-^ Brand
strategy is not limited to globalised cities
like London, New York, Paris and Rome
but has also been adopted in more local-
ised cities such as Dunwoody, Georgia
and Buffalo City (not New York, but East
London, South Africa). Whereas in the
past, mayors and decision makers of well-
known cities used to ask: 'why do cities
need to brand themselves', today the ques-
tion is seldom raised.*"* For example, 70
per cent of German cities already work
with a place marketing concept and
another 10 per cent plan to do so.'-*^ A suc-
cessful branding campaign is a powerful
tool to help a city to compete more easily
for a share of the world's consumers, tour-
ists, businesses, investment, skilled workers
and share of mind.'^ With city revenues
declining, small businesses closing and
consumer spending declining, cities must
strategically reposition their approach to
economic development. Cities can use
branding as a way to unite their stakehold-
ers around a new competitive identity and
to communicate their message to target
audiences.
Half of the world's population lives in
cities and employment opportunities are
crucial to sustain growth. At a mayor's
conference. President Obama stressed the
importance of cities to economic growth:
'Cities are the building blocks of strong
regions, and strong regions are essential
for a strong America'. Like the merchant
city-states of Renaissance Italy, cities are
today's drivers of trade and industry in
a globalised world. Cities with a posi-
tive image and identity are better able to
meet the demands of their stakeholders,
whether they are residents, business peo-
ple or visitors.To gain competitive advan-
tage, cities must attain localised, regional
or global awareness, recognition and
HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 2045-855X JOURNAL OF BRAND STRATEGY VOL. 2, NO. 4,392-402 WINTER 2013-2014
FIVE TYPICAL CITY BRANDING MISTAKES
identity."^ City branding is understood as
the means both for achieving competi-
tive advantage in order to increase inward
investment and tourism, and for achiev-
ing community development, reinforc-
ing local identity and identification of the
citizens with their city and activating all
social forces to avoid social exclusion and
unrest." According to Kotier et al.,^^ the
main target groups in city branding can
broadly be divided into four target mar-
ket segments: (1) visitors; (2) residents and
workers; (3) business and industry and (4)
export markets. According to Datko,'''
these four target market segments should
be divided into sub-segments. The visitor
segment contains foreign and domestic
tourists. Some city economies are based
mainly on tourists, such as Barcelona,
Venice and Bangkok. According to Mitki
et al.,^* in times of crisis, for example, cities
should appeal mainly to domestic tourists.
The residents and workers segment con-
tains two sub-segments: (1) veteran and
(2) new citizens. The business and indus-
try segment contains foreign and domestic
companies, investors and the civil service.
The export markets contain foreign com-
panies and consumers.
THE CITY BRANDING/REBRANDING
PROCESS
Despite the many attempts by cities to
brand/rebrand themselves, only a few
campaigns can be considered success-
ful. It does not matter if cities are large or
small, globally or locally oriented, the idea
behind a branding strategy is to create a
very distinctive image that can endure in
the mind-sets of stakeholders. The brand-
ing/rebranding process is relevant to four
groups of stakeholders: (1) city manage-
ment; (2) city residents; (3) business and
(4) tourists. For city management, image
affects decisions regarding revenue grants,
393
HERSTEIN, BERGER A N D JAFFE
capital and resources allocation, legislation
and rule making.'' For residents, image
affects their identification vwth and percep-
tion of the city. "^According to Gilboa and
Herstein,"city branding efforts have the
potential of strengthening residents' loyalty
to their local habitat, on the one hand, and
enhancing their well-being on the other.
For business, a city image partly determines
investment in commercial enterprises, such
as shopping malls, entertainment facilities
and the construction of supporting infra-
structure. For tourists, the image of cities
affects whether and how long they visit.'^
City planners, decision makers and market-
ers invest a lot of effort and huge sums of
money in order to create a certain person-
ality for their cities. For example, Turkish
residents perceive Istanbul as being attrac-
tive, exciting and energetic, while Ankara is
mature but malevolent and Izmir possesses
an attractive, popular, liberal and amusing
personality." According to Reed,^" resi-
dents in London noted that their city has its
own 'life' and 'body', linked to, but separate
from, the lives and bodies of its residents
and visitors. Cities must strive towards cre-
ating their own uniqueness and distinguish-
ing themselves from other cities both local
and international.
WHAT DISTINGUISHES A SUCCESSFUL
BRANDING CAMPAIGN FROM AN
UNSUCCESSFUL ONE?
The objective of the research reported in
this paper was to determine the factors
that contribute to successful and unsuc-
cessful city branding campaigns. Two
studies were undertaken. The first was to
question residents of eight cities in Israel
about their perception of city brands; the
subsequent study aimed to determine
the branding processes that took place in
these cities. The results of these studies are
shown below.
394 HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 2045-855X JOURNAL OF BRAND STRATEGY VOL. 2, NO. 4.392-402 WINTER 2013-2014
STUDY 1
The process towards the successful change
of a place's image commences with its
examination among the target popula-
tion, because it is this image that provides
the base on which the marketing cam-
paign should be designed.-' An 'image'
is a 'set of beliefs, ideas and impressions
that a person holds regarding an object'."^
Therefore, an image 'comprises the sub-
jective perceptions of the person about
the object [eg a place such as a city]'.^^
According to West,-'' most industrialised
cities have attempted to rebrand them-
selves at one time or another. Some recent
cases in point include Beijing,^^ lborg
and Hgorring,-'^' Liberty Village, Toronto,-'
and Lagos.^* These case studies are indica-
tive of the problems or pitfalls inherent in
a rebranding process. Many are a result of
poor planning, organisation and commu-
nication to target audiences.
While many frameworks for branding
cities have been identified,-'^ few efforts
have been made either to integrate these
frameworks or to test them on the ground.
This paper contributes to this endeavour
by suggesting a framework for city brand-
ing based on the branding experiences of
eight cities in Israel.
In order to gauge the perception of
residents about their city brand, a qualita-
tive study was conducted to obtain first-
hand descriptions of specified domains of
experience.-*"'^' The purpose of the study
was to determine the extent to which a
target population perceived a city brand as
designed by the planners.The research was
undertaken by sampling residents of eight
cities in Israel: Modein, Rosh-Haayin,
Acre, Be'er Sheba, Netanya, Ramat-Gan,
Jerusalem and Haifa. Personal interviews
were chosen as the most appropriate
means of data collection due to their abil-
ity to delve into the respondent's percep-
tion via individually adapted probing.-*-
 FIVE TYPICAL CITY BRANDING MISTAKES

In these 15 to 20-minute personal inter- of their city brand. Moreover, an analysis of

views with shoppers in malls in each city,
two main questions were asked. The first
question was: 'Can you describe in your
own words your city's brand and/or slo-
gan?'The purpose of this question was to
determine the residents' awareness of their
city's image. The second question -was:
'Do you believe that your city's image is
reflected in its brand and/or slogan?' The
purpose of this question was to ascertain
the extent of the gap between the real city
image and the desired city image.
In each city, 100 residents (50 male and
50 female in five equal age groups: 1821;
22-29; 30-39, 40-55 and >55 years)
answered the two questions by explain-
ing in their own words what their city
brand meant to them. In addition, as a
control, 100 residents from both Tel-Aviv
and Holon, cities that have had success-
ful rebranding campaigns, were also ques-
tioned. Respondents were interviewed
in shopping malls in each city using a
quota sampling method. Table 1 shows the
brands/slogans of the ten cities.
Findings
Analysis of the first question regarding the
first eight cities found that most people
had difficulty in articulating the meaning
the responses showed that not more than
30 per cent of the respondents could artic-
ulate the meaning of their city's brand. For
example, in Modiin, a city of 30,000, only
3 per cent of the respondents correctly
identified the city brand/slogan. Among
the eight cities, the highest number of
respondents who could identify the cor-
rect brand/slogan was 30 per cent (Haifa).
By contrast, the findings of the same ques-
tion regarding the two successful city
branding campaigns (Tel-Aviv and Holon)
showed that more than 70 per cent of the
residents of these cities could identify their
cities/brands/slogans (see Table 2).
Analysis of the second question regard-
ing the eight cities found that less than 20
per cent of the residents believed that their
city's brand/slogan represented its perceived
image. Perceived image is what the respon-
dents beheved the city to be. By contrast,
thefindingsof the same question regarding
the two successful city branding campaigns
showed that more than 77 per cent of the
residents of these cities agreed that their
city brands/slogans were positioned cor-
rectly (see Table 3). These significant gaps
between the faued and the successful city
branding strategies reflect the real difficul-
ties faced by city decision makers when
determining city branding strategy.

Table I The brands/slogans of Israeli cities Table 2 Residents' awareness of city's brand positioning

City BrandlSlogan City Correct Incorrect

J M
.. ' ^ /O/ \

identity (%) identity (%)

Modiin 'A Famous Brand'
Rosh-Haayin 'The City of Music' Modiin 3 97
Acre 'The City of Middle Eastern Rosh-Haayin 12 88
Culture' 1 Acre 7 93
Be'er Sheba The City of Art' ^ ^ H BI , Be'er Sheba 9 91 ^
Netanya 'The City of Sport' 1 11' Netanya 15 85 n
Ramat-Gan 'The City of Commerce' ^ ^ H [1 Ramat-Gan 17 83 fl
Jerusalem 'The City of Culture' ^K 1 Jerusalem 26 74 fl
Haifa 'The City of High-Tech' Haifa 30
Tel-Aviv 'A City Without a Break' Tel-Aviv 73 27 ^
Holon 'The Children's City' Holon 72 28

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HERSTEIN, BERGER A N D JAFFE

Table 3 Residents' perception of city's brand/slogan five 'M's of city branding mistakes: myo-
City Positive Negative pic; misguided; minimised; mispositioned
onswer (%) answer (% and mismarketed.
Modiin 3 97
Rosh-Haayin 10 90
Acre 5 95 Myopia
Be'er Sheba 7 93 Myopia may be defined as:'a lack of long-
Netanya 12 88
Ramat-Gan 13 87 range perspective in thinking and plan-
Jerusalem 15 85 ning'. From a marketing perspective, it
Haifa 19 81 stems from a focus on the needs of the
Te|.-Aviv 93 7
municipality, rather than on the needs of
Holon 77 23
its stakeholders. Myopia also results from
a lack of research to deterixiine the city's
STUDY 2 image as perceived by the stakeholders,
As the main purpose of this study was to including both residents and target mar-
identify city branding strategies, it was kets, such as tourists and investors.
necessary to understand how the brand- A case of myopic marketing is the
ing planning processes were conducted. city of Jerusalem. Branded as the 'City of
Therefore, interviews were held with Culture', in spite of its unique historical
decision makers in order to detail the steps and religious assets, it did not reflect many
that were taken in the branding/rebrand- of its most important attributes. Some
ing process. The methodology included a comments made by respondents to the
netnography approach,-"*-^"-^' which entailed survey stated that: 'We have employment
collecting documents associated with the and housing problems, whereas "Culture"
branding process in Israeli cities. This was is of less importance. An-yway, Tel-Aviv is
followed by in-depth interviews with the the cultural capital of Israel'.
main decision makers of the branding Another comment was more direct:
process. These techniques were applied 'The municipality does not reflect how its
successfrjlly in previous studies of the residents perceive the city ... and it is not
city branding process.-^'' Respondents culture'.
came from both within the municipali- Certainly, residents were not included
ties and, externally, from advertising and in Jerusalem's planned branding campaign.
PR agencies. In addition, 'raw' documents An example of another myopic mis-
related to the branding process -were col- take is the case of Liverpool's attempt to
lected from the municipalities and outside brand itself as a knowledge centre at a
agencies that participated in determining cost of some ^100,000. Knowledge was
branding strategy. The written material downplayed and, instead, the brand was
included minutes of meetings and prog- perceived as a tourist destination based
ress reports over the planning and imple- on 'culture, football and the Beatles'. City
mentation stages. advocates believed that the city oflered
more than tourism, but the brand did not
reflect this.
Findings In contrast, the cases of the Tel-Aviv and
A study of these processes found five Holon rebranding strategies were man-
mistakes common to the city branding/ aged much differently, owing to the fact
rebranding process. These are termed the that decision makers denned the branding

39 HENRY STEWART PUBLICATiONS 2045-855X JOURNAL OF BRAND STRATEGY VOL. 2. NO. 4,392-402 WINTER 2013-2014

objective as a long-term problem that
needs a long-term solution. In the case of
these cities, residents were poUed and their
input was taken into consideration. A resi-
dent was quoted as saying that: 'The image
of the city is a true picture and reflects
reality on the ground' and 'I love the city's
image and it makes me feel proud to live
here'.
Misguided
The second mistake found was the lack of
common goals and cooperation between
stakeholders. There are diflrent groups
of stakeholders, such as city residents,
media, tourists, business people, students,
government, foreign donors and other
cities' residents. A detailed examination of
the meetings held by branding teams of
the eight cities showed that, in most of the
cases, there was no thorough defmition of
all relevant stakeholders. Moreover, resi-
dents were not polled, while little effort
was made to interview visitors. Apart from
municipality employees, only business
leaders were consulted.
In contrast, the cases of the Tel-Aviv and
Holon rebranding strategies were totally
different. A thorough analysis was made
of residents' perception of the cities using
both demographic and psychographic
research. In addition, other stakeholders
such as visitors, business leaders and tour-
ist agencies were also consulted during the
branding process.
Apart from these ten cities, one of the
most impressive rebranding successes is
that of Beijing. The municipality realised
that it could to take advantage of a rare
opportunity to promote the city during
the Olympic events, and appealed to city
residents to play a role by learning some
English and the Western mentality so as
to provide better service to tourists. By
way of contrast, the city of Chicago is an
HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 2045-855X JOURNAL OF BRAND STRATEGY VOL 2. NO. 4.392-402 WINTER 2013-2014
FIVE TYPICAL CITY BRANDING MISTAKES
example of a failed attempt to host the
Games. It appears that the city lost its bid
to host the 2016 summer Olympic Games
because of poor planning.The city did not
possess the infrastructure necessary to host
such a major event and it became obvious
at an early stage that this lack could not
be rectified before the commencement of
the Games. Instead, the Chicago munici-
pality's efforts should have been focused
on some other type of event, other than
the Olympic Games. City leaders did
not succeed in organising all relevant
stakeholders, especially residents, to sup-
port their bid for the Olympic Games.
It appeared that Chicago's residents did
not understand the potential contribu-
tion of this event to the city's economic
and social infrastructure and therefore the
city's attempt to convince the Olympic
committee failed. Another similar case is
the City of Minnesota. The municipal-
ity branded the city as 'The Good Life',
which was not well understood by visi-
tors because the attractive State Parks were
closed during the campaign. In addition,
many of their residents were not sure
exactly what 'The Good Life' entailed for
them and what role the city played in pro-
viding it.
Minimised
A city branding campaign is a long-
term process. For example, a success-
ful campaign to rebrand the Jutland city
of Alborg, Denmark took five years. The
final brand campaign 'Alborg Seize the
World' was developed in five stages: (1)
1999, a conference to determine a city
vision; (2) 2000-2001, establishment of a
working group and steering committee
of stakeholders; (3) 2002-2004, market-
ing research to test brand concepts among
target markets; (4) 2004, development of
proposals for a brand name and (5) 2005,
97
HERSTEIN, BERGER A N D JAFFE
launch of the brand campaign at a bud-
geted cost of Kr5m over five years.'^
Such mistakes can also be seen in the
cases of Milan and Mexico City. Both cit-
ies failed in their branding campaigns as
the branding processes did not include any
real dialogue between the municipalities,
residents and relevant stakeholders, such as
tourists and business leaders. Milan failed
to be branded as a sustainable, contempo-
rary arts city, mainly because stakehold-
ers who should have worked together to
analyse the city's image did not cooperate
in the endeavour. In the case of Mexico
City, the municipality failed to include
residents among other stakeholders in the
rebranding process, resulting in a lack of
interest on their part in the rebranding
campaign.""*
Mispositioned
One of the main principles of a rebrand-
ing strategy is to focus on a realistic and
sustainable market position. For exam-
ple, there are a number of city positions
such as shopping (New York), business
(Frankfurt), university (Boston), gam-
bling (Las Vegas), rehgion (Mecca), rec-
reation (Nice), music (New Orleans), art
(Florence), parks (Vancouver) and heritage
(Athens).
In the case of the eight Israeli cit-
ies, municipality decision makers did not
consider it necessary to match the needs
of their residents with the existing infra-
structure. Ignoring this basic principle
led these cities to choose a certain posi-
tion that did not fit with the city's atmo-
sphere. In contrast to these eight cities,
the two other cities succeeded in choos-
ing a position that incorporated the resi-
dents' characteristics and assets ^ By doing
so, the residents of these cities felt satisfied
with the new identity of their cities as it
was very reasonable and it also helped to
HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 2045-8SSX JOURNAL OF BRAND STRATEGY VOL 2, NO. 4.392-402 WINTER 2013-^2014
increase their loyalty to their city (feelings
of pride).
A sampling of the eight Israeli cit-
ies shows the extent of mispositioned
branding. For example, respondents from
Ramat-Gan ('The City of Commerce')
exclaimed that: 'The city brand does not
match the character of its residents' and
'the brand does not equate with the char-
acteristics of the city, its history or its
residents'.
The main commercial body of the city
is the location of the Diamond Exchange.
There are no outstanding commercial
bodies in the city apart from this institu-
tion. Another city polled was Netanya, a
medium-sized town on the seashore north
of Tel-Aviv, with a population of 184,000.
Its major asset is 14 km of beaches and a
promenade that extends nearly the entire
length of its coastline. The city fathers
chose the slogan: 'The City of Sport'.
One resident respondent emphasised
that: 'There is no logic in the claim that
Netanya is a sport city'.
In reality, the city is building a new
football stadium, but it is far from com-
pletion. It has one municipal sports centre
near a high-income neighbourhood, but
nothing close to the city centre. Another
resident exclaimed that: 'Why doesn't the
brand reflect the beauty of the city rather
than claim to be something that it isn't'.
A third example is of Modiin-
Macabim-Reut, a small city with a pop-
ulation of only 74,000, located halfway
between Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv. Its slo-
gan is 'A Famous Brand'. In reality, the
only asset the city has is its location and
a historic past, which has not been con-
verted to an asset that attracts many tour-
ists. Two representative responses taken
from the survey reveal that the brand
has been badly mispositioned: 'The new
brand does not speak to me' and 'I can-
not understand how the municipality

decided that this brand reflects the city's
image'.
On the other hand, residents believe
that the Tel-Aviv brand has been posi-
tioned well. An example: 'This [the brand
slogan] is what I feel is happening in the
city ... non-stop events, parties, a city
that does not sleep ...'
Mismarketed
In the implementation of a rebrand-
ing strategy, it is not sufficient to create
a new identity and to amalgamate target
audiences and the position of the city,
but rather it is imperative to deliver the
new identity to relevant audiences via
the proper communication channels. In
the eight cities studied, it was found that
municipality decision makers worked
mainly with local media but neglected
other relevant communication channels.
In contrast, the two other cities that suc-
ceeded in promoting their new identity
worked according to three levels of com-
munication. These three communica-
tion channels include primary (external
appearance), secondary (media) and ter-
tiary levels of communication. Although
many cities' decision makers believe that
the best way to allocate their promotion
budget is in the local media, it is necessary
to ensure that all levels of communication
will be taken into account.
Holon, for example, emphasised the
city's external appearance, such as the attra-
tiveness of various entrances to the city,
its urban design, architecture and green
spaces. On another level of communica-
tion, a slogan was formulated 'Holon
Great for Kids' and was promoted in any
children's events held in the city. On the
tertiary level of communications, word-
of-mouth communication played a very
important role in promoting the city, both
among its own inhabitants and beyond.-"
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FIVE TYPICAL CITY BRANDING MISTAKES
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
To implement a successful city branding/
rebranding campaign, the mistakes anal-
ysed above may be avoided by adapting
the strategies shown in Table 4.
To avoid myopic mistakes, marketers
of cities should first identify the nature of
their city's positioning problem and, in the
next stage, work from the assumption that
only a well-planned rebranding strategy
is the most appropriate solution that can
ensure a successful long-term city iden-
tity. Therefore, marketers should under-
stand the capabilities of the city in terms
of physical and human assets and their
budget capabilities. Practically, they should
shift from the production concept per-
spective to a marketing perspective that
is focused on the needs of the audiences
themselves rather than solely on the needs
of the municipalities' decision makers.
Regarding the misguidance mistake,
cities' marketers should define the city
target markets properly. Only a real seg-
mentation process based on demographic
and psychographic characteristics can
ensure an understating of residents' wants
and needs. As the residents in most cities
are heterogeneous, it is crucial to create an
identity based on a theme that can link all
sub-groups.
To avoid the minimisation mistake, cit-
ies' marketers must ensure ongoing open
dialogue between all parties during the
rebranding process. Any attempt to create a
new identity requires feedback (both posi-
tive and negative) from all stakeholders.
Thus, a shift from a short-term perspec-
tive to a long-term vision, based on the
creation of modern networking between
the municipality and its relevant audiences,
is required.
To prevent the mispositioned mis-
take, marketers must match the charac-
teristics of city residents and the physical
HERSTEIN, BERGER AND JAFFE

Table 4 Five typical branding mistakes

Mistake Characteristics Strategies

Myopia Defining the crisis as temporary Transfer from the production

Disregard of the real reasons for the crisis including
internal reasons (corruption, limited budget, unqualified
mayor) and external reasons (v^orld economic crisis,
political crisis, global terror)
The municipality decision makers manage the
rebranding process by themselves
Misconception regarding the fact that new slogan and
logo are not considered to be a real city branding
process
Misguidance N o differentiation between internal audiences
(residents, local media) and external audiences (tourists,
: foreign investors, global media)
: A limited segmentation process that does not take
into consideration the most important aspect - the
psychographic (the target market's wishes, wants and
desires)
Unfocused budget allocation
Minimisation Decrying the relevant target market
Centralistic management approach of the municipality's
i decision makers (no openness in thinking)
Avoidance of vertical learning mechanism approach
(top-down and bottom-up) and horizontal learning
mechanism approach (among municipality units)
Mispositioned No match between the city capabilities (in terms
of physical and human assets) and the residents' or
audiences' character
Focusing on city positioning strategy type (one of the
four that were mentioned in the first part of this paper)
that do not match the municipality budget
Mistaken Not using the three levels of communication (primary,
secondary and tertiary)
The mistaken approach that the media is the most
powerful communication tool
Inability to create an inter-personal communication
among residents or other audiences
concept perspective to a marketing
perspective that is focused on the
needs of the audiences themselves
rather than solely on the needs of
the municipalities' decision makers
(which are more political in nature)
Focus on the most relevant target
markets in terms of economic, social
and cultural reasons and not on the
most accessible audiences
Transfer from a short-term to a
long-term vision, which is based on
the creation of modern networking
that exists between the municipality
and its relevant audiences, in order
t o understand their perception of
the city
Reinforce the identity of the
city based on real capabilities and
city assets and communicate a single
message to target markets during this
process
Use media channels that are based
on inter-personal communication,
which has a greater potential to
transfer the genuine identity of the
city to potential audiences

and human assets of the city. Marketers
must avoid a very common situation
where mayors and/or the public relations
spokesperson of the municipality are the
ones who decide the final identity, based
on sheer intuition. Accordingly, the iden-
tity of the city based on real capabihties
and city assets should be reinforced and.
during this process, a single message to
target markets must be conveyed.
To prevent the mistaken pitfall, city
marketers and decision makers should use
media channels that use inter-personal
communication, which has a greater
impact, to communicate the city's genuine
identity to potential audiences.

HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 2045-855X JOURNAL OF BRAND STRATEGY VOL, 2, NO. 4.392-402 WINTER 2013-2014

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