Five typical city branding mistakes: Why cities tend to fail in implementation of rebranding strategies

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.