Strategic City Branding; from Theory to Practice

نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی

نویسندگان

1 M.A. of Urban Planning, School of Environmental Design & Architecture, Iran University of Science & Technology, Tehran, Iran.

2 Ph.D. Candidate in Urbanism, Nazar Research Center, Tehran, Iran.

چکیده

Cities are in search for new ways to get promoted. Regarding the fast changes in technology
and the shift from local to a globalized environment, cities are forced to compete with each other in order
to become an attractive tourist destination, workplace, cultural rich place and much more. City branding
has been introduced as a new and creative solution to be adopted by cities to achieve success in this hard
competition. Although the promotion of cities dates back to the 19th century, the emergence of concepts
such as place marketing, place branding, and city branding is relatively new in the academic language.
City branding is not only a promotional activity but also it should be considered as a strategic process.
So, city branding should be a vision-driven process in order to be successful. But unfortunately, there is a
gap in strategic city branding literature from the practical point of view. This study focuses on filling this
gap by reviewing the evolution of city branding from city marketing, identifying the relations between
city branding and strategic spatial planning and then examining the lessons learned in the case study of
Damavand city near Tehran. Thus, Damavand strategic city branding process is explained step by step in
this article, as to create an applicable framework for other Iranian cities like Damavand which have great
branding potentials. This strategic process led to identifying Damavand’s branding vision as “A Mythical
Paradise”, and also proposing 42 different city branding plans for Damavand

کلیدواژه‌ها


عنوان مقاله [English]

Strategic City Branding; from Theory to Practice

نویسندگان [English]

  • Mehdi Mirmoini 1
  • Abbas Azari 2
1 M.A. of Urban Planning, School of Environmental Design & Architecture, Iran University of Science & Technology, Tehran, Iran.
2 Ph.D. Candidate in Urbanism, Nazar Research Center, Tehran, Iran.
چکیده [English]

Cities are in search for new ways to get promoted. Regarding the fast changes in technology
and the shift from local to a globalized environment, cities are forced to compete with each other in order
to become an attractive tourist destination, workplace, cultural rich place and much more. City branding
has been introduced as a new and creative solution to be adopted by cities to achieve success in this hard
competition. Although the promotion of cities dates back to the 19th century, the emergence of concepts
such as place marketing, place branding, and city branding is relatively new in the academic language.
City branding is not only a promotional activity but also it should be considered as a strategic process.
So, city branding should be a vision-driven process in order to be successful. But unfortunately, there is a
gap in strategic city branding literature from the practical point of view. This study focuses on filling this
gap by reviewing the evolution of city branding from city marketing, identifying the relations between
city branding and strategic spatial planning and then examining the lessons learned in the case study of
Damavand city near Tehran. Thus, Damavand strategic city branding process is explained step by step in
this article, as to create an applicable framework for other Iranian cities like Damavand which have great
branding potentials. This strategic process led to identifying Damavand’s branding vision as “A Mythical
Paradise”, and also proposing 42 different city branding plans for Damavand

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

  • City Branding
  • Strategic Planning
  • Damavand City
  • City Image
  • City Marketing
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