Hands-up if you thought place branding was just for the pretty places? Or if you think capturing and sharing the identity of places is about getting bottoms on beaches, rather than helping rebuild troubled cities and their images, from the inside out? In the linked blog post, I review the definition of place branding offered by Danish Geographer, Martin Boisen, that it is a process that can link the shaping of a city's image with an influence on all aspects of urban policy and practice, necessary to rebuild a place. Fortunately, the dramatic scenes in the photograph of the devastation caused to Ōtautahi Christchurch by its 2011 earthquake are rare. Many more towns and cities worldwide are though, in need of their infrastructure, community spirit, economies or image rebuilding following chronic decline. I draw-on accounts of the rebuilding of Christchurch and its brand, as well recent U.K. experiences to try and boost "pride in place" by investing in infrastructure, to set-out a case for place branding skills to be more prominent in such endeavours from the outset. It is perhaps more important to be open about negative aspects of place identity during a rebuilding phase, than place branding typically allows itself to be. This though, will surely resonate more authentically in co-creating remedies with local stakeholders, and the process of rebuilding out of adversity, can itself become part of a positive place identity and brand going forward. If we think of place branding as an holistic process that shapes users’ experience of a place, then surely it should be seen as an intrinsic part of rebuilding cities, and not an add-on towards the end of the process. That is, if there ever is an end to the process of how we nurture the identity of a place and its people? ##cities #towns #citycentres #regeneration #revitalisation #communityempowerment #cocreation #placebranding #placemarketing #placepromotion
Chris Wade FIPM
2mo
Martin Boisen Thanks for putting to paper and sharing your thoughts on the role of place branding in influencing urban development -and taking the time for clarifying your thinking with me. Place branding is a continuum of approaches that also rightly informs place promotion. I’m interested in the under-stated end where it can also support co-creation by local stakeholders to rebuild their cities and ‘their’ images.
Chris Wade FIPM
2mo
Andrew Brown As I say in the longer blog about the application of “place branding” terminology in the case of Southport, I am not sure of the fit just yet, except to recognise that in some way we owe it to the memory of the three young girls and the largely unreported shows of community spirit that followed, to shape a positive image going forward. Your work through Stand Up for Southport though is testiment to the need and local power to create positives out of adversity and take some control of the messaging about a place 👏👏
Chris Wade FIPM
2mo
If you want to learn more about the role of place branding, I highly recommend that you follow The Place Brand Observer. It’s where my deeper interest started. Specifically in relation to the meaning of place branding and its interplay with place development or placemaking, you can listen to this podcast interview with Martin Boisen as part of The Place Brand Observer’s series of interviews with place brand leaders. https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/place-brand-leaders/episodes/Martin-Boisen-on-the-Meaning-of-Place-Brand-Management---Place-Brand-Leaders-Ep--4-en7j39/a-a40hrig
You can read Chris Wade FIPM’s full blog on the role of place branding in rebuilding towns and cities using this link. Be warned, you may need big cup of coffee to help digest it! ☕️ 🥐 https://people-places.net/role-of-place-branding-in-rebuilding-cities/
John Sullivan
2mo
Insightful thought piece Chris Wade FIPM we have just started to focus on one of Blackpool Council lesser lovely streets - #Coronation #St has so much potential Clare Richmond The Backlot Blackpool Houndshill Blackpool Winter Gardens & Blackpool Conference And Exhibition Centre Blackpool Central Fabio Vidotti mike thomson Judith Querfurth Keith Pullinger The Big Picture (Cinema & Leisure Solutions) Ltd - getting stakeholders on board and aligned from the big property players through to the corner shops & nail bar will be key to the turn around - well done Clare Richmond Clare Davies Megan Henley on getting it started.
Perhaps not unusually Chris Wade FIPM I tend to think the opposite ie about place messaging as something not so much for the ‘pretty places’ but in the more challenging - from our perspective those where tackling #highstreet vacancy is a bigger and potentially trickier issue. Wondering what the right messaging is for those places and importantly - as you’ve highlighted - what’s the best timing to go with it (straight away, as things start to pick up, later…?).
Well put, Chris Wade FIPM. Christchurch is a prominent example of how place branding has helped the planning, making, identity and later communication. Many other places approach it in the holistic sense as well now, as an answer to some sort of crisis bugging their city, region or country. Great reflections.
Particularly relevant to me as I’ve just been looking at all the devastation in Florida and North Carolina following hurricane Helene and anticipating hurricane Milton and thinking about the poor people there. Sadly there could be a lot more reconstruction placemaking required around the world in future.
Rosalind Arden
2mo
Where can I find your blog post Chris?
Director, People & Places Partnership: Bringing facts & faces to places.
2moYou said you’re interested in sharing perspectives on our joint interest in the links between place branding and placemaking Malcolm Allan. This post represents a summation of much of my thought process so far -with a question within it about whether place branding is good at running with the negatives too? As Dr. Giannina Warren will testify, and Penny Bagnall-Smith is finding out, I’m pretty relentless in pursuing perspectives on the role of place branding in rebuilding places and their identity.