Like cities and nations, rural places have adopted the practice of place branding to improve their reputation and increase their competitiveness to attract residents, tourists, and consumers. This review aims to synthesize case studies of rural place branding in order to identify different types of processes applied and relating them to the contextual factors underlying their application. A typology of five rural place branding processes (PBP) is proposed, based on the existence and dominance of a focal actor, and other actors involved in the process. Six contextual factors that affect the application of the various PBP are identified: (1) type of place distinguishing between places with or without administrative power, (2) initiative referring to the difference between political/administrative, community, mixed, (3) support base for the branding distinguishing between strong political/organizational, strong community, strong identity, (4) brand purpose, i.e. competitiveness, identity, conservation; (5) target group, and (6) type of place brand referring to the difference between sectoral and integrated place brands. Patterns of the contextual factors have been identified that seem to be typical for the application of the different PBP types. The findings provide guidance to rural place managers and communities to apply a PBP that matches their specific context.

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Few studies have looked at the interaction of place branding practices of geographically linked places. Moreover, the different administrative contexts of the linked places and the resulting different place branding approaches have not been taken into consideration. This study provides insight on the interactions of the brands and branding initiatives of higher-level administrative rural places and lower-level places within their territory. A qualitative study was conducted based on the cases of three Danish municipalities and eight smaller places within them.Although none of the vertically linked places under investigation had applied a strategic approach to manage place brand architecture, four archetypes of interaction between the place brands at the different vertical levels are identified. The findings provide guidance for place branding officials and others involved in the initiatives regarding the role the higher-level place brand can play in the lower level's place branding, while making the lower level aware that their place branding should also focus on building good reputation towards the higher-level place. The study further reveals challenges regarding the strategic implementation of place brand architecture and highlights important areas for future research on the topic.

Purpose The place branding process in cities and tourism destinations is usually steered by a central organization but in rural places, a focal actor often does not exist. The purpose of this paper is to identify which approaches to place branding processes are applied in different rural places. This is done by seeing the place branding process as a service ecosystem with focus on actor engagement. Design/methodology/approach A theoretical framework based on the concepts of service ecosystems and actor engagement is developed. This is then applied to analyse qualitative data collected through semi-structure interviews with participants from several Danish rural places. Findings The authors identify four different types of rural place branding processes along three dimensions: existence and type of a focal actor; type, extent and temporal properties of other actor groups’ engagement; and organization of the process, including its formalization, centralization and strategic focus. Type 1 is a highly formalized, centralized and strategically driven process under the leadership of a public authority. The other types are community-based approaches. Type 2 is formalized, centralized and strategically driven process. Type 3 is less formalized but also centralized and strategically focused. Type 4 is a non-formalized, decentralized process with ad hoc initiatives. Originality/value This paper applies a service marketing-based framework to analyse qualitative empirical data from different cases of rural places and identify different place branding processes.