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A glaring paucity of a measuring instrument for place branding effectiveness and place brand equity still remains. This study contributes theoretically by exploring and developing the dimensions and instrument of customer based place brand equity (CBPBE) quantitatively, in the context of international relations (public diplomacy) between two places, West Bengal (in India) and Bangladesh. To this end, the study employed: focus group discussion, depth interviews and survey, in order to develop and validate the items generated to measure CBPBE. Confirmatory factor analysis was used on a total sample of 437 respondents that resulted in a nine (9) item CBPBE scale, represented by multidimensional constructs namely: place brand salience, perceived quality and place brand engagement. The CBPBE construct is then tested with brand loyalty-investment attractiveness construct in a conceptual model in order to verify the nomological relationship of the instruments developed. Keywords-Place branding, place brand equity, customer based place brand equity (CBPBE), customer based brand equity (CBBE), public diplomacy.

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This article studies the difference in service quality between public sector banks and new generation private sector banks based on the SERVQUAL dimensions as perceived by Indian customers. It also compares banks within these sectors on the given parameters. The authors also develop a perceptual map considering the SERVQUAL dimensions as attributes. The results suggest that the new generation private sector banks are perceived to provide better quality services as compared to public sector banks. In addition, the perception about the quality of services also varies between banks within the same sector.