Problematising place branding research: A meta-theoretical analysis of the literature

The current academic debate calls for critical discussion

“…At the same time, such a meeting of international researchers and practitioners is also the right moment to critically question the field of study. Even though our first meta-analyses of the place branding literature (Gertner, 2011;Lucarelli and Berg, 2011;Lucarelli and Brorström, 2013) highlight the exponential growth in contributions, they also criticize the lack of theoretical and conceptual background of our articles. This lack of scientific rigor is surprising, as place researchers have the opportunity to borrow numerous concepts and theories from many different disciplines.…”

How does Brazil measure up? Comparing rankings through the lenses of nation brand indexes

“…To start with, Florek et al (2006) highlight that a place is a multiplex system and branding is a continuously evolving process; as many authors do support as well (Ashworth and Kavaratzis, 2010;Braun and Zenker, 2010;Buhmann and Ingenhoff, 2013;Dinnie, 2009;Gertner;Go and Gover, 2011;Kavaratzis, 2005;Lucarelli and Brorström, 2013;Moilanen and Rainisto, 2009;Warnaby and Medway, 2013).…”

“…Moreover, as city branding stands as a heterogeneous research domain where there is a cross-disciplinary mix of studies (Lucarelli and Berg, 2011), so does country branding. Given the fact that the theoretical context of place branding can be grounded on several disciplines, such as, place marketing (Moilanen and Rainisto, 2009;Kotler, Haider and Rein, 1993); international marketing (Papadopoulos and Heslop, 1993); public diplomacy (Gertner, 2011;Moilanen and Rainisto, 2009;Jansen, 2008;Anholt, 2000Anholt, , 2007; country of origin image (Roth and Diamantopoulos, 2008;Parameswaran and Pisharodi, 1992); business, urban planning and design and political sciences (Gertner, 2011); even a blend of geography, marketing, regional studies and tourism (Lucarelli and Brorström, 2013); and tourism (Morgan, Pritchard and Pride, 2010;Ashworth and Kavaratzis, 2010;Moilanen and Rainisto, 2009;Pike, 2008;Beni, 2006). Furthermore, as Lucarelli and Berg (2011, p.22) have suggested for city branding, which can be adjusted to country branding -it is important to treat the phenomena "more as a genuine proper inter-disciplinary domain rather than adopting and borrowing models, concepts and methods from different disciplines".…”

“…Kavaratzis, (2005), Fetscherin (2010), Lucarelli (2012), Ruzzier and De Chernatony (2013) and Mariutti and Tench (2015) accurately support the need for expanding nation brand models understandings and developments as well. Moreover, it is known that there is a lack of a conventional and wide-ranging theoretical archetype for place branding model (Lucarelli and Brorström, 2013;Gertner, 2011;Zenker, 2011) and country branding model (Govers, 2015;Mariutti and Tench, 2015;Fetscherin, 2010;Dinnie, 2009). On the other hand, a few authors argue that the methodology of city brand rankings is unreliable (Kavaratzis and Ashworth, 2006;cited in Lucarelli and Berg, 2011, p.10), which might be true for country branding.…”

“…Second, they are publicly available online; third, they comprehensively cover substantial and genuine data. Forth, they are examples for this study because of the limitation of the field: the absence of a comprehensive measurement for place branding (Lucarelli and Brorström, 2013;Zenker and Martin, 2011;Gertner, 2011;Zenker, 2011) and country branding model (Govers, 2015;Mariutti and Tench, 2015;Fetscherin, 2010;Dinnie, 2009). …”