8. Cross-Border Place Branding in Europe

In recent years, Europe has seen a strong increase in cross-border cooperation. Under different headings, most commonly the Euregion, cross-border partnerships are being set up in all member states of the EU and beyond. This trend is hailed as the regionalization of Europe, or the rise of the region state, and is actively supported by EU initiatives such as INTERREG. A key responsibility of these emerging cross-border regions is the attraction and retention of inhabitants, investors, and visitors, and place branding is a key tool for attaining these goals. An extensive literature has emerged, providing insights on strategies for the branding of cities and regions. At the same time, policy practitioners and branding professionals have developed a wide variety of place branding strategies in cross-border regions. However, few studies have dealt with the specific challenges faced by cross-border branding initiatives. Moreover, the cross-border cooperation literature suggests that besides the commonly assumed entrepreneurial motivations behind place branding, cross-border place branding may in fact be motivated by political reasons instead. This difference may be significant if the motivations behind a place branding initiative impact its design and implementation and hence its outcomes. This chapter explores the extent of cross-border place branding in Europe, as well as differences between cases in terms of the type of cross-border region, the scale of the region, and the scope of the branding initiative in terms of the range of target audiences addressed. Moreover, it proposes a first measure of the outcome of branding initiatives and suggests some possible relations between the characteristics of the cross-border branding initiatives and their outcomes.