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2024 | Buch

How Cities Become Brands

Developing City Brands Purposefully and Thoughtfully

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Über dieses Buch

This book explores how the fragile and lengthy process of developing a city brand can be carefully managed. Necessary background information is explained, numerous experiences are reported, and targeted city branding is inspired in a variety of ways.The dream of every brand maker: to develop a city into a strong city brand - perhaps even a myth. The creation of myths remains a curiosity. Is it targeted, are there relevant recipes for success, and can those responsible be identified? Above all: Can the process be replicated? How do brand makers deal with the complexity of the phenomena of cities and city brands? How do they give the arduous process of creating a city brand a reasonable chance of success? How do brand makers deal with the often biting criticism from outside and the nagging self-doubt?Successful cityscapes arise from the trials and tribulations of complex and sometimes random processes. In the course of global city competition, this evolutionaryprocess is enriched with the achievements of the craft of branding. This is not a guarantee of success. Success depends on numerous prerequisites, which are discussed in detail. Finally, craft rules for good and at the same time sensitive city branding are mentioned.
The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.
nal criticism and self-doubts?City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.nal criticism and self-doubts?City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules foreffective city branding are outlined.nal criticism and self-doubts?City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.nal criticism and self-doubts?City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.nal criticism and self-doubts?City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.nal criticism and self-doubts?City images emergefrom complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.nal criticism and self-doubts?City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussedconditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand makingachievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.City images emerge from complex and random processes. In global urban competition, this process is enriched with brand making achievements. Success isn't guaranteed, depending on discussed conditions. Lastly, rules for effective city branding are outlined.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction: The City as a Kaleidoscope
Abstract
It must be the dream of every ambitious brand creator: to turn a city into a strong city brand. Certainly a highly fascinating task. In the best case, something is achieved that exists many times over, but usually has taken very long periods of time and is the result of a multitude of activities, a long chain of events, and a large number of different personalities: turning a city into a myth. How this myth formation actually takes place remains largely unclear, ultimately a curiosity: does it happen purposefully, are there relevant ‘success recipes’, can the responsible parties be identified? But above all: can the process be replicated (and that in fast motion)? Or is this claim simply illusory? So what can it mean to develop a city brand? How could brand creators deal with the complexity of the phenomena ‘city’ and ‘city brand’—which seem to become more mysterious the more one deals with them—in a practical way, in order to give reasonable chances of success to attempts to develop a city brand? How should brand creators respond to the irritations that regularly and justifiably accompany the development process of city brands: biting criticism from outside and nagging self-doubt (at least among the serious actors)? The following introduction describes in this sense the colorful and diverse working environment of city brand creation and explains the approach in the book to comprehensively present the practice of developing city brands.
Eric Häusler, Jürgen Häusler
Chapter 2. The Observation: Cities are Brands
Abstract
Before brand creators can set out to make a (any) city a special citybrand, they obviously need to familiarize themselves with the subject of their work. Not only with the city for which a brand is to be specifically developed, but also generally with what a city ‘is’. The latter, the social phenomenon of the city, has long been one of the more complex and often controversially discussed objects of (social) scientific and societal debates. Therefore, overly simple answers are not permissible—even for the reflective brand creator. The search for what makes a specific city unique leads to two contradictory insights. On the one hand, both residents and strangers often seem to know very precisely what characterizes the respective city. There are often very precise and detailed ideas. This makes the city a prototype of what can be understood as a brand. Nevertheless, both locals and outsiders, (knowledgeable) residents and (insightful) observers as well as visitors know very well that the respective city cannot—and should not—be forced into a fixed and clear image. This strange ambivalence significantly determines the attractiveness of each specific city. At the same time, as a characteristic feature of urbanity, it often collides with familiar views and ways of thinking in the world of brands, which, for example, always strive to reduce ambiguities or avoid ambivalence.
Eric Häusler, Jürgen Häusler
Chapter 3. The Assertion: City Brands are Created
Abstract
The prevailing discussion about city brands is largely based on a fallacy. The undeniable observation that cities are often, if not mostly, widely known brands, leads without further ado to the (at least implicit) claim that these city brands are the result of a deliberate and targeted process of brand development. This is probably less often true than true. Certainly, numerous actors try (have tried) to ‘draw’ a specific (positive or negative) image of cities. However, successfully disseminated city images usually originate from very complex, unpredictable, random, or unintentional processes. These errors and confusions of the evolutionary development of urban images and identities can only be confused with the concept of brand development with a high degree of ignorance and/or arrogance. Nevertheless, recent history has seen attempts to ‘enrich’ the evolutionary process of urban development with the achievements of the craft of brand making. How successful or helpless these efforts ultimately are depends on some prerequisites, which are explained in this chapter.
Eric Häusler, Jürgen Häusler
Chapter 4. The Description: How City Brands are Created
Abstract
The fundamental challenges in developing city brands are of diverse nature. Brand creators must, firstly, have the willingness and ability to align general knowledge about brand development and implementation with the specific requirements to apply in the urban case. The responsible city politicians must, secondly, have a nominal understanding that the development of a city brand can be a sensible or even necessary part of successful city politics. In addition, there must be a willingness to make the necessary effort—financially, temporally, and politically. Finally, thirdly, both actors—city politicians and brand creators—must engage in a fruitful and purposeful exchange with each other, which exceeds the complexity of the ‘classic’ relationship between client and contractor in brand development—at least gradually. None of the three conditions for success is banal, trivial, or can be ‘automatically’ assumed as given. On the contrary. Under what conditions city brands can nevertheless be successfully developed is discussed in this chapter.
Eric Häusler, Jürgen Häusler
Chapter 5. Conclusion: Should the City Become a Brand?
Abstract
City is essentially built (also natural) environment. In their social dimensions, cities are primarily living and experiential spaces for very different people, in the best case their ‘home’. Not least—so the central argument here—different cities always exist also in the form of human ideas as a result of social imaginations. Under the pressure of global competition between cities, the construction of city images becomes an increasingly important tool in urban competition. Under what conditions such images can be purposefully created is the central subject presented in this book. Now this crafty intention—to make successful city brands—is to be critically questioned again. To what extent city brands can process and rework (reconstruct) the given (natural and human-made) structures has already been discussed several times. Finally, possible ethical challenges, questionable effects on social life in the city and associated limits of city branding are to be asked.
Eric Häusler, Jürgen Häusler
Metadaten
Titel
How Cities Become Brands
verfasst von
Eric Häusler
Jürgen Häusler
Copyright-Jahr
2024
Electronic ISBN
978-3-658-43776-3
Print ISBN
978-3-658-43775-6
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-43776-3

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