Your City, My City, Their City, Our City: Different Perceptions of a Place Brand by Diverse Target Groups

Nowadays cities compete strongly with each other for attracting tourists, investors, companies, or talents. Place marketers therefore focus more and more on establishing the city as a brand and to promote their city to its different target groups. But the perception of a city (brand) can differ dramatically between those groups. Thus, place branding research should emphasize much more the city brand perceptions of the different target groups and develop strategies for cities on how to build an advantageous place brand architecture vis-à-vis its stakeholders.
In this regards, we show in two empirical studies – 40 qualitative in-depth-interviews (Study 1) and an online qualitative open-ended-question survey with 334 participants (Study 2) – using network analysis the important discrepancies between the city brand perceptions in the mental representation of different target groups for the example of the city of Hamburg. Furthermore, practical implications for place marketers are discussed.