Placing place branding: an analysis of an emerging research field in human geography

A growing trend among policy-makers is to regard place branding as a crucial component of regional development strategies. Alongside this shift in policy, research on place branding has increased drastically throughout the social sciences, building on concepts and ideas from corporate branding. This research has been given a number of critical testimonies claiming that place branding lacks coherent theoretical frameworks based on research findings, that it promotes simplified perspectives of places and that little empirical evidence is found to support positive effects of place branding. Branding is at the same time argued to be inherently geographical, since it is situated in and associated with spaces and places. Based on these claims and with the aim to contribute to the understanding of this emerging literature, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of the conceptual development of place branding research in human geography making three claims: Firstly, the theoretical understandings of place branding have moved beyond a conceptual framework stemming from corporate branding. Secondly, these theoretical developments are mainly derived from empirically based research. Thirdly, geographers, by studying place branding using various conceptions of place as defined in human geography, are making distinctive conceptual contributions to the multi-disciplinary research field of place branding.