Razan bogari

Barcelona is one of the cities with the greatest awareness, image and reputation on worldwide scale. It is the third-ranked European city brand together with Berlin and Amsterdam, and behind only Paris and London. In doing so, it is one of the most popular tourist cities on a global level with more than 6.5 million tourists per year and is considered the best European city in terms of quality of life. Barcelona shows the outcomes of the city branding strategy that raises a city’s asset value and gives a positive character to the city. The fact that it is not simply promoting a city to attract tourists and reap the economic rewards, but an image value recognized by those who consume and use the city is the most important factor that differentiates city branding from city marketing.

City branding is a combination of all values, whether environmental, historical, or cultural, and assets with attractive and redeeming characteristics that are unique to a given city. A good city branding strategy allows for an image distinct from other cities to be established and boosts its tangible and intangible assets while strengthening cohesion among the city users. As a result of this process, the awareness of the city is improved, and its competitiveness strengthened through a differentiated image and identity. If done properly, this results in a rich vision for the city’s future, facilitating investments from industries and government and ultimately establishing a single brand value. The city branding strategy thus serves as a communication medium for people by allowing the city to project (either directly or indirectly) various experiences based on its overall culture, image, and environment. In other words, while a marketing strategy expects direct profits by focusing on consumption and sales of a product, a branding strategy focuses more on constant communication with its customers.

The foundation of the theoretical concept of city marketing is based on the theory of product marketing and developed into a marketing theory for cities in the field of business administration.  City marketing is a commercial marketing activity that sells and exchanges city spaces for capital and seeks to attract both visitors and residents. For instance, focusing on events or festivals to sell products of the city and attract visitors as what happens in Taif and Jazan in Saudi Arabia. In other words, city marketing is a strategy to deal with residents, enterprises, and visitors as the target market and to attract them through promotions that are combined with the values of sales and a city’s environment. By contrast, city branding is fundamentally different from city marketing in that it deals with a city from a holistic perspective. Brand strategy and marketing strategy are dissimilar in that brand strategy has a wide range and a communication dimension, which distinguishes it from a marketing strategy that focuses on moving a product.

PhD in city branding and foreign investment

@Razanbogari1