Place Marketing and City Branding Review

Comprehensive vocabulary based on lecture notes covering place marketing definitions, theoretical models by Kavaratzis and Martinotti, and sustainable urban development concepts.

Place Marketing

The strategic application of marketing principles—including target group analysis, offer development, and coherent communication—to places such as cities, regions, or countries.

City Marketing

A specific form of place marketing that applies marketing principles to cities and city regions, balancing tourism, business development, and residential quality of life.

Destination Marketing

A tourism-specific part of place marketing focused on attracting visitors, promoting attractions, and positioning a place as a destination to visit.

Business Domain

One of the three domains of place marketing focusing on firms, investors, and economic development, linked to infrastructure and innovation.

Tourism Domain

A domain of place marketing focusing on visitors, attractions, culture, events, and the visitor experience.

Residence Domain

A domain of place marketing focusing on current and potential residents, including housing, safety, public services, and green spaces.

Place Promotion

The communication instrument within place marketing, including slogans, logos, advertising, and PR, intended to create visibility and a positive image.

Post-industrial City

A city whose economy has shifted from manufacturing and factories to services, culture, knowledge, creativity, and consumption.

Knowledge City

A city that uses education, innovation, research, and talent as central resources for development and attracts highly skilled workers.

Metropolitan Businesspeople

One of Martinotti’s four urban populations; highly mobile actors who use global cities for meetings, business, and international connections.

City Users

Individuals who come to the city temporarily for shopping, tourism, leisure, culture, or services.

Geographical Marketing Mix

The adaptation of the marketing mix to places, including promotional, spatial (infrastructure), organisational (governance), and financial instruments.

City Branding

A strategy focusing on a city's identity, reputation, and symbolic meaning, asking what the city stands for and how it is perceived.

Primary Communication

According to Kavaratzis, these are the real urban actions—infrastructure, services, and policies—that shape a city's brand image.

Secondary Communication

The official marketing efforts such as advertising, slogans, logos, and PR campaigns used by a city.

Tertiary Communication

What external actors say about a city via word of mouth, media coverage, and social media.

DNA Values

A set of clear, foundational values that define what a city stands for and ensure coherent branding across different stakeholders.

Urban Sustainable Development

A development model that balances environmental protection, social inclusion, and economic viability based on the Brundtland Report of 1987.

SDG 11

The Sustainable Development Goal aimed at making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.

Commodification

A risk in city branding where cultural diversity or heritage is used as a superficial marketing image while ignoring real social inequality or exclusion.

Urban Growth Machine

An approach that treats the city primarily as an economic engine to attract capital and elite groups, often simplifying complex urban identities.

Fordist Tourism

A model of standardized mass tourism based on repetitive consumption, traditionally associated with mature beach destinations like Rimini.