The paper analyses the multi-stakeholder governance mechanism in the strategic reciprocal collaboration between the branding of Elba Island and a locally based perfume firm, Acqua dell’Elba. Via focus groups, interviews, and the analysis of strategic and policy documents, the present paper highlights the centrality of local firms in place branding and their role in connecting the place brand with local development to create shared value, as well the role of the local place brand authorities in enhancing the branding of the firm and the co-joint developed strategy. Reverberation Branding is presented to conceptualise the process by which synergistic coordination emerges in space and time between brand stakeholders and unfolds through various governance actions, such as cooperation, integration, and networking, ultimately creating an innovative brand co-joint strategy shared.

The paper ofers an analytical approach to map and analyze the role of public actors in the digital constitution of place brands. By tracking how diferent public actors contribute to the shaping of brand publics—specifcally via the constitution of brand intangibles—this study examines how digitalization can challenge the traditional public–private dichotomy in administrative entities like municipalities, regions, and cities in creating specifc social media brand publics. Within the contours of the study, digitalization refers to the shift of communication channels used by place-based public authorities, institutions, and organizations to digital venues as these actors follow the emergence of brand publics on these newer platforms. Additionally, the approach makes it possible to discuss the networked public brands as mechanisms to manage the numerous stakeholders creating branding messages within geographical associations. To demonstrate the characteristics of the analytical approach its potential, the study uses as illustrative example the Swedish county of Östergötland, and its two municipalities, Linköping and Norrköping. Following an actor-related approach to Social Media Analytics (SMA), 939,758 publicly posted contents generated in blogs, Facebook, forums, and Twitter are used as the empirical dataset. In addition to its analytical contributions, the approach also presents practical and conceptual implications by operationalizing how place-based public institutions, organizations, and sectors can use brand publics not only to infuence reputation but also to promote specifc brand publics for places in their daily communication in digital spheres.

Calls for research contribution and demands for original theories have become visibly and audibly louder in review processes over the last two decades. In interpretivist marketing and consumer research, such calls have been accompanied by an emphasis on the importance of theory and on drawing on context when crafting impactful research contributions. By investigating the rhetorical claims made by authors in 45 highly cited articles, published between 2005 and 2019 in three representative marketing journals, this paper provides a kaleidoscopic, three-dimensional framework that maps out and explores the rhetorical devices employed in interpretivist scholarship. Based on the framework, the paper suggests different pathways that researchers can follow to navigate through the complex process of shaping and developing relevant and impactful research contributions.

Purpose: This study investigates the UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy Network as a global spatial brand and explore the tensions that emerge when this global brand is appropriated locally. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on case study research that uses critical discourse analysis to identify the implications of a transferable learning capacity. Findings: This paper identifies three different types of tensions in place brand management that emerge during the local appropriation of global brands: tensions inherent in multi-scalarity, tensions associated with integrating governance and strategy-related tensions. Originality/value: This study advances the theoretical understanding of the spatial complexity inherent in place brand management practices by focusing on the UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy Network as a global brand in a Scandinavian context.

This article examines the continuities and discontinuities in the historical trajectory of the commercialisation of places. It outlines a performative approach to understanding how the process of turning cities into commercial products changes in time and space. Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, is used as an illustrative example of the spatio-temporal trajectory of commercialisation during the from 1900 to 2020. By embracing a narrative analysis, the study presents how combinations of business practices (place making, selling, promotion, marketing, and branding) overlap and diverge in the commercialising of Stockholm. This analysis reveals how the process of commercialisation not only represents, but also performs certain narratives. These narratives are expressions of the historically-situated policies and values representing the dominant ideology of a specific period. Narratives unfold spatio-temporal events organised using different practices of commercialisation, thus constructing commercialisation as a circular process in time-space, as opposed to a linear and chronologically-ordered sequence of events.

Purpose – This study aims to outline an axiology of inclusivity, which can facilitate self-reflection on thepossible impact of acting and pursuing a more inclusive branding and marketing for places.

Design/methodology/approach – By deconstructing the main assumption, which constitutes the newinclusive paradigm in the marketing and branding of places as more participatory, responsible anddemocratic, this article tackles critical and pragmatist concerns about the political dimension and itsimplications for branding and marketing theories and practices in the realm of places.

Findings – The article argues that, to be understood and enacted as inclusive, branding and marketingshould be seen and act as (bio)political arts of government, characterized by the impolitical as an alternativeform of political praxis, whose axiological foundation is based on a particular form of civism, which offers adifferent mode and stance of approaching political effects and impacts for all stakeholders involved.

Originality/value – Little has been written about the political value, substance and appearance thatindicate inclusivity as a fundamental notion for participation, engagement and democracy. This articlecontributes to the existing literature, arguing that inclusivity should be demystified, as it may present a selffulfilling discourse that might create political problems

In the past 20 years, the Nordic region has fostered a distinct place branding scholarship and practice. This paper briefly revisits hallmark contributions that founded and shaped Nordic place branding and argues that by today, the Nordic approach earned widespread international acknowledgement. The Nordic region offers more than a regional context of place branding; its cultural and geo-political idiosyncrasies greatly affect the axiological position of place branding research. By positioning Nordic place branding research on the global scene, the paper outlines the contours of a hybrid scholarly approach (the Nordic wave), which bridges across managerial and critical schools of branding and promotes a more extroverted knowledge collaboration with branding practitioners. The paper concludes with discussing the potential the NordicWave for future place branding endeavours.

Purpose - Although information technology has been at the centre of attention of political branding for some time, research has traditionally focused mainly on its role in the facilitation of communication. This paper aims to unpack the role of information technology in the emergence of new cyber political brands.

Design/methodology/approach - This research uses a dual case study approach that focuses on the relationship between branding, politics and information technology. The analysis focuses on two successful political cyber brands: the Italian Five Star Movement and the Czech Pirate Party. Data collection covering the time frame between their emergence and their political success occurs through netnographic methods.

Findings - Cyber political brands emerge and materialize in different forms. The present analysis allows for a delineation of three conceptual elements that characterize the constitutive interrelationship of information technology in the emergence of cyber political brands. The first conceptual element, organization, refers to how political brands become structured around linked activities. The second conceptual element, orientation, describes how the activities of a political brand are directed to build a specific path and legitimize courses of action. The third conceptual element, operation, delineates the processes that anchor and stabilize the political brands in its “own” culture, establishing specific base activities.

Research limitations/implications - Information technology and the techno-culture emerging around the two cyber party brands can be seen as the possible delineations of new “cleavages” in the form of “information technology-culture” which enables potential electoral success.

Originality/value - The present study by offering the conceptualization of the cyber political brand shows how political brands can reflect a type of performative cultural branding where they become able, as a networked-medium, to assemble a specific techno-culture. In terms of political brand development, the current analysis offers a framework that allows us to consider the process of political party development in a new fashion.

This study critically examines sustainable development (SD) within the contemporary practices of city branding, a prominent business philosophy that underpins market-led development strategies of urban areas. In pursuing uniqueness, different cities often seem to hint at the very same themes of differentiation, and this reflects the tendency to embrace pre-given sets of place-development discourses. This work casts a critical perspective on SD as one of the global passe-partout themes that has become particularly prominent in contemporary city-brand management practices. In particular, the theory-practice gap in city branding for SD is emphasized and interpreted through the lens of glocalization theories. This viewpoint identifies responsibilized boundary spanners as agents located between the global and local levels that act as mediators in multi-stakeholder networks, ultimately fostering capacities to implement collective actions in city-branding practices.

This chapter contributes to the current debate on ideology, social movements and political activities in a branded society. Adopting a sociological perspective on brands as platforms, the chapter shows how brands support grass-roots social movements to structure their political actions. Through the analysis of the Five Star Movement (M5S), a digital political party, the chapter illustrates how brand-coordinated activism expands the range of democracy by helping consumers-citizens to achieve political goals. All in all, our study unveils how political brand platforms work as changemakers as they organise and channel political views and activities allowing consumer-citizens to gain political voice and achieve political change.