How to Build Strong Place Brands that Bridge Gaps

As Polunin explains (2002, p. 3) ‘branding starts with self analysis; with understanding and defining the product personality. It then shifts to communicating this personality to the target market … It cannot be fabricated and turned on to please a market because it will soon be found out as false when it fails to deliver’. This illustrates that, while branding might be a way to facilitate bridging the gaps, false branding will make things worse: Nike and Coke – sports shoes and fizzy drinks — had the advantage of being able to start with a blank sheet of paper on which to create their personalities and to make themselves ‘human’. Destinations, however, are very human from the start, with personalities moulded and constrained by history and preconceptions. Places consist of a broad, heterogeneous range of personalities that will cause confusion and are likely to resist being shoehorned into a homogeneous mould. But if branding is to work, there must be a common cause and consensus among stakeholders.The long process of consulting, coopting and involving stakeholders, followed by distilling from their input the essence of a place’s personality, is probably the toughest part of the destination branding exercise. (Polunin 2002, p. 3)