Local Identity, Pride and Branding in Place Transformation

5. Embedding place branding in public policies and governance

Abstract

This chapter examines the implications of place identity and branding outlined in this report for government policy and organisational design. It considers how place identity can be embedded across the policy value chain: upstream, to inform planning, strategic vision and policy design; and downstream, to guide delivery, communications and evaluation. The chapter also examines the institutional roles, skills and capacities required within the public sector to harness place identity and branding effectively, including implications for organisational design. It further considers moving beyond output-based measures of place branding towards evaluating its outcomes and impacts, including changes in perceptions of a place, strengthened local pride, increased talent attraction or improved quality of life.

Introduction

The central question for this chapter is how public institutions can set themselves up effectively to integrate place identity and branding into their local development toolkit. It addresses how place branding can be embedded throughout the policy cycle, and where it is positioned within institutional arrangements. For example, how it can guide priority-setting and investment decisions upstream. Downstream, place branding can shape communications, so that officials, residents, investors, and visitors alike can have a shared understanding of a place’s direction of travel. Evaluating place branding is also a core consideration, and this chapter explores emerging experience of measuring a brand’s impact on levels of local pride, community participation and institutional trust, among other considerations.

A key contribution of place branding throughout the policy cycle is its capacity to bring coherence to complexity. A place brand can help articulate a shared story that multiple institutional actors can act upon. This story does not replace strategy; it clarifies it. It offers a shared framework for decision making across departments and political cycles, to connect economic policy, cultural initiatives, spatial planning, sustainability goals and talent strategies. It can reinforce resilience by helping places build social confidence, strengthen institutional alignment and create the conditions for adaptive policymaking. For example, in Durham Region, Canada, a grounded and evidence-led narrative helped align its economic transition around clean-energy leadership (Invest Durham, 2022[1]).

This policy cycle approach relies on the practical work of people within the system. Place branding professionals mobilise social capital – the networks, relationships and interpersonal resources that enable co-operation and collective action – (Warren and Dinnie, 2018[2]; Diaz Ramirez et al., 2026[3]) while actively listening and engaging with local sentiment and helping translate broad ambitions into usable narratives.1 Their skills, including research, stakeholder engagement, storytelling, evidence gathering and cross-sector facilitation, constitute a set of occupational resources that can enable the effective implementation of place-based policy (Warren and Dinnie, 2018[2]; Warren, Dilmperi and Dinnie, 2021[4]). In many successful jurisdictions, the place branding unit is positioned close to the political or administrative centre: within the mayor’s office, a chief executive’s portfolio or a strategic division of economic development.

Ultimately, place branding can act as both a unifying and enabling force, especially when governments can integrate unearthed place narratives into their systems. For places facing economic transition or the lingering effects of historical disadvantage, this coupling can be catalytic. It offers a way to marshal collective energy, attract partners and sustain momentum through the long horizons required for meaningful transformation. The rest of this chapter unpacks how this works in practice and considers what kinds of institutional design and capabilities can assist public leaders to use place branding as a durable instrument of place-based development.

Defining the parameters of place branding

Place branding has historically been associated with promotional activity such as tourism campaigns, investment marketing, communications and city diplomacy. These tools have their place, but they represent only a narrow slice of what contemporary place branding entails. Furthermore, while these various domains intersect, they serve different purposes and operate on different timescales.

Tourism promotion, for instance, is often oriented towards specific visitor flows and markets. Its primary aim is to drive actual and potential demand of customers to travel to a destination and to purchase tourism products, often using targeted campaigns and promotional incentives. Place marketing operates at a similarly tactical level but addresses a wider set of behavioural objectives, including talent attraction, business recruitment, export promotion, event bidding and sector-specific investment. Furthermore, branding includes communication, but communication is simply one step in the overarching process, not its foundation. City diplomacy, by contrast, involves relationship-building with international partners, collaborative governance across borders, and participation in global networks to elevate the city or region’s international standing.

Place branding is none of these things, yet it provides part of the strategic foundation upon which each depends. Brand narratives articulate the identity, values and long-term proposition that give coherence to outward-facing activities. Place branding informs how tourism organisations represent the place, how investment agencies frame their offers, how municipal leaders communicate internationally, and how local institutions interpret and enact shared goals. In this way, the strategic foundation that place branding provides can expand the reach, coherence and sustainability of these various activities. For example, in Tasmania (Australia), the limitations of tourism promotion and place marketing as standalone tools became a catalyst for a more ambitious governance model. Tourism Tasmania, established in 1996, focused on fostering a sustainable tourism industry, while the Brand Tasmania Council (the predecessor to Brand Tasmania established in 2018), established in 1999, sought to unify communication across sectors and to promote Tasmania as a place to live, work, study and do business (Ripoll González and Gale, 2020[5]) (see Box 5.3 for more recent developments). While campaigns lifted visibility during their promotion, what was missing from this effort was meaningful cross-sectoral and community integration, and a lack of systemic co-ordination (Parliament of Tasmania, 2018[6]). There was the need to learn how to harness identity and pride towards a public-purpose instrument to guide decisions across sectors and electoral cycles (Ibid). This example illustrates how place branding has the potential to act as an integrative mechanism that aligns tourism, marketing, diplomacy, planning, economic development, sustainability agendas and cultural policy, so that they reinforce one another (Boisen et al., 2018[7]).

A place brand can thus be approached as a coherent set of shared values, narratives, priorities, and symbolic references that are drawn on to guide decision making across policy domains. It can shape how decisions are made, how trade-offs are handled and how stakeholders align around a common direction. At the same time, it constitutes a governance asset – an enduring capacity or durable resource that policymakers can draw upon to cultivate coherence across sectors, strengthen legitimacy and support long-term transformation.

Integrating place branding throughout the policy cycle

Within governments, place branding can contribute to place transformation by shaping how problems are defined, how decisions are co-ordinated and how future pathways are made legible to stakeholders. Its influence becomes clearest when viewed through a policy value chain logic (OECD, 2025[8]; Barry et al., 2023[9]). When place branding is embedded across each stage of the policy value chain, it contributes to soft governance – the informal co-ordination of actors, decisions and priorities through shared meanings, narratives and norms – rather than formal regulation or institutional authority. In this sense, branding does not replace governance structures but operates within and alongside them as a guiding framework to strengthen resilience, reduce fragmentation and enable more adaptive, future-ready forms of policymaking.

Upstream, place branding can ensure policy design is adapted to the specificity of a place, avoiding generic strategies and misplaced investment. The place branding process gives structure to a forward-looking identity question: not only who and what a place is, but what future it is willing and able to work towards.

A shared place narrative can help reduce interdepartmental fragmentation by providing a common reference point for decisions across economic development, planning, culture, sustainability and public services. Narrative coherence acts as a filter for policy choices: does this initiative reinforce who we are and who we want to become? By creating alignment across sectors, a place’s clarity over its identity supports long-term development, particularly in talent attraction, workforce development, clean and green industry transitions, and investment promotion.

Another way place branding can shape upstream processes is by helping diverse stakeholders understand the narrative logic behind policy decisions. This makes it more likely that they will support these policies, creating the social licence needed for ambitious reforms (Warren and Grigaliūnaitė, 2023[10]). For example, a well-defined narrative and strategic vision in Vilnius (Lithuania) prior to the pandemic allowed the city to regenerate its tourism flows and bounce back quickly after this shock (Ibid). In practice, some actors also consider a midstream level where key public, private and civic partners are enabled to activate and steward a place brand (Box 5.3).

Downstream, the value chain extends into messaging, implementation, performance management and public experience. A place’s identity can be drawn on to shape how policy is communicated, how residents encounter everyday services and how external audiences interpret the place’s trajectory. When communications, cultural programming, investment outreach and public events all resonate with the same identity, the brand can become more embedded across society. This is not about producing a promotional message, but about ensuring that the experience of the place, including its infrastructure, institutions, services and stories, aligns with what policy claims to deliver. In Tasmania (Australia), for example, the lived experience of the brand is reinforced through values-led public engagement and through practical tools that partners use to integrate the identity into their programmes (Brand Tasmania, 2025[11]).

Place branding expands the evaluation lens by encouraging governments to measure not only economic outputs such as investment, visits and monetary flows, but also softer indicators such as belonging, civic pride, narrative coherence, stakeholder alignment and institutional trust. These intangible measures are essential for understanding whether a place is becoming more resilient, more cohesive and better equipped to adapt to future shocks.

Place branding can help strengthen resilience by providing a shared identity around which institutions can co-ordinate, helping them adapt to shocks and maintain public trust during periods of uncertainty. This was evident in New Zealand, where the longstanding 100% Pure New Zealand narrative provided a unifying platform for government agencies, tourism operators and communities in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes. This common reference point enabled co-ordinated recovery messaging, reinforced national identity and sustained global confidence during a period of disruption (New Zealand Tourism, n.d.[12]).

Taken together, embedding place branding into the policy value chain demonstrates how identity creates value before, during and after formal policy interventions. Upstream, it can shape diagnosis, foresight, agenda-setting and strategic alignment. Downstream, it can influence implementation, communication, legitimacy and public experience. Throughout, it strengthens resilience by cultivating the social and institutional conditions that allow places to absorb shocks, adapt to change and pursue long-term transformation with confidence. The example of Brand Tasmania illustrates how its place brand serves as the connective tissue between various policy agendas by being integrated across the policy value chain. Its values-led approach, embedded in statute, helped orient government messaging around a coherent identity rooted in capability, belonging and public purpose (Box 5.1).

Box 5.1. Brand Tasmania’s ESK Implementation Model

Named after the South Esk River, the state’s longest body of water, Brand Tasmania’s operating logic is sequenced to move the brand from emotional resonance through stakeholder engagement and enablement to policy integration.

Emotion (downstream): building connection to Tasmania

When it commenced in 2019, Brand Tasmania’s first activities were focused on learning from and shaping how people feel about Tasmania through storytelling and direct engagement to grow brand loyalty with its community, audiences and customers. Content across channels now reaches approximately 150 000 unique users annually, with around 80 000 direct followers and over five million impressions, broadening the state's narrative from "clean and green" to a capability-led picture that includes advanced manufacturing, renewables, creative industries and care professions.

Skills and stakeholder enablement (midstream): making the brand usable at scale

Recognising that emotion alone rarely changes systems, Brand Tasmania invested in making the brand accessible and usable to partners. The Partner Program engages more than 3 500 individuals and organisations through workshops, templates, guidelines and adoption tools that lower the cost of uptake. The Tasmanian Mark, described in Chapter 3, certifies hundreds of products and services as genuinely Tasmanian, providing a visible standard that exporters, local councils, cultural organisations and recruiters can deploy in their own communications. This midstream work is intentionally frugal: assets are designed for multiple uses, co-creation with partner agencies stretches a small organisational budget, and alignment reduces duplication and message drift.

Knowledge and policy (upstream): shifting from communications to decision support

At the upstream level, Brand Tasmania supports brand-informed strategy by working with policy and decision makers to embed the brand into long-term planning. This allows the organisation to better manage brand and reputational risk, ensure sustainable growth and support broader strategic outcomes for Tasmania.

Synergies across levels of the policy value chain

The three levels are mutually reinforcing and allow Brand Tasmania to maximise its impact and research. Voluntary uptake through the Partner Program and the Tasmanian Mark signals diffusion into markets and institutions, with councils and sectors aligning strategies to produce clearer export and investment narratives and reduce duplication. Meanwhile, Tasmania’s place brand now underpins aspects of population policy, early years service provision, health recruitment and youth programming. This provides a consistent values-led framework that helps these strategies resonate with their target audiences.

Source: (Brand Tasmania, n.d.[13]; Radford, 2025[14]; Brand Tasmania, 2025[11])

Operationalising place branding and building institutional capacity

Place branding practitioners can be better empowered to influence agenda-setting. In some contexts, their expertise may be sidelined within policy settings. Promotional teams are often brought in too late to influence outcomes in meaningful ways – after priorities have been set, strategies drafted and budgets allocated. Their impact is stronger when their authority is institutional, not symbolic, with clear mandates and reporting structures that position them close to senior decision making. Policymakers therefore face a foundational task: to create the conditions in which place branding professionals can shape decisions upstream, contribute to cross-sector coherence and guide prevailing discourses downstream with enough influence to ensure impact.

Operationalising place branding is not a communications task but a system-building exercise. It involves strengthening capabilities, fostering governance relationships and designing evaluation systems that ensure a place’s identity is not merely expressed but enacted. When these elements are in place, place branding becomes a durable capability within government that can support resilience and catalyse transformative change for a community. This is seen, for example, in Durham Region (Canada), where its brand narrative is embedded directly into policy instruments, and where risk management is treated as an integral part of this system (Box 5.2).

Box 5.2. Risk management as part of place branding operations in Durham Region, Canada

Durham Region's Clean Energy Capital narrative is embedded directly in policy instruments, including the Region’s investment attraction strategy, its workforce pathways and its infrastructure priorities. In this way, the brand functions as an organising idea across plans, budgets and key performance indicators (KPIs). Furthermore, risk management is treated as an integral part of this system, notably to respond to three saliant risks:

• Narrative capture by a single sector: To guard against over-reliance on clean energy as a standalone claim, Durham frames it as a platform supporting adjacent sectors including advanced manufacturing, digital, mobility and agritech.

• Infrastructure falling behind the brand's promise: Capacity constraints in housing, transit and skills recognition are addressed through transit investments, downtown revitalisation commitments and employer training on inclusive hiring, ensuring that growth does not outpace delivery.

• Message drift across partners: To maintain narrative consistency as partners communicate independently, Durham has invested in internal training, shared speaking notes and KPI feedback loops.

Together, these measures reflect the governing principle that a place brand becomes durable only when it is enacted across institutions, instruments and investment decisions and not merely expressed in communications.

Source: (Invest Durham, 2023[15]; Invest Durham, 2022[16]; Invest Durham, 2022[1])

Organisational design

Organisational conditions, including people, structures, routines, data systems and governance relationships, impact the degree to which place branding can inform action across the policy cycle. This is where many place branding efforts can falter. The operational challenge begins with institutional placement – where the place branding function sits within government institutions. This placement determines how far place branding work can influence decisions and how deeply it can integrate a place narrative into everyday policy work.

In many successful jurisdictions, the place branding unit is positioned close to the political or administrative centre: within the mayor’s office, a chief executive’s portfolio, or a strategic division of economic development. Proximity to leadership grants this work the authority to shape agenda-setting, signal policy priorities and provide consistent direction across political cycles. Tasmania’s statutory model, reporting directly to the Premier, and its mandate as whole-of-state, illustrate how institutional location can convert a place’s brand into a durable governance resource (Brand Tasmania, 2019[17]) (Box 5.3).

Box 5.3. Embedding place branding as a statutory authority in Tasmania, Australia

Proximity to leadership as a design choice

Following a brand audit conducted by the Department of Premier and Cabinet in 2017, the state of Tasmania established Brand Tasmania as a statutory authority in 2018 to develop a more coherent place branding approach. It is one of the first jurisdictions to formally legislate a place branding function within government. The authority’s placement is the key innovation: rather than locating it within a promotional silo, it reports directly to the Premier, supported by a skills-based board providing strategic oversight and a chief executive accountable for delivery. Its mandate is whole-of-state, spanning its live, work, study, invest, trade and visit offering. Brand Tasmania acts as a provider of shared infrastructure and co-ordination capacity intended to help other actors – businesses, government agencies, community organisations and individuals – leverage the Tasmanian brand more effectively than they could independently.

Since its launch in 2019, Brand Tasmania has operated under successive five-year strategic plans, complemented by annual corporate plans and performance reports to ensure accountability and to measure progress. In its 2019-2024 Strategic Plan, Brand Tasmania focused on establishing foundational elements for place branding in the state with four strategic aims:

• brand expression and digital strategy

• stakeholder engagement

• research, measurement, risk management and performance

• organisational design and strategic planning

The subsequent 2025-2030 plan continued to draw on the "Be Tasmanian" brand among target audiences, while positioning the authority as a laboratory for innovation across government, the private sector and community partners.

A theory of influence, not scale

Brand Tasmania operates with five full-time staff in conjunction with an 11-member board and a budget of approximately AUD 2.3 million (approximately EUR 1.4 million), reflecting a theory of influence rather than scale. Within this envelope, the authority focuses on three core functions:

• codifying and maintaining a contemporary narrative grounded in Tasmanian capabilities and norms

• building reusable public goods including language, marks, templates, playbooks and content that partners can adopt

• brokering the application of narrative and evidence inside policy and service design

Compared to a larger marketing operation nested within tourism or trade promotion, the small statutory unit with a skills-based board, reporting close to the centre of government, is better positioned to broker across portfolios and with communities. This avoids reducing the authority of the place brand function to marketing alone and prevents the conflation of board oversight with operations. Additionally, it facilitates alignment between stakeholders as well as the measurement of uptake and influence by tracking who uses the brand’s narrative tools and where brand language appears in strategies and approvals.

Source: (Parliament of Tasmania, 2018[6]; Brand Tasmania, 2025[11])

A government’s organisational design around place branding typically adopts one of two models. Both models frame a place’s brand as something that is not owned solely by government but is stewarded across an ecosystem of actors who collectively shape and sustain it.

The first model is an independent or arm’s-length structure that brings together public authorities with non-government stakeholders. This model can be described as a brand partnership, and it tends to emerge in contexts where civic organisations, universities, cultural institutions and industry actors already collaborate and can collectively steward identity. It is usually supported by a dedicated budget with a degree of decision making autonomy. Brand Tasmania, as a statutory authority that co-ordinates government, industry and community actors around shared values, is an example of this model (Box 5.2). Another example of this partnership model is amsterdam&partners (the Netherlands), which functions as a collaborative platform that links the municipality with cultural institutions, tourism bodies and business networks (Iamsterdam, n.d.[18]).

The second model is a more formalised governance structure that is embedded within, or closely aligned, to government. This can be described as a brand institute, which integrates stakeholders through defined co-ordination mechanisms, advisory structures and clear lines of accountability. For example, Brand Estonia is centrally co-ordinated, and aligns ministries and sectors through shared narratives, tools and guidelines (Enterprise Estonia., n.d.[19]). In another example, Brand Dubai (United Arab Emirates) is a government-led unit that orchestrates cross-sector communication and positioning at city and national levels (Brand Dubai, n.d.[20]).

In both models, there is a need for leadership and management teams, who respectively play a cultural and operational role. Those supporting brand leadership strive to ensure that the brand’s values are modelled by those with the greatest influence. Members act as ambassadors, interpreters and convenors. They raise awareness of brand-related issues, encourage consistent application, provide peer accountability and exemplify the behaviours the place seeks to promote, such as openness, truthfulness, curiosity and shared responsibility. They operate as “masters of persuasion without power”, advancing alignment through influence rather than hierarchy. Their function is particularly important during the early years of a brand’s introduction, when public expectations may require careful management. This may include, for instance, responding to scepticism through transparency and demonstrable action.

Beneath this leadership layer sits a management team responsible for operational delivery. Appointed early in the process, this group manages project pipelines, performance frameworks and the continuous work of embedding identity into services, systems and public touchpoints. Their remit includes co-ordinating with economic development, tourism, culture, planning, universities, business improvement districts and community organisations. They oversee implementation, monitor KPIs, secure funding with project sponsors, manage relationships with ambassadors and ensure consistent application of the brand across both government and partner organisations. Their work spans inside-out (internal alignment and organisational culture) and outside-in (public and partner-facing communication) tasks, reflecting the inherently relational nature of place branding.

Operationalisation also requires multi-level governance. Place-based policies cut across jurisdictions and are implemented by actors at different administrative levels. Effective place-based systems depend on strong horizontal co-ordination between neighbouring municipalities and agencies, and strong vertical co-ordination between national, regional and local governments (OECD, 2017[21]; OECD, 2019[22]; OECD, 2025[8]; OECD, 2014[23]). A place brand can strengthen these linkages by acting as a shared reference point for joint decisions, reducing duplication and improving complementarity. Informal mechanisms, including dialogue platforms, cross-agency working groups and knowledge-sharing networks contribute to building consensus and shared understanding. Formal mechanisms such as contractual agreements, intergovernmental councils and regional development agencies can help ensure that resources and responsibilities are aligned.

Place branding can help to stabilise relationships across levels of government by offering a common agenda under different institutional mandates. This dynamic is visible, for example, in Helsinki Marketing (Finland), where the city’s brand is embedded within its municipal strategy and operationalised through both structured co-ordination and networked collaboration across departments and partner organisations (Finland Convention Bureau, n.d.[24]).

Staff capabilities and roles

A core component of operationalising place branding is ensuring a government institution has the requisite capabilities. Capabilities for place branding include strategic foresight, participatory design, policy literacy, communications expertise, cultural competence, political acuity and data capability. These rarely reside in one individual and tend to emerge through a multidisciplinary team working in concert. Responsibility for stewarding the brand across the policy cycle typically falls to an appointed place brand director. Other core roles, which may or may not be stand-alone positions, can include (Warren, 2025[25]):

• Insight and evaluation – to build data architecture and conduct granular, innovative and learning-oriented evaluation;

• Community engagement – to integrate participatory methods into policy development;

• Creative and narrative direction – to ensure coherence across storytelling, campaigns and brand touchpoints;

• Policy liaison – to connect a place’s brand to industrial strategy, spatial planning, environmental policy and workforce development, among other policy areas; and

• Digital content and data specialisation – to bring the brand to life through content and storytelling, and to measure public sentiment.

Place branding teams often span public, private and civic sector boundaries, enabling them to promote a coherent message across institutional silos. Those working in marketing and communications teams, economic developers, planners, tourism organisations and cultural and creative sector leaders, among others, play a key role in shaping the discursive environment in which policy decisions are made. In real-world policy environments, this work is inherently relational. It operates through networks that enable co-ordination and mobilisation among a diversity of stakeholders, and as such, relies on cultivating social capital (Warren, 2024[26]). Forming social capital and fostering connections that bridge different groups and entities is especially important, as this can influence whose voices are heard and which narratives gain traction (Warren and Grigaliūnaitė, 2023[10]). This informal influence is central to how place narratives gain legitimacy and become embedded in institutional routines across the policy and stakeholder landscape. Place branding professionals sit at the heart of a function that works through influence rather than authority, bringing together actors who retain their own mandates, budgets and governance structures around a shared direction.

Building the field

To build the capabilities needed to operationalise place branding, training ecosystems in the field can be further developed. The place branding profession remains emergent, fragmented, and under-recognised within the public sector. Practitioners often enter the field through circuitous pathways, lacking formal training or clear professional standards. The legitimacy of the field depends on structured pathways for practitioners to build knowledge, credentials and influence within public institutions. This can also account for the multidisciplinary nature of place branding, which brings together cultural studies, geography, place development, communications, public policy, planning, politics, public administration, public diplomacy and sociology.

Supportive ecosystems

Capacity also depends on frameworks for collaboration, since place branding thrives when the ecosystem surrounding it is well-structured, collaborative, and capable of iterative learning. Policymakers can design collaboration models that recognise the shared nature of brand stewardship. This involves participation protocols that ensure resident and business voices shape the identity narrative; mechanisms for cross-agency decision making; platforms for horizontal collaboration across municipalities; and vertical governance structures that align local, regional and national priorities.

As this section shows, governments can benefit from treating place identity as a form of soft infrastructure. That means resourcing it, staffing it, training practitioners to steward it, structuring organisations around it, embedding it into formal decision making and evaluating it with the same rigour applied to other components of place-based development. When capacity is built in this way, place branding becomes a durable institutional capability – one that can help places navigate complexity, support inclusive transformation, and sustain development over the long term.

Measuring and evaluating impact

Evaluation remains a challenge for the place branding practice, largely because the field evolved from promotional traditions that privileged tourism metrics, visibility, media mentions and campaign outputs. For policymakers, these measures are insufficient. If monitoring and evaluation is embedded throughout the policy cycle, from agenda-setting to delivery, then there is a need to track performance, anticipate risks and adapt interventions over time (OECD, 2025[8]). This matters especially at the local level, where data availability is uneven and institutional capacity varies widely. The question, therefore, is not whether to evaluate, but how to evaluate in ways that reflect the socio-economic, cultural and institutional nature of place branding.

Place branding is inherently public, political and social – it shapes identity narratives and interacts with policy ambitions across multiple policy sectors (Hereźniak, Florek and Augustyn, 2018[27]). These can range from economic development, culture, environment and energy to mobility and resident well-being (Ibid). Public authorities are accountable for these outcomes, and stakeholders increasingly demand clarity about whether branding has strengthened their community and social cohesion, enhanced equality of opportunity or shifted perceptions in meaningful ways. Limiting evaluation to impressions, clicks or logo usage not only fails to capture this complexity, but it actively misrepresents the impact of the work. These activity measures track service uptake and distribution but say little about outcomes in terms of value added or attitudes influenced.

A more appropriate approach accounts for outputs (tangible products and activities), outcomes (behavioural and institutional effects) and impacts (long-term changes in identity, attractiveness, and well-being) (Hereźniak, Florek and Augustyn, 2018[27]; Lucarelli, 2018[28]; Bouckaert and Halligan, 2008[29]). The value of such an approach lies in connecting operational activity to broader public value, reframing place branding as part of a long-term development process rather than a series of isolated promotional efforts. Within this logic, outputs include campaigns, brand assets, joint programmes or revitalisation initiatives. Outcomes reflect mid-term shifts such as improved brand awareness, increased participation in cultural or community programmes, stronger inter-institutional co-operation or more favourable evaluations of the business environment. Impacts capture sustained economic, social and cultural change: increased talent attraction, higher levels of civic pride and belonging, reduced identity-image gaps, strengthened cultural vibrancy or improved quality of life.

These impacts unfold over years, not quarterly reporting cycles, reinforcing the importance of longitudinal evaluation. Currently, organisations with branding functions (including destination marketing organisations, investment promotion and economic development agencies and organisations working across all aspects of place attraction) tend to measure specifics such as website engagement, marketing campaign reach and engagement, and press coverage (City Nation Place, 2023[30]). When place branding is seen as a process of unearthing and embedding a unified narrative that spans multiple economic and social objectives – and not just a specific campaign or initiative – it becomes inadequate to simply measure whether the place brand is being used (Ibid). However, assessing whether the brand is making a difference to a range of intended outcomes is complex. As discussed in Chapter 1, the methodological challenges of impact measurement suggest that evaluation frameworks that acknowledge contribution rather than claiming direct causation, and that combine quantitative indicators with qualitative and narrative evidence, are better placed to build a fuller picture of impact over time.

Broadening the evidence base for place brand evaluation

From a methodological standpoint, evaluation requires a broader evidence base. Economic indicators such as tourism yields, investment pipelines, business formation and labour-market trends remain essential, but they cannot capture the full contribution of place branding. Social and cultural indicators are equally important. Narrative coherence, stakeholder trust, institutional confidence, cultural vibrancy and levels of civic pride or belonging all have an important role to play in evaluating the effectiveness of a long-term place brand strategy.

Non-economic indicators can be included alongside traditional metrics. Measures of community sentiment, perceived quality of life and resident identification with the brand provide insight into whether identity work is resonating. For example, in relation to tourism, Copenhagen (Denmark) has used resident sentiment analysis to assess tourism’s perceived effects on the local economy, city atmosphere, quality of life and environmental conditions (Wonderful Copenhagen, 2022[31]). Similarly, Austria uses machine learning to estimate a municipal Tourism Acceptance Score (TAS), drawing on survey data to gauge how positively or negatively residents perceive tourism in their area (Statistics Austria, 2025[32]). In other examples, Stockholm (Sweden) is increasingly positioning well-being as a core evaluative lens for place brand impact, while Ghent (Belgium) tracks not only awareness and distinctiveness, but also the extent to which core brand values are recognised and enacted across civic life (Stockholms stad, 2018[33]; City Nation Place, 2025[34]). Institutional indicators, such as cross-agency co-operation and stakeholder integration, alignment between policy discourses or reduced duplication in public communication, remain essential for determining whether a place brand is actually functioning as soft governance or remains a superficial exercise. Behavioural indicators such as participation in events, grassroots initiatives, volunteerism or advocacy, can demonstrate the degree to which residents internalise and enact the brand.

Evaluation also benefits from creative measures, which aim to capture how place narratives are produced, circulated and experienced in everyday life. For example, digital ethnography and sentiment analysis are increasingly used to analyse how places are discussed across social media and online platforms, as seen in the work of Visit Finland, which has applied social listening and narrative analysis to understand how Finland is perceived across different markets (Visit Finland, 2022[35]). Cultural mapping approaches, such as those developed by the Creative City Network of Canada, document local assets, practices and meanings to reveal how identity is embedded within communities (Creative City Network of Canada, n.d.[36]). Narrative audits and longitudinal storytelling analysis are also emerging in practice. For instance, Amsterdam Marketing (The Netherlands) has tracked the evolution of the “I amsterdam” narrative across media, policy and stakeholder communications over time, assessing how it is interpreted, adapted and contested across different audiences (Iamsterdam, n.d.[18]).

These approaches extend evaluation beyond static indicators, offering insight into how place identity is constructed, negotiated and internalised across cultural, institutional and digital contexts. They are especially useful for monitoring intangible aspects of transformation, such as shifts in public mood or embedded adoption in stakeholder landscapes. For example, Tasmania’s (Australia) experience demonstrates how creative indicators can reveal alignment between values-led policy design and public perception. Early-years and youth initiatives provide visible cues that participation and identity are treated as public goods, while stakeholder participation and feedback suggest a lift in local identification with a contemporary story of capacity and contribution (Radford, 2025[14]; Brand Tasmania, 2025[11]). As Tasmania’s brand now underpins aspects of population policy, health recruitment and youth engagement, its strategies can be more motivating to their target audiences.

Outcomes such as exports, investor interest, visitor yield and talent pipelines are multi-causal. Brand Tasmania therefore emphasises contribution over causal claims, building a measurement framework that tracks partner uptake, cross-agency alignment and instances where brand language and assets demonstrably shape decisions, alongside standard communications analytics (Radford, 2025[14]; Brand Tasmania, 2025[37]). In the case of the Durham Region (Canada), narrative consistency shows how disciplined messaging becomes measurable through cross-institutional adoption and media discourse.

Finally, rigid return on investment frames may be inadequate for place branding because they force complex, interdependent processes into narrow cost-benefit calculations. Instead, leading practitioners are adopting a portfolio approach, assessing branding investments as part of a broader ecosystem of policy instruments. This approach recognises that the brand interacts with economic development, cultural programming, infrastructure investment and community engagement in mutually reinforcing ways. Evaluating the brand requires examining these interactions, not isolating the brand as a stand-alone product. It also acknowledges that identity-driven transformation unfolds across decades and that evaluations need to account for this.

Indicators related to place branding can also be integrated into other policies, grants and programmes. Governments can embed a place brand into procurement frameworks, investment decisions, planning guidelines, grant programmes and regulatory instruments. Evaluation requirements can be tied to brand strategy, ensuring that grantees, agencies and delivery partners report against shared indicators for narrative alignment, inclusivity and public value.

Conclusion

The work of co-creating, using and stewarding place identity is far more than a communications exercise. Place branding can be understood rather as a form of strategic public value creation – a governance capability that strengthens resilience, improves policy coherence and supports societies to navigate uncertainty with confidence. When governments treat place branding as a serious policy instrument, embedded upstream in diagnosis, agenda-setting and strategic planning, it helps clarify priorities, align actors and reduce the fragmentation that can undermine place-based strategies. When partners and stakeholders are supported to leverage the place brand in their own organisations and strategies, the brand further supports institutional alignment and co-ordination. When embedded downstream in delivery and communication, it strengthens legitimacy, supports behavioural change and helps residents recognise themselves in the future being built around and with them.

The policy value chain described in this chapter shows that identity can create value at every stage of policy formation, from early diagnostic work to evaluation and learning. Its contribution is not merely symbolic; it helps to inform resource allocation, institutional behaviour and stakeholder co-ordination across sectors. When appropriately measured through economic, social, cultural and institutional indicators, branding can reinforce a place’s capacity for adaptability, cohesion and long-term development.

Investing in capabilities, multidisciplinary teams, institutionalised roles, evaluation systems, partnership structures and multi-level governance arrangements allows place branding to become durable, credible and effective. Professional development and training are equally important; without an equipped workforce, narrative ambitions cannot translate into policy outcomes.

Ultimately, place branding can be approached as a long-term, systemic commitment rather than a short-lived promotional effort. Treating a place’s identity as soft infrastructure – staffed, measured and held to outcomes – creates the conditions for coherent, inclusive and forward-facing development. Places that invest in this capability are better positioned to adapt, to prosper and, most importantly, to build futures that their communities can believe in.

References

[9] Barry, N. et al. (eds.) (2023), Australia Politics and Policy: Senior Edition 2023, Sydney University Press, Sydney, https://open.sydneyuniversitypress.com.au/files/9781743328859.pdf (accessed on 15 April 2026).

[7] Boisen, M. et al. (2018), “Reframing place promotion, place marketing, and place branding - moving beyond conceptual confusion”, Cities, Vol. 80, pp. 4-11, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2017.08.021.

[29] Bouckaert, G. and J. Halligan (2008), Managing performance: International comparisons, Routledge, London, http://www.apsc.gov.au/publications (accessed on 2 April 2026).

[20] Brand Dubai (n.d.), About Brand Dubai, https://branddubai.ae/en/about-brand-dubai (accessed on 28 March 2026).

[37] Brand Tasmania (2025), Tasmanian Annual Report, 2024-25.

[11] Brand Tasmania (2025), Tasmanian Strategic Plan 2025-2030.

[17] Brand Tasmania (2019), Brand Tasmania Strategic Plan 2019-2024.

[13] Brand Tasmania (n.d.), How we work, https://tasmanian.com.au/brand-tasmania/ (accessed on 3 May 2026).

[34] City Nation Place (2025), Why place branding is helping Ghent to become more ‘Ghentian’, City Nation Place website, https://www.citynationplace.com/why-place-branding-is-helping-ghent-to-become-more-ghentian (accessed on 28 March 2026).

[30] City Nation Place (2023), Place Branding: Solving the Measurement Challenge, https://www.citynationplace.com/benchmarking-data-research-report-2023 (accessed on 9 April 2026).

[36] Creative City Network of Canada (n.d.), Cultural Planning and Mapping, https://www.creativecity.ca/library/cultural-planning-and-mapping/ (accessed on 28 February 2026).

[3] Diaz Ramirez, M. et al. (2026), “Towards measuring social capital for place transformation: Ideas and considerations for an OECD localised indicator framework”, OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Papers, No. 2026/05, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/d5f18ab6-en.

[19] Enterprise Estonia. (n.d.), Brand Estonia: Visual identity and messaging toolkit, https://brand.estonia.ee/ (accessed on 28 March 2026).

[24] Finland Convention Bureau (n.d.), Helsinki, https://fcb.visitfinland.com/en/discover/destinations/helsinki/ (accessed on 28 March 2026).

[27] Hereźniak, M., M. Florek and A. Augustyn (2018), “On Measuring Place Brand Effectiveness – between Theoretical Developments and Empirical Findings”, Economics & Sociology, Vol. 11/2, pp. 36-51, https://doi.org/10.14254/2071-789x.2018/11-2/3.

[18] Iamsterdam (n.d.), amsterdam & partners, https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/amsterdam-and-partners (accessed on 28 March 2026).

[15] Invest Durham (2023), Invest Durham Marketing Plan 2023-2027.

[16] Invest Durham (2022), Durham Region Value Proposition for Mayors.

[1] Invest Durham (2022), Ready Set Future: A Place Blueprint for Durham.

[28] Lucarelli, A. (2018), “Place branding as urban policy: the (im)political place branding”, Cities, Vol. 80, pp. 12-21, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2017.08.004.

[12] New Zealand Tourism (n.d.), Tourism New Zealand’s 100% Pure New Zealand campaign celebrates 25 years, https://www.tourismnewzealand.com/news-and-activity/tourism-new-zealands-100-pure-new-zealand-campaign-celebrates-25-years/ (accessed on 28 March 2026).

[8] OECD (2025), Place-Based Policies for the Future, OECD Regional Development Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/e5ff6716-en.

[38] OECD (2024), How’s Life? 2024: Well-being and Resilience in Times of Crisis, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/90ba854a-en.

[22] OECD (2019), Making Decentralisation Work: A Handbook for Policy-Makers, OECD Multi-level Governance Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/g2g9faa7-en.

[21] OECD (2017), Multi-level Governance Reforms: Overview of OECD Country Experiences, OECD Multi-level Governance Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264272866-en.

[23] OECD (2014), “Effective local strategies to boost quality job creation, employment, and participation: Report prepared for the G20 Labour and Employment Ministerial Meeting Melbourne, Australia, 10-11 September 2014”, OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Papers, No. 2014/5, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/4c20ac39-en.

[6] Parliament of Tasmania (2018), Parliament of Tasmania Hansard: Brand Tasmania Bill debate.

[14] Radford, J. (2025), OECD interview notes on Brand Tasmania.

[5] Ripoll González, L. and F. Gale (2020), “Place Branding as Participatory Governance? An Interdisciplinary Case Study of Tasmania, Australia”, Sage Open, Vol. 10/2, https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020923368.

[32] Statistics Austria (2025), Tourism acceptance, https://www.statistik.at/en/statistics/tourism-and-transport/tourism/tourism-acceptance.

[33] Stockholms stad (2018), Stockholm City Plan.

[35] Visit Finland (2022), Suomen matkailudata, https://www.visitfinland.fi/suomen-matkailudata/ (accessed on 28 March 2026).

[25] Warren, G. (2025), “Professionals”, in Elgar Encyclopedia of City and Place Branding, Edward Elgar Publishing, https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035319640.00087.

[26] Warren, G. (2024), “A social capital framework to understand the particularities and power dynamics in city branding”, Marketing Theory, Vol. 25/3, pp. 423-448, https://doi.org/10.1177/14705931241275548.

[4] Warren, G., A. Dilmperi and K. Dinnie (2021), “Power struggles and playing politics: An application of Bourdieu’s cultural intermediation theory to place marketing”, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 91, p. 103276, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2021.103276.

[2] Warren, G. and K. Dinnie (2018), “Cultural intermediaries in place branding: Who are they and how do they construct legitimacy for their work and for themselves?”, Tourism Management, Vol. 66, pp. 302-314, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2017.12.012.

[10] Warren, G. and S. Grigaliūnaitė (2023), “Leveraging social capital to catalyse post-pandemic anti-fragility: the “Vilnius model””, Journal of Place Management and Development, Vol. 16/4, pp. 577-601, https://doi.org/10.1108/jpmd-11-2022-0104.

[31] Wonderful Copenhagen (2022), Tourism for Good: 2021 Key Performance Indicator Status.

Note

← 1.  There are varying definitions of social capital across the literature. The OECD defines it as "the social norms, shared values, institutional arrangements, civic engagement and social connections that foster co-operation among population groups" (OECD, 2024[38]).