2nd International Place Branding Conference

Branding Cities:

The search for place identity

20th-22nd January 2011

Bogota, Columbia

Registration

There is still little consensus on the exact nature of place branding, its relations to product branding or marketing, visual branding, promotion, advertising as well as its interaction with other forms of local development.

At the same time, a growing number of consultancies claim to specialise on place branding exhibiting, however, an arguably limited understanding of the scope of the activity.

In particular critical theorization of the issue has led us to a series of unanswered questions:

How do we define a place identity which is not static or essentialist, which both respects the internal contradictions of places and yet grasps their distinctiveness?

How does branding places involve local communities without being imposed upon them by external consultants?

Is there a way of understanding place branding in the context of the interdependence of places and not always against a background of competition?

The conference aims at enriching the dialogue between academics, practitioners and city representatives who often approach very similar issues from different angles. It explicitly adopts an interdisciplinary and international perspective aiming to address the theme in its full complexity. The conference will be held in the city of Bogotá, Colombia between Thursday 20th and Saturday 22nd January, 2011.

The conference programme will include keynote lectures, paper sessions and panel discussions. Delegates will have the opportunity to follow a technical tour of various interesting sites in the city demonstrating a range of relevant issues. A social programme will also be devised to foster interaction and networking opportunities.

Themes of the conference:

• Theoretical and methodological issues of place branding/marketing
• Conceptualization of place identity
• Involving local communities in place branding/marketing
• Place branding/marketing as a tool of urban and regional development
• Experiential Place Branding
• Assessment methods: how to measure place branding/marketing success
• Place branding and management of tourism destinations
• Branding the cultural and creative city
• Branding the green city
• International networks and place branding
• Place Branding through storytelling

Full Programme

Limited places are still available for paper presentation.

The abstracts should be send to the conference secretariat (conference@inpolis.de) until December 15th, 2010.

Register now to to be part of the discussion about Branding Cities: the search for place identity

Full conference website: http://www.inpolis.de/inpolis-projektdetail_35_2te-Place-Branding-Konferenz_de.html