Origin of the word "brand"
Old English brand 'burning' (also in sense 3 of the noun), of Germanic origin; related to German Brand, also to burn1. The verb sense 'mark with a hot iron' dates from late Middle English, giving rise to the noun sense 'a mark of ownership made by branding' (mid 17th century), whence sense 1 of the noun (early 19th century).
(source: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/brand)
Branding dictionary and meanings
Brand: A brand is a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers" (source: https://www.ama.org/resources/Pages/Dictionary.aspx).
Brand: a person’s perception of a product, service, experience or organization; the art and science of brand building
Branding: any effort or program to build a brand; the process of brand-building
Brand identity: the outward expression of a brand, including its name, trademark, communications, and visual appearance
Brand image: a customer’s mental picture of a product, service, or organisation (source: Neumeier Marty, (2004), The dictionary of brand, Published by AIGA).
"A brand is a customer experience represented by a collection of images and ideas; often, it refers to a symbol such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme. Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the accumulation of experiences with the specific product or service, both directly relating to its use, and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary." (Added definition) "A brand often includes an explicit logo, fonts, color schemes, symbols, sound which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality." (source: SEMPO and Wikipedia)
Rural Branding
Rural branding has much in common with place branding. Place branding is used as an umbrella concept which focuses not only on regions, but can include whole nations, cross-border regions, cities, rural areas and so on. Rural branding, as the term already implies, addresses specific rural places and therefore focuses on less populated areas with specific demographic, social and economic developments. While place branding of cities and regions has been commonplace for several decades, the branding of rural areas and communities is a much more recent phenomenon.
Rural branding in literature
Local governments and community representatives find it necessary to mimic the communication and promotion campaigns of larger places in order to raise positive attention, both internally in the community and externally to the outside. Rural actors often see branding as a means to counteract negative social demographic and economic developments. Branding is, along with other measures, considered an integrated means to keep rural areas vital and alive. An aging population and an out-migration of mainly younger and better educated people are major problems for many communities (Stockdale, 2006). These off-putting images, related to the demographic trends, mask the positive elements of country living, such as a free lifestyle close to nature. Circumstances for rural branding are not always the best, often due to the economic situation in rural areas causing job loss, high unemployment rates and a decrease in rural services and facilities. As noted by the OECD (2010), the service sector ensures quality of life for rural citizens which is necessary for the development of the rural economy. However, it is a fact that in many rural communities, public and private services are under significant pressure.
Many rural communities experience a lack of media attention and a comparably much higher media exposure of urban or suburban life conditions. Likewise, rural populations often find the narratives in the media unrealistic, over-romantic and not contemporary, and they fear that new settlers will become disappointed (Van Dam et al., 2002; Johansen & Nielsen, 2012). On the other hand, the media can be the cause of a self-enhancing spin with negative stories, such as the story about the Danish “Rotten Banana” – related to other fruit branding metaphors such as the “Big Apple” (Winther & Svendsen, 2012). Inaugurated in 2009, the Rotten Banana has often been used as another term for the peripheral and rural areas in Denmark. Local rural people have only gradually been able to fire back and replace the negative narratives with a more heterogeneous and possibly more truthful and balanced discourse.
Accordingly, rural areas have good reason to choose branding as one of their instruments to turn around some of the developments described earlier. Generally, the purpose of branding is to improve the overall perception and to increase professional exposure of the qualities and opportunities in rural areas. Hospers (2006) suggests that place branding serves as a common denominator between separate pillars, for example economy, infrastructure, education and culture, and arenas (citizens, entrepreneurs, authorities) that make up an area. Thus, branding comprises and attempts to bring together different sectors and perspectives to align their goals (Kau, 2006); branding is quickly becoming the tool of choice for innovators of regional identity in the global economy (Pedersen, 2004).
Place branding strives to strengthen the identity and imaging of a location. As such, it is about marketing (Pedersen, 2004). However, the two terms place marketingand place branding can be seen as two very different approaches. Place marketing is defined by territorial marketing strategies to emphasize the difference between corporate and product marketing (Nilsson et al., 2010). The starting point is the needs and demands of the customers, and the place should then adjust itself according to these (Pedersen, 2004). It can be viewed as an umbrella strategy across different sectors, such as tourism promotion boards or destination marketing organizations, export, trade and investment agencies, financial institutions, chambers of commerce and so on (Cai, 2002; Govers & Go, 2009). Place marketing attempts to unify all strategies aimed at tourists and visitors, the business sector and potential new residents.
Place branding takes its point of departure in the identity of places and in the local norms, values and practices, and constructs of these places. Nilsson et al. (2010) state, for example, that the specific qualities and characteristics of a place are sold as “unique selling points”. Place branding is thus a more sustained and ambitious effort, aimed at selling a geographical area for its specific resources. In other words, place branding is about strengthening a place’s identity, or as Govers and Go (2009: 17) say: “place branding is about representing a place by building a positive internal (with those who deliver the experience) and external (with visitors) image which leads to a brand satisfaction and loyalty, name awareness, perceived quality, and other favorable associations”. From this point of view, place branding also develops new ways for a local society to identify itself (Pedersen, 2004).
It seems that a transition has occurred from place marketing to place branding. Johansson and Cornebise (2010) note that the marketing of places has appeared in geographic literature since the early 1990s (see Kearns & Philo, 1993; Gold & Ward, 1994). This literature has explored marketing strategies, advertising messages, slogans and images. Consumers have become more critical in assessing promotional material, and an awareness of authenticity and “personality” of place has developed. Thus, brand producers, such as corporations, municipalities, cities and other geographic entities, have moved away from simple advertisements towards more comprehensive strategies. In that sense, the concept of place branding has become more complex and less superficial for the areas and their inhabitants (Anholt, 2002; Kavaratzis & Ashworth, 2005). The concept of branding has been popularized and used as a central element in place promotion, both internally and externally (Johansson & Cornebise, 2010).
As discussed, place branding takes its point of departure in the identity of regions and constructs of these regions. From a similar perspective, Kavaratazis and Ashworth (2005) suggest that a place needs to be differentiated through a unique brand if it wants, first, to be recognized as existing, second, perceived in the minds of consumers as possessing superior qualities to other competing places, and third, consumed in a way equal to the objectives of the place. Moreover, they argue that a place can only be accepted as a brand if the intrinsic and distinctive characteristics are understood and developed (see also Pike, 2002; Vasudevan, 2008). Taking this into account, place branding becomes a useful tool for innovators of regional identity in a global economy. Pedersen (2004) even states that a place brand involves a new way of representing reality. In addition, he argues that the technology of branding broadly conceptualizes places as real in a dual sense: “on the one hand, a place is manifest as a series of organizational, geographical, and infrastructural “givens”, and, on the other, a place is a concept that branding consultants are trying to create by changing the perception and ideas people already hold about it” (pp.79-80).
Who is responsible for place branding? This is a crucial question, and much literature on the issue tends to lead to the recommendation that some parties should take a lead in the branding process and ensure a joint agreement on the identity and direction (Pike, 2002). These parties can be seen as the investors and producers of the brand construct. According to Kavaratazis and Ashworth (2005), the boundaries of the brand construct are, on the one side, the activities of the so-called producers and, on the other side, the perceptions of the consumers. Thus, there are two important sides within the branding process: the producers and the consumers. This also suggests that differences of power relations exist. Accordingly, the process of place branding is often a battlefield of opinions and approaches (Gibson & Davidson, 2004).
Similar fields and experiences can be viewed in rural branding. Rural branding may be hampered by the fact that the areas are small, the resources are limited and the capacities are insufficient to perform a full branding strategy and implementation. However, such a process may be substantial if performed according to the recommendations of branding experts (Therkelsen & Halkier, 2008). The question about initiative, power and control is crucial. In a rural context, it makes particular sense to distinguish three different approaches: top-down, bottom-up or a combination of both, described as a horizontal leadership approach.
The top-down approachis not new in place branding processes, and such approaches are found all over the world, particularly in connection with tourism marketing. A well described and broader example is the branding of the Øresund Region, which includes the regions of Sjælland (Denmark) and Skåne (Sweden). Although the Øresund Region is often highlighted as a European model for cross-border cooperation, both Pedersen (2004) and Hospers (2006) argue for a more nuanced view. The consistent and place-based branding strategy of the region as a Nordic and amenable place with visible objects, such as the Øresund-bridge and a regional logo, suggests that the region has a strong identity of which the inhabitants are proud. This identity, however, is artificially created by a group of professionals and does not reflect the feelings of the majority of the inhabitants; most still feel primarily Danish or Swedish rather than residents of the Øresund Region(Jerneck, 2000; Hamers, 2005; Hospers, 2006). Thus, brandinghas been driven by a political ambition to change the way people in the area live and reflect on their identity (Pedersen, 2004; Rofe, 2013). Or in other words, a top-down approach was used to forge a new regional identity among the local population. Therkelsen & Halkier (2008) argue that access to resources is crucial to be able to function. Resources such as authority, finance, organization and information are intimately linked to the capacity of the organization to influence other actors.
The bottom-up approachnecessitates the support of the actual inhabitants in the entire place branding process. It is not only important how a branding organization wants the brand to be understood, but also how the brand is perceived in reality by the locals. Valuable is what people believe about a brand – their thoughts, feelings and expectations based on experiences, impressions and perceptions of the functional, emotional and symbolic benefits of the brand (Kaplan et al., 2010). It is crucial that people communicate as ambassadors of their own rural area. In this perspective, the locals “live the brand”. In other words, if residents do not feel positively connected with a brand, do not recognize their place of living within the brand or do not identify themselves with the brand, the brand will not last long. An example of a homegrown identity is the Norwegian village Fjærland (300 inhabitants), which is cultivating its image as a book mecca (Vik & Villa, 2010).
The previous paragraphs illustrate that rural areas in general struggle to increase awareness for the life qualities and the opportunities that they represent. Yet, the individual area or village is under permanent resource pressure and hardly able to create a permanent change of identity without including the majority of the inhabitants and enterprises as well as external stakeholders. In this line, a third approach to rural branding can be recognized: the horizontal approach, which is characterized by cross-sector coordination as well as cross-geographical logic. Pedersen (2004) argues that it is important to ensure the support of people who are at the beginning of the branding process and already influential members of the cultural or political life. Potentially, this means that a broad range of actors from political, administrative, commercial, and cultural fields should be included in the branding process. Therefore, rural branding should not only include political representatives from local governments, but also representatives from the cultural, tourism and trade fields next to other local and regional bodies. In other words, branding calls for a specific understanding of all layers of civil and business life. Place branding works as an umbrella for a wide range of functional activities taking place in inter-organizationalrelations between promotional bodies in different sectors (Therkelsen & Halkier, 2008). In turn, this also means that place branding can be seen as a mechanism of horizontal participation.
This literature review illustrates that there is increasing research with an emphasis on place branding, but that rural areas and villages per se are included on a very marginal basis. Rural areas are seen as attached to larger regions, where their specific identities and the contributions of the population to the branding process are largely neglected. There is a significant need for more comprehensive attention to the motivations, measures and methodologies of rural branding. The empirical work in this article represents one step in this direction.
(source: Virtual Rural Area, European co-operation project: http://www.vitalruralarea.eu/