THE MORE, THE BETTER TOWARDS A HOLISTIC ASSESSMENT OF CITY BRAND PERSONALITY AND IMAGE

Framing of the research. City brand image and city brand personality are the two common facets of city brand equity, the latter being an emerging field of inquiry within the broader context of place branding. Purpose of the paper. Through the systematic critical assessment of related literature, we argue for the insufficiency of both brand personality and brand image constructs in their application to such a complex, multifaceted reality as a city. Accordingly, the paper’s goal is threefold. First, we theorize a new construct, the city brand personality/image dyad. We adopt a systemic perspective to advocate for the construct’s greater usefulness and explanatory power. Second, we showcase a possible way of quantifying the perceived dimensions of a construct through exploratory statistical analysis of lexical information mined from specific city-related internet forums (subreddits). Finally, we suggest a methodological framework for measuring the projected facets of the construct and the implications of the discrepancy between the projected and perceived city brand personality/image dyad. Methodology. Thematic synthesis of scholarly documents systematically included for the review is performed in the first part of the paper. Next, we perform a principal component analysis complemented by agglomerative hierarchical clustering to measure the perceived city brand personality/image dyad of big successful cities. The sampling is purposeful and is based on the well-known Resonance Consultancy Best Cities ranking. Results. Four potential successful city brand types are identified, of which three currently exist. The fourth type, a highly permanent city with a touristic appeal, remains a theoretical possibility. Research limitations. The main limitations are the non-random sampling of cities, unclear valence, and the dualistic (either/or) nature of the proposed city brand taxonomy. Managerial implications. Local administration and city managers can use our classification to shape their city communication and city branding efforts more efficiently. Moreover, suggested methodologies may be adapted to successfully measure and realign the projected and perceived facets of any existing city brand. Originality of the paper. Compared to both city brand personality and image, the city brand personality/image dyad accounts for the greater complexity of a city brand; thus, it is far more valuable for a comprehensive understanding of city brand equity.