Place brand identity: An exploratory analysis of three deep south states

Place branding and marketing are becoming key governance strategies that can increase governance legitimacy by meaningfully involving local stakeholder groups within the brand identity creation process. There remains a gap in knowledge regarding how place branding managers seek to involve stakeholders in the brand development, communication, and evaluation process. This research, based in three U.S. Deep South states and using Kavaratzis and Hatchʼs (2013) brand identity framework, finds that practitioners are doing well when it comes to expressing local beliefs within the brand identity, but can improve when it comes to analyzing and incorporating that feedback meaningfully. Without this, critical local stakeholders can feel alienated from local governance practices, thus decreasing legitimacy in branding and marketing processes and policies alike.