Expert stakeholders’ expectations of how the public sector should act in place branding projects

Abstract

Purpose A place brand is a public instrument for territorial development that needs a strategic design that is made by the public sector with the support of experts. To ensure that this design has the greatest chances, there should be an alignment between them regarding how the public sector should act when designing the place brand. This study aims to analyze the alignment and polarization among experts regarding this topic and whether experts with different place brand visions show different expectations in the public sector. Design/methodology/approach A Web survey was conducted using a sample (n = 260) of four types of experts (politicians, scholars, public managers and consultants) in Latin America and Spain. Findings First, there is high agreement that the public sector should have an active role and an open attitude to establish relationships with the private and voluntary sectors. This favors the dialogue among brand creators and generates a shared vision. Second, there is an elevated alignment with regards to which roles the public sector should play, independently of experts’ place brand visions. Finally, four aspects derived from the four place brand visions are detected that can favor different final approaches regarding the place brand strategic design. Research limitations/implications The study has been performed in Latin America and Spain. Other studies in other areas can complete the previous results. Originality/value The results show how experts perceive the desirables behaviors from the public sector, which is a missing topic in place brand literature.