Is Place Branding Exclusively Urban? Asymmetries in Brazilian Research
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.49(2026).6814Keywords:
place brand, city brand, public policy, urban-rural, brandingAbstract
This study examines Brazilian scholarly production on place branding across territorial scales — urban, rural, and regional. It is grounded in a theoretical perspective that frames place branding as a multi-sectoral public policy, closely connected to governance, urban planning, and stakeholder management, and implemented through strategically oriented communication. The concept of a “place brand” extends beyond a set of promotional initiatives for a given territory, representing instead an institutional arrangement that relies on the coordination of multiple public policies and the relational capacity of diverse actors. The research corpus comprises publications from 2005 to 2025, drawn from both Brazilian and international databases. The findings reveal a predominance of studies focused on large cities — particularly capitals — where institutional capacity is greatest. Finally, the article proposes the development of a quantitative measure for place branding, termed the “multi-sector index”, designed to comparatively evaluate the degree of integration among public policies that support the territorial narrative.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Rodrigo Maurício Freire Soares
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