1. Prof. Jan van der Borg KU Leuven & University Ca’ Foscari of Venice
Co-branding trends in the city strategies in A context of creating hubs
Prof. Jan van der Borg
KU Leuven &
University Ca’ Foscari of Venice

2. THE CONTEXT
Cities all over the world are now fully immersed in attracting external investments, international visitors, mega-events and knowledge and creative human capital. They thereto strive to strengthen one (or more) images that their target groups seems to find attractive.
Image planning strategies have thus become essential instruments for cities that seek to thrive in the global economy.
Branding often stresses the unique aspects of city culture and of creativity: attractive urban images are promoted.
Moreover, the leading paradigm that cities tend to embrace is changing quite rapidly.

3. “Urban regimes (adapted from belligni and Ravazzi, 2012)
“The Fordist City”
“The City as an Engine of Growth” (EURICUR, 1987)
“The Polytechnic City” (creative cities, creative classes, innovation hubs, knowledge cities, …)
“The Pyrotechnic City” (“places to play” - Judd and Fainstein, 1999))
The Blue-Green City (The City as Engines of Sustainable Competitiveness, EURICUR, ; UNDP, 2017)
In reality, we are often dealing with mixes. In any case, the stakeholders tend to change continuously and the images cities want to promote differ between regimes.

4. URBAN Branding - SOME starting points
‘‘A Brand image is the current view of the customers about a brand. It signifies what the brand presently stands for. In addition, it is the overall impression in consumers’ mind that formed from all sources’’ (Vanolo 2008).
‘‘Places get to be real brands only when the visitors say these are distinctive as images’’ (Laundry & Bianchini 2008;
‘‘A brand is originally a mark of identity’’ (Unsworth 2008)
“A framework and toolkit for differentiating, focusing and organizing around the location’s competitive and distinctive identity.” (Baker 2012)
“Urban branding is not only limited to the promotion of a positive image of the city, but it extends more, to change it into an urban experience”
Co-branding could be either be attaching the branding strategy to national branding (Made in Italy), to regional branding (Trentino), or to local branding (New York).

5. (URBAN) hubs - A Fluid and Fuzzy Concept (Toivonen and Friederici, 2015)
1. Urban Hubs build collaborative communities with entrepreneurial individuals at the center: New entrants to a hub expect to find a sense of community. The entrants assume that within the hub community the spontaneous sharing of ideas and resources will flourish. A related expectation is that hubs should function on an egalitarian basis
2. Urban Hubs attract diverse members with heterogeneous knowledge: ’Strong belief that good things happen automtically when diverse people come together and collaborate. Hub members welcome diversity in a broad sense’
3. Urban Hubs facilitate creativity and collaboration in physical and digital space: Hubs are set up in metropolitan areas and possess striking stylistic similarities (‘Wooden furniture, large desks, brick walls, whiteboards, a football table, at least some artwork, shared kitchen spaces, a coffee bar, meeting rooms, and bean bags’)
4. Urban Hubs localize global entrepreneurial culture. Hubs view themselves as members of a decidedly global culture and their core (and shared) values are shaped by the “global social entrepreneurship movement” or the “startup revolution.”

6. ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS for place branding
1. Distinctiveness
2. Authenticity Authenticity in place branding is about people co-creating things that matter to them)
3. Memorability
4. Co-Creation Place branding is not a top-down exercise but will only produce results when it is supported by a strong form of governance, a strong coalition between government, business, civil society and target
5. Place Making Place branding is not about a good slogan, logo and nice promotional campaigns.

7. Co-branding
Co-Branding is a marketing strategy that involves strategic alliance of multiple brand names jointly used on single product o (Erevelles and Stevenson 2008)
Co-branding includes the presentation and offering of multiple brands and its products to consumers, but under a more defined single strategy and marketing plan.

8. Ten classical ingredients of urban branding
Iconic Buildings
Mega Events
Set for Movies and TV Series
Waterfront Development
Museums
City Lights
Urban Blue and Green
Innovation, Incubation and Education
Heritage
Creativeness

9. BottoM up approach
“The totality of thoughts, feelings, and expectations that people hold about a location. It’s the reputation and the enduring essence of a place and represents its distinctive promise of value, providing it with a competitive edge.” (Baker 2012)
“Local residents and workers have a significant role to play in the development of place brands” (Freire 2007)

10. Place branding: A New Chapter?
Sustainability is a term that is taking on an increasingly complex relevance.
Networks are essential for place (co)branding.
Fully integrating the concepts of “placemaking” or “place shaping” and “place marketing”.
Understanding and leveraging the brand hierarchy of your nation, region, city and place.
How to be a place brand in the digital age.
Are you yourself an effective advocate for your place brand to your citizens, to your enterpreneurs and to government?
Attracting and developing talent (knowmads) is being talked about more and more, and competition is very fierce.