Media Strategies for Marketing Places in Crisis

Eli Avraham, Eran Ketter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136378409
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Growing competition between countries and cities over attracting infrastructure, investment, tourists, capital and national and international status mean that today, a negative image is more harmful than ever. Whatever the cause of the negative image, places perceived as dangerous, frightening, or boring are at a distinct disadvantage. Many decision makers and marketers stand by helplessly, frustrated by their knowledge that in most cases, their city's negative image is not based on well-grounded facts. Given that stereotypes are not easily changed or dismissed, the challenge facing these decision makers is great. Analyses of many case studies show interesting examples of places that tried to change a negative image into a positive one, in order to bringing back tourists, investors and residents. Although a great deal of knowledge about crisis communications has accumulated in recent years, very little has been written about strategies to improve places' negative images. The aim of "Media Strategies for Marketing Places in Crisis" is to discuss the various dimensions of an image crisis and different strategies to overcome it, both in practice and theory. "Media Strategies for Marketing Places in Crisis" is based on the careful analysis of dozens of case studies, advertisements, public relations campaigns, press releases, academic articles, news articles, and the websites of cities, countries and tourist destinations.

Part One Marketing Places, Media Campaign and Crisis Management

The first five chapters of this book, which constitute Part One, outline the concepts related to marketing places during image crises. Chapter 1 introduces and sets out in detail the field of place marketing. Chapter 2 discusses a place’s image with the public and in the media and suggests ways to measure it by discussing types of images, means of measuring them, constructing images, levels of analysis and other such concepts. Chapter 3 analyzes campaign management, image management and the relevant factors involved in the place marketing process. This chapter also shows the link between place vision and place marketing, possible directions for place branding and ways of constructing public relations and an advertising campaign’s strategies. Chapter 4 discusses the different aspects of consumer behavior and Chapter 5 summarizes present knowledge in crisis management and crisis communication management. An overview of the accumulated knowledge in the fields presented in Part One should furnish the reader with an understanding of our model for marketing places and the ability to implement it in an image crisis, as suggested in Part Two.

1 Introduction to place marketing and branding

DOI: 10.4324/9780080557076-2

Place marketing is a vast subject, and this introduction can highlight only some of its central concepts. Place marketing has become very popular since the early 1990s, in individual countries and internationally (Codato and Franco, 2006). On the latter level globalization has gained strength, with concomitant enlargement of transfers of investments, capital, human resources, knowledge and goods; the number of countries taking part in the global economy and global tourism is increasing, accompanied by a parallel process whereby worldwide transportation and communication have grown speedier, easier and cheaper. The barriers between East and West are fading and demand for international tourism is rising. On the national level, the need for place marketing has increased due to several factors such as smaller government budgets for local municipalities, greater relative independence of mayors and heads of local municipalities, residents’ increasing concern for and involvement in their local quality of life and local governance and rising awareness among mayors and local leaders of place image and place marketing and their fundamental effect on different aspects of the place (Avraham, 2003a; Felsenstein, 1994; Hason, 1996).

These developments have created a climate of competition among different places around the globe for national and international status and for high-class residents, tourists, conventions, sporting events, entrepreneurs, investors, industries, businesses and global capital. For example, today Glasgow does not compete just with British cities such as Manchester or York, but with other cities worldwide, trying to win international tourism. Global competition for tourism and investment has always existed, but today visiting foreign parts or investing abroad is much simpler, cheaper and safer. Knowing this, more and more local and national leaders have become proactive in enhancing their place’s attractiveness and improving its competitive edge. In many cities and countries, certain steps and changes have been implemented, the better to attract investors, entrepreneurs and immigrants. In addition to changes in the regulation of the economy and finance systems, efforts have been invested in the place’s image because of its fundamental importance and contribution to its competitiveness. Confirmation of this process can be found in the work of Ashworth and Voogd (1990), who noted that “The perception of cities, and the mental image held of them, became active components of economic success or failure” (p. 3). Leaders of countries, regions and cities realize that a positive place image, combined with a successful marketing mix, is a powerful tool in competing for resources and other finance-related activities. A place’s management patterns have been changed for the better by the significant elements of advertising, public relations, direct marketing and sales promotion (Felsenstein, 1994; Kotler et al., 1999a).

To improve the place’s image, decision makers have to choose a suitable “package” for marketing the place competitively. The complexity of the process requires that this packaging be under the guidance of strategic marketing professionals. A proper package can ensure the place’s economic vigor, reduction in its unemployment, growth in income from tax and other local activities, improvement of local services and infrastructure and residents’ greater satisfaction with the authorities (Dunn et al., 1995; Felsenstein, 1994; Gold, 1980; Gold and Ward, 1994; Hason, 1996; Kotler et al., 1993, 1999a; Paddison, 1993; Pocock and Hudson, 1978).

Felsenstein (1994) identifies four economic strategies that can be used by local authorities:

1. Developing local economy by attracting large-scale industries;
2. Attracting small-scale businesses in the fields of private or public services;
3. Lobbying for national budgets;
4. Encouraging local businesses to expand their activities.

All these strategies have proven beneficial, but the following discussion will focus on the first two only, as they are the most relevant to our topic. Steps to implement them include incentives, tax benefits, loans and grants, improvement of infrastructure, opening new attractions and preparing land for development. All these measures are adopted to guarantee employment, economic comfort and high living standards for local residents. According to Felsenstein (1995), faulty development of a local economy results from an imbalance in the dual task that it requires: planning (changing physical and demographic aspects of the local market) and marketing (changing the local economy through advertising campaigns and attracting business and investors). Good planning for local economic development identifies problems, goals and objectives and proposes ways of action and viable alternatives. Good marketing identifies target markets and shapes techniques and strategies for place advertising and promotion. According to Felsenstein, officials responsible for local economic development spend too much time on marketing and not enough on planning because the former has a high public profile and great political importance and is an important tool to win favorable public opinion about the work of the local economic development department. Planning is a longer-term and more in-depth process, needing elaborate economic and architectural models; it takes place far from the public eye and its outcome will become generally known only several years later (by which time the current head of the local economical development department may well have moved on).

Definitions for place marketing

The conceptual foundation of place marketing lies in marketing theories, primarily the marketing-mix approach (Olsson and Bergland, 2006). Although place marketing has existed since colonial times, when colonial governments tried to persuade people to move to the newly conquered territories (Gold, 1994), the concept of “place marketing” (which some label “place promotion” or “city management”) became popular in European urban literature only during the 1980s and a little earlier in the United States (Paddison, 1993). “Place marketing” has many different definitions in the literature; for example, according to Gold and Ward (1994), “…Place promotion [is] defined as the conscious use of publicity and marketing to communicate selective images of specific geographical localities or areas to a target audience…” (p. 2). This definition singles out the use of choice and desirable images in the marketing process and the active role of the target audience in accepting the marketing plan. Existing traits or components are selected and highlighted to make the place more attractive for this specific audience. However, this selectiveness means ignoring or even hiding some of the place’s negative characteristics.

One very popular definition can be found in Short et al. (2000): “Place promotion involves the re-evaluation and re-presentation of place to create and market a new image for localities to enhance their competitive position in attracting or retaining resources” (p. 318). This definition describes the process of marketing a new place image as a means to preserve and draw on various resources. Ashworth and Voogd (1990) lay similar emphasis on resources, suggesting that place marketing is a process in which urban activities are adjusted to the needs of the target audience to maximize the place’s socioeconomic functioning. European researchers (van den Berg et al., as cited in Paddison, 1993) emphasize in their definitions the promotion of various aspects of comfort and economic development in the marketed area, which satisfy the requirements of residents, investors and visitors, in what has been referred to as “the harmonious city.” These researchers believe that promoting such aspects helps places compete with other places and remain in respectable positions in the international or urban hierarchy; they likewise focus on the need to work on the place’s physical appearance as the key to a successful new marketing campaign. In any event, place marketing can be seen as a “refreshing” of urban or national identity or as the creation of new forms of identity (Dunn et al., 1995).

Studies in place marketing are based on two theoretical approaches: one connects place marketing and political economy, noting the transformation of a place’s local government and the involvement of the business community in developing its economy; the other concentrates on the success of various marketing strategies (see list in Bradley et al., 2002; Short and Kim, 1993). Yet all the different definitions indicate that place marketing is a long and complicated process. Local decision makers, especially in cities, are concerned that launching a place marketing campaign is tantamount to admitting the existence of a problem in the way the place is managed. Local leaders are concerned that once a campaign is mounted questions might be asked, such as “What has been done so far to prevent the formation of the negative image?,” “How blameworthy are the local authorities for the place’s negative image?” or “Why should money needed for much more important goals be spent on costly advertising?” Such questions might discourage some local decision makers, generating a vicious cycle in which the place’s negative image becomes worse, and no leader is willing to assume the responsibility of facing this challenge. Whatever the case might be, many researchers point to the difficulties and complexity of the place marketing process and the many variables involved in the process.

Nielsen (2001) refers to “place promotion,” stressing the difficulty of the task especially in conditions of an image-related crisis: “Promoting a destination in normal circumstances is a difficult task, but promoting a destination that faces tourism challenges – whether from negative press, or from infrastructure damage caused by natural disasters or man-made disasters – is an altogether more arduous task” (pp. 207–208). In such circumstances, places have to tackle both the physical crisis in services and infrastructure and the intangible damage suffered by the place’s image, a process that might take several years. In this book we address this complexity and the way different countries, cities and tourist destinations manage to overcome them.

Place marketing as social-public marketing

The set of tools used in place marketing originates in several disciplines. The three foremost of these are product marketing, marketing of services in the private sector and social-public marketing, each contributing its own techniques, methods, tools and concepts. As for which is the most suitable for marketing places, we believe that place marketing is mainly a social-public enterprise (“civic boosterism”). Still, it is firmly supported by the other two disciplines, especially in marketing tourist destinations, which is based more on services marketing.

Properly combining the definitions and methods of the three disciplines is not always easy. While the private sector defines financial profit as the desired outcome of the marketing process, the public sector is hard-pressed to define such clear and explicit goals, an obstacle that further impedes the marketing process. Another complexity in social-public marketing is that the simple motif of “Buy X and get Y” does not work in this case and the marketing process has to be more abstract and sophisticated (Gold and Ward, 1994). Lastly, cities and countries are not as flexible as products in the private sector; their construction takes a long time and their marketing focuses on long-term services rather than on short-term prerequisites. Note that place marketing embodies an inner conflict of sorts. It has a certain aspect of public policy – promoting a public product carrying a social benefit; but it is also affected by the free-market principle: a place must compete with other places, create business opportunities and use methods taken from the business field (Gold and Ward, 1994).

To resolve these complications a set of basic guidelines is needed. For social-public marketing to succeed, local decision makers must act democratically, not in an elitist or patronizing way; they have to cooperate in the process with the place’s residents and other local players; the marketing plan should not be imposed on the market as a top-down decision but evolve bottom-up; and it should be based on the benefit to the general public rather than to the decision makers or their narrow interests. These guidelines apply not only to the actual marketing, but to processes such as decision-making, strategic planning, creating place vision, defining goals and choosing target audience to attract (e.g., residents, tourists, industry, investors, conventions). From accumulated experience in the field, every decision is highly important and involves many debates and clashes due to its possible future effect on the place (Paddison, 1993). For example, a decision taken in a certain city or state in the United States to attract new residents who traditionally tend to vote Democrat might change the place’s political balance. Local Republican decision makers therefore may well oppose such a marketing plan. Skinner and Gould (2006) illustrate a similar situation with the difficulties faced by the marketers of Northern Ireland when trying to define the country’s national identity in order to promote it. In this controversy, each ethnic group tries to market Northern Ireland differently, representing its own perception of the country.

Although each place marketing campaign is aimed at one target audience, places commonly launch several campaigns simultaneously, trying to improve their image among several target audiences such as potential residents, investors, exporters, importers, firms, industrialists, visitors from other cities and tourists from abroad. The place’s image can be improved to suit each target audience, and the common marketing goals are to m...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Table Of Contents
• Media Strategies for Marketing Places in Crisis
• Media Strategies for Marketing Places in Crisis
• Acknowledgments
• List of figures
• List of advertisements
• Introduction
• Part One Marketing Places, Media Campaign and Crisis Management
• 1 Introduction to place marketing and branding
• 2 Public images and media images of places
• 3 Image management and campaign
• 4 Consumer behavior
• 5 Crisis and communication management
• Part Two From Theory to Practice
• 6 Preliminary analysis: crisis, audience and place characteristics (CAP)
• 7 Source strategies
• 8 Message-focused strategies
• 9 Media strategies focused on the target audience
• 10 The multi-step model for altering place image
• Final observations and lessons
• References
• Index