{"title":"Embracing the potential of ambiguous place brands: Illustrations from the Wild Atlantic Way","authors":"Lisa O’Malley, Maria Lichrou, Maurice Patterson","doi":"10.1177/14705931241272819","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This paper argues that a capacity to embrace ambiguity allows market actors to accommodate the symbolic, dialectical and dynamic nature of place brands. Using the Wild Atlantic Way as an illustration, the paper considers how this brand is appropriated by diverse actors to create value through place performances and experiences. Brands can embody tourism imaginaries and are part of the cultural media for creating and circulating place meanings. When brands are mobilised in ways that result in convergent or coherent meanings, the result is a living brand, accommodating an evolving sense of place. The paper contends that the ambiguity of place branding is manifest in the spaces in-between materiality and discourse, reality and imagination, object and experience, concept and performance.","PeriodicalId":48020,"journal":{"name":"Marketing Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Marketing Theory","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14705931241272819","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BUSINESS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This paper argues that a capacity to embrace ambiguity allows market actors to accommodate the symbolic, dialectical and dynamic nature of place brands. Using the Wild Atlantic Way as an illustration, the paper considers how this brand is appropriated by diverse actors to create value through place performances and experiences. Brands can embody tourism imaginaries and are part of the cultural media for creating and circulating place meanings. When brands are mobilised in ways that result in convergent or coherent meanings, the result is a living brand, accommodating an evolving sense of place. The paper contends that the ambiguity of place branding is manifest in the spaces in-between materiality and discourse, reality and imagination, object and experience, concept and performance.
期刊介绍:
Marketing Theory provides a fully peer reviewed specialised academic medium and main reference for the development and dissemination of alternative and critical perspectives on marketing theory. A growing number of researchers and management practitioners who believe that conventional marketing theory is often ill suited to the challenges of the modern business environment. The aim of Marketing Theory is to create a high quality, specialist outlet for management and social scientists who are committed to developing and reformulating marketing as an academic discipline by critically analysing existing theory. The journal promotes an ethos that is explicitly theory driven; international in scope and vision; open, reflexive, imaginative and critical; and interdisciplinary.