Branding of a City in the 21st Century Coursework - 1

Branding of a City in the 21st Century - Coursework Example While the consumer's awareness of a brand, and the reasons for choosing an associated product may depend on various factors including peer reference, peer approval, or other social factors beyond the direct control of the brand's investor, the brand's marketing mix is definitely within the investor's control, and something that demands big budget investment. Therefore, investor's and researchers are always concerned about the actual effects and results of marketing components including advertisement, sales promotions, and company emblems - upon the consumer's perception and their consequence upon brand equity. In the last decade, a lot of research has been dedicated to conceptualizing and measuring customer-based brand equity. However, apart from putting forth various influencing factors, no integrative framework has so far been developed to account for the complex psychological processes underlying the formation of customer-based brand equity. This has strong implications as far as message processing and persuasion in tourism and city image is concerned. The modern day consumers' decision making as far a choice of a brand remains widely unquestioned as far as practical observations and research go. This is especially true of city branding whether it is for tourists or for possible settlers. There are a variety of models to conceptualize and measure "brand equity" in order to explain how brand equity is generated in the consumer's mind in terms of images of cities. These models consist of a thorough analysis of each factor that influences the decision making process as well as several synoptic approaches examining the influence of different variables on brand equity are available (Kotler, 1997 , p. 443). This promotes a deeper understanding of the elements of brand identity for cities as this is a fairly new phenomenon that has sprung from the advent of globalization. The elements of the brand equity in this regard have been studied from the perspective of case studies so as to understand the perception management elements that go in to creating an image for a city. (Kaplanidou et al, 2003) Brand Identity is that element of perception management and awareness in a city's image, which has its focus in the results of a