The crisis and media strategies for marketing places – Part One

The current literature, like Avraham & Ketter (2008) and White (2006), offers an extensive discourse in the field of crisis in general and the role of the media during crisis in particular. This contribution, to the “crisis demands” discussion, explores the various dimensions of a place image crisis, such as countries, regions and cities and different strategies to overcome it, from the place marketing perspective. Following the discussion of place marketing, place image and consumer behaviour, different aspects of crises and ways of handling will be considered.

The growing competition between countries and cities over attracting investment, tourists, capital and national and international status means that, today, a negative image is more harmful than ever. Countries, regions and cities intensified the competition for attention, influence, markets, investments, businesses, high-class residents, tourists, conventions, sporting events and entrepreneurs. But, this global competition is no longer limited to the leading countries, or big cities. With technological advances and market deregulations, even small places can compete in the world wide arena. The competitors are now global. For example, today, we assist the rising of the Asiatic Continent, especially East Asia, as the most dynamic geographic area of the planet. As we have seen as some players fall, other economic and social actors’ emerge. The economic and financial crisis had a drastic impact on the reduction of trade flows. However, it is also expected to have a medium-term impact in the flows of people. Such aspect is a challenge to countries, regions and cities. They compete globally all the time to attract investment, new economies, companies and human capital. We observe a new balance of powers in the world economy, and this will affect migration patterns, the world tourism and the place image. Consequently, place competition asks for long-term strategies in organizations’, decision making, marketing and media strategies.

In the United States (US) the place marketing model was developed during the 70s crisis. In that period, places, such as the major cities, like New York, experienced the migration of industries to cheaper markets. The same problem occurs today in many countries, such as Portugal. In that context, the first measure of places was to launch tax incentives to attract investments. Today, the places use a variety of other strategies. This is similar to the development in the US and Europe.

Note: This post was written by Eduardo Oliveira, one of the participants of the 13th World Business Dialogue. He has a degree in Geography, a post-graduation in Tourism from the Portuguese Catholic University and is a Marketing Master Student at the University of Minho, Portugal. He has been working as a research assistant in the School of Economics and Management of University of Minho.  He develops a blog about marketing research and networks which you can find under New World Research.