ABSTRACT
The communicative practices denoted by the phrase place branding do not comprise a unitary class of phenomena. Whatever unity such phenomena appear to have derived mainly from the genre characteristics of certain promotional discourses, which—once borrowed from branding techniques for other products and services—can be applied to places too. Ironically enough, and by contrast, the actual communicative practices that unfold around and through this genre exhibit limitlessly many kinds of variation and defeasibility. Place branding is but one discourse genre among countlessly many others that unfold within—and produce representations of—places where people live. Place-branding projects are less about places than about the hopes and aspirations of people linked to places. All brand formulations are socially consequential only insofar as, and as long as, they are susceptible to uptake and response by others. When no one pays attention, the zeroing of uptake effectively amounts to brand death.
