Rural place branding processes: actor engagement in service ecosystems

Purpose: The place branding process in cities and tourism destinations is usually steered by a central organization but in rural places, a focal actor often does not exist. The purpose of this paper is to identify which approaches to place branding processes are applied in different rural places. This is done by seeing the place branding process as a service ecosystem with focus on actor engagement. Design/methodology/approach: A theoretical framework based on the concepts of service ecosystems and actor engagement is developed. This is then applied to analyse qualitative data collected through semi-structure interviews with participants from several Danish rural places. Findings: The authors identify four different types of rural place branding processes along three dimensions: existence and type of a focal actor; type, extent and temporal properties of other actor groups’ engagement; and organization of the process, including its formalization, centralization and strategic focus. Type 1 is a highly formalized, centralized and strategically driven process under the leadership of a public authority. The other types are community-based approaches. Type 2 is formalized, centralized and strategically driven process. Type 3 is less formalized but also centralized and strategically focused. Type 4 is a non-formalized, decentralized process with ad hoc initiatives. Originality/value: This paper applies a service marketing-based framework to analyse qualitative empirical data from different cases of rural places and identify different place branding processes.