Karolina Janiszewska

Poznań University of Economics

Poland

k.janiszewska@ue.poznan.pl

The Strategic Importance of Consumer Insight in Defining Place Brand Identity and Positioning

Received:

September, 2013

1st Revision:

October, 2013

Accepted:

November, 2013

DOI:

10.14254/2071-

8330.2013/6-2/1

Abstract. Place or destination branding has become a very popular approach to manage and foster development of cities, regions and countries. To make the process more efficient, it is necessary to define the basis of place brands properly. One of the key elements in defining brand identity is consumer insight, which has become more popular recently. The main prerequisites of consumer insight importance are dynamic changes in consumers’ needs and behaviors, which determines their decisions. Segmentation process based on demographic data in context of postmodernism is not sufficient any more to differentiate the brand. Looking for competitive advantage, brand managers more often focus on consumer behavior, attitude, values, needs and expectations.

The competitive environment of place management causes that this tendencies also should be taken into consideration in place brand creation. In the paper the author indicates the complexity and multilevel character of defining consumer insight in place

brand context. Based on research (IDI and ethnographic research) the paper presents possibilities and limitations of marketing research implementation in the process of defining consumer insight. On Poznań agglomeration case study and research stakeholders insight was formulated. Simultaneously, the author points out strategic meaning of consumer insight in place brand management process.

Keywords: Consumer insight, marketing research, place brand identity, place brand positioning .

JEL classifi cation: D10, M39.