Regional Culture in the Market Place: Place Branding and Product Branding as Cultural Exchange

Abstract

In the modern consumer economy, the intangible or symbolic qualities of a product play a decisive role in its success or otherwise in the market place. Moreover, this applies to places as well as to physical products. This in turn poses a key research question—how can regions establish and maintain their distinctiveness in an ever more globalized and standardized world? Employing empirical data from the 6th framework project CURE, we observe three European regions (Györ, Styria and Wales) as taking different paths in response to comparable challenges that are economic but more specifically in relation to issues of branding and image. The rationale for this paper is then to investigate one of these regions in some detail—the case of Wales—in order to explore how the interaction between regional products and cultural manifestations of regional identity can play out in a specific European region (or nation in this case). We then speculate on the generalizability of these findings and suggest an agenda for further research.

Notes

It has, however, been argued that as GIs essentially confer legal monopoly rights on local producers, they are actually to a certain extent incompatible with the idea of a common market and the interests of the consumer more generally (Rovamo, 2006).

Research from the Economic and Social Science Research Council has revealed that some 21% of a survey sample saw themselves as just Welsh, up from 17% in 1997. Around 27% saw themselves as more Welsh than British, 29% felt equally Welsh and British and 17% felt either more British than Welsh or completely British. Significantly, it was among the youngest people that the largest “mainly Welsh” answers were found (Devolution and Constitutional Change Programme, 2006).

This is what Checkland (1981) called the Upas Tree effect where a single dominant heavy industry effectively “cast a shadow” over the growth of the “flora” of small local enterprise and entrepreneurship. In the Welsh case, it can be argued that the long-term effects of this were exacerbated by the nationalization (i.e. taking into state ownership) of the coal and steel industries during the immediate post-war period, which in turn effectively placed the economic fate of large numbers of the population into the hands of the state, a mentality that often persists after the demise of the industries themselves.

McCrone et al. (1995, p. 5) have examined the making of Scottish heritage and discussed how the landscape of that country is a cultural product, greatly influenced by the nineteenth-century aristocratic cultural representations of Scottish landscape.

It is likely that within the relatively near future, European law will be made consistent in this area, meaning that any direct shirt sponsorship from producers of alcoholic drinks will not be possible. This is already the case for international football.

For those unfamiliar with it, “brains and brawn” is an English language colloquialism, essentially referring to the combination of intelligence (i.e. brains) and physical strength (brawn).

This individual has subsequently been retained as a non-executive director. Interestingly, an alternative design which could be described as “faux-Celtic” was briefly used for selected limited-edition products; this was seriously mismatched with other aspects of the brand image, and its use was short-lived.

It is significant, in the light of the history of the Welsh Development Agency, Wales Tourist Board and WAG itself as described above, that the director of the now integrated WAG marketing department has come from a career background within the WTB rather than from that within the WDA.