The relationship between place branding and environmental communication: The symbolic management of places through the use of brands

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate the way in which global contemporary society manages the meaning of place through the use of brands, which, as we understand it, leads to a coming together of place branding and environmental communication; this occurs primarily through a cognitive, humanistic and rhetorical interpretation of the transformational process that converts geographical space into a brand. Furthermore, the article will outline some of the possibilities for analysing the phenomenological dimension of place branding (human–environment relationships) from the perspective of the multidimensional nature of the subjective experience of places.