INTEREST CATEGORY: MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
POSTING TYPE: Revisits

Author: Pantea Foroudi

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Call for papers for a special issue on:

PLACE IDENTITY/BRANDING, REPUTATION AND E-MARKETING:

Solutions during and after global pandemic crisis

Corporate Reputation Review

PANTEA FOROUDI – The Business School, Middlesex University London, UK.

Description of the special issue topic

Developments in e-marketing and social media are important opportunities for managers and policy makers to be constantly communicating place identity to customers, consumers and stakeholders. The creation of place identity is difficult for countries and can come to encompass the entire place reputation. The topic of destination marketing and image has attracted considerable interest during the last two decades. The literature identifies several antecedents as well as other important constructs such tourist loyalty, motivation, place identity, satisfaction, and intention to revisit. Indeed, international place tourism has become a topic of increasing interest due to globalisation. This has led destination or place marketers to offer differentiating value in order to attract, maintain or increase market share, and encourage tourists or indeed foreign direct investment. Intensified research into place/destination marketing has led stakeholders such as investors, governments, traders, and marketers, even settlers, to use this concept to their advantage in achieving competitive strength in the market and generate significant value both for the country and themselves.

Place identity is one potential path for managing the perceptions of a place among stakeholders and it can be transmitted via social media. Social Media and e-Marketing have become leading communication tools for disparate organisations and businesses. The social-media environment is a further challenge for companies in the form of increasing transparency and consumer empowerment. It is argued that social media has an effect on how people evaluate companies, places, and also how they may bring multiple stakeholder groups together and make them visible (Ageeva and Foroudi, 2019; Hafeez et al., 2016; Foroudi et al., 2018; 2020; Palazzo et al., 2018).

Recently, countries have had to adapt their place identity, profile and image management to the new media environment due to the dramatic changes in technology. Place identities are also facing interesting challenges and opportunities from the technological and social developments in the form of co-creation and co-destruction. However, research on social media and e-marketing has not directly addressed the concept of place identity yet. Also, the academic research articles illustrate the lack of study on media-specific contexts such as social media in building and managing the same (e.g., Foroudi et al., 2020).

This Special Issue aims to illustrate and critique the methods by which international firms apply place identity/branding theories to the creation of place identity in order to successfully acquire and retain customers with an aim to increasing profitability and planning future growth. The  special issue may serve  to initiate debate on this topic  The issue also  addresses the question as to which factors prevent customers from associating with a place/brand identity that has been able to successfully to attract customers in its domestic market.

The special issue, ‘Place Identity/Branding, Image, reputation and e-Marketing: Theory and Practice’ also aims to scrutinise models, approaches, methods, approaches, tools, projects and case studies that contribute to explain the role and significance of place identity, image, reputation, and e-marketing as a value-driver in retailing and tourism and hospitality sectors.

Schedule

Stage	Time
Paper submission	Sep 2020 – Nov 2020
Reviewing process and revision submission	July 2021
Production process (online publication)	Sep 2021
Total	1 Year