A Study of the Typology of the Semantic Structure of City Brands:

Toward Building a New Brand Strategy in the Age of Related Populations

Abstract

Local cities suffering from population decline are required to restructure their brand strategies in order to foster a relationship with people. Many of the underlying brand power indicators are suitable for grasping the relative position of a city, but it is difficult to grasp the semantic structure that leads to a brand story that attracts people. In this study, in order to solve this problem, we conducted a survey of behavioral intentions and semantic structures for cities and performed the following analysis. First, we indexed the behavioral intention for the city by including the concept of the related population in the conventional city brand index. Three behavioral intentions (living, experience, and contributing factors) were derived in the factor analysis. Next, a hierarchical cluster analysis was performed from the average scores for the three factors, and the image association of the city was categorized into four types, which were named as “rich story type”, “unique story type”, “commodity story type”, and “non-story type”. Finally, the characteristics of the semantic structure in each cluster were examined from the three viewpoints of “the number of words”, “the meaning of words”, and “the structure of meaning and context”, and strategic suggestions are presented. In the research outlook we discuss ways to enhance external validity and branding effectiveness.