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Developing a city brand balance sheet – Using the case of Horsens, Denmark

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Abstract

After a traditional brand campaign was aborted in the late 1980s, the Danish city Horsens has, over a 10-year period, been able to change its negative image of a city dominated by a prison, to one representing culture, large events and concerts, which has been documented in annual analyses of unaided top-of-mind knowledge among people living in Denmark outside Horsens. The process was initiated by the city council and is founded on close cooperation between politicians, the municipality, private businesses and volunteers, and the project has been financed by a combination of taxpayer money and private funding. The Horsens case makes it evident that investors in the city brand process (in Horsens, the town council and private companies) act as shareholders and that there is a need for a more developed understanding of brand equity as a return on investment. The author introduces a new model for a city brand balance sheet to describe brand equity from a shareholder perspective, including return on investment with focus on impact in relation to tangible and intangible assets inside as well as outside the city.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr Sebastian Zenker, University of Hamburg, Dr Mihalis Kavaratzis, University of Leicester and Prof. Søren Askegaard, University of Southern Denmark for inspiration and valuable comments on an earlier draft of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Næsset 2, 8700 Horsens, Denmark

    Ole Have Jørgensen

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  1. Ole Have Jørgensen
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Correspondence to Ole Have Jørgensen.

Additional information

1served as CEO in Horsens 1989–2007. He holds a Masters Degree in Biology from Aarhus University and a Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from Copenhagen Business School. His present research interest is urban governance, impact of city branding in relation to urban governance and the involvement of citizens and volunteers in city planning. Earlier papers have been on, for example, bird migration and biology, chemical residues in bird eggs, water quality planning and development of management.

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Jørgensen, O. Developing a city brand balance sheet – Using the case of Horsens, Denmark. Place Brand Public Dipl 11, 148–160 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/pb.2014.16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/pb.2014.16

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