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(Re)branding Amman: A ‘lived’ city's values, image and identity

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Abstract

By addressing two separate branding exercises for Amman, Jordan, we investigate the links between the city's image and the visual image of its brand. We build on previous research by proposing a theoretical framework that combines city branding, Canter's theory of place and Kevin Lynch's Image of the City. We test this theoretical framework by contrasting the development of Amman's city brand in 2002 and its rebranding exercise in 2009. We address, first, how Amman's brand(s) and image(s) are linked, and second, how the city brand and its image influence and are influenced by the values Ammanis ascribe to their city. We find that while it incorporated intensive promotional campaigns and place-making interventions, the 2002 branding exercise excluded the residents of Amman; the ensuing brand image therefore failed to correspond to the residents’ perceived values of Amman. Conversely, Amman's 2009 branding exercise aspired for an inclusive process (‘inward branding’), which allowed the new brand and its ensuing image to be ‘lived’ by and to ‘enliven’ Ammanis. We thus trace how Amman's 2009 branding effort achieved more success among residents than the multidimensional branding exercise of 2002 simply by capturing the intricacies between residents’ affective perceptions and the new brand image.

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Notes

  1. The Jordan Museum, which in 2001 was estimated to cost US$17.5 million, has not yet opened its doors to the public (The Jordan Museum, 2012).

  2. In fact, these horseshoe arches are a Roman, not Islamic, architectural motif (Sear, 1982)

  3. Similar to the complaints of most business owners in many a downtown core around the world, these downtown merchants were complaining that the primary cause of decline in the economic activity in downtown Amman is attributed to Ammanis shying away from going to the downtown owing to the lack of parking (Focus group with downtown merchants, 12 December 2010).

  4. Ninety per cent of the sample in Khirfan's (2004) study said they liked the older parts of Amman compared to only 3.3 per cent who did not like them (6.7 per cent remained neutral to them).

  5. A majority of Khirfan's (2004) sample (86.7 per cent) either agreed (20 per cent) or strongly agreed (66.7 per cent) that government agencies should spend more money on preserving the older parts of Amman.

  6. The authors of this article did not request access to these data and depended in the writing of this article on our own primary sources of data including interviews with the Syntax team on 21 December 2010.

  7. Abdali is a public-private mega-project in Amman.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Waterloo, Canada

    Luna Khirfan

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  1. Luna Khirfan
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  2. Bessma Momani
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Khirfan, L., Momani, B. (Re)branding Amman: A ‘lived’ city's values, image and identity. Place Brand Public Dipl 9, 49–65 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/pb.2013.1

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