A Study of the Relationship between City Branding and Event Content

도시 브랜딩과 이벤트 콘텐츠의 관계에 대한 연구

Abstract

In the age of global competition, city brand is a significant element for establishing a city's competitiveness. City branding is the process of building a storytelling about cities' content. Among the various contents that differentiate cities, this study seeks to discuss the role of an event and a city brand in the process of city branding based on the city marketing and event tourism literatures. This research uses grounded theory and a case study to examine Seoul exploring the changes in the Hi Seoul Festival and the Hi Seoul city brand over the last two decades. The qualitative research includes a secondary data analysis based on case studies from domestic and foreign regions and their festivals. The analytical results indicted three limitations: inconsistency, a lack of identity, and political leverage. Based on the limitations, this study discusses the importance of the connection between city identity and event content, suggesting implications for moving forward toward a stable Seoul city branding strategy for the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

글로벌 경쟁 시대에 도시 브랜드는 도시의 경쟁력을 확립하는데 중요한 요소이다. 도시 브랜딩은 도시의 콘텐츠에 대한 이야기를 만드는 과정이다. 이 연구는 도시를 차별화하는 다양한 콘텐츠 중에서 도시 마케팅과 이벤트 관광 문헌을 바탕으로 도시 브랜딩 과정에서 이벤트와 도시 브랜드의 역할에 대해서 논의하고자 한다. 이 연구는 지난 20년 동안 하이 서울 페스티벌과 하이 서울 브랜드의 변화를 탐구하면서 서울을 조사하기 위해 근거 이론 방법과 사례 연구를 사용하고, 질적 연구에는 국내외 사례 연구 및 축제 관련 2차 데이터 분석이 포함된다. 연구 분석 결과는 불일치, 정체성 결여, 정치적 영향력이라는 세 가지 한계로 결론지어진다. 본 연구는 이 한계점을 바탕으로 도시 정체성과 이벤트 콘텐츠의 연관성에 대해 논의하여 안정적인 서울시 브랜드 전략으로 나아가는 데 시사점을 제시한다.

I. Introduction

In a world where cities and regions aggressively compete to attract tourists, investors, and talented people globally, more and more cities are investing in city branding. City branding is a significant topic of interest in the literature in terms of both theoretical and practical contexts because showcasing a city to the public is more complicated than showing a product or providing services[1]. Branding a city has similar effects of telling a story about the city to the world[2], although the city’s story must distinguish it from others. To achieve such a differentiation, three main approaches are discussed: cultural events, restoration and heritage promotion, and the construction of iconic building[3]. Among these approaches, this study focuses on cultural events, like festivals, that include various cultural contents.

Many cities in Europe and America have a long history of using cultural events in the city context, from urban development to urban marketing. South Korea has also adopted various types of events and festivals in its city contexts, with the 1988 Olympics and 2002 FIFA World Cup being representative events in the national contexts. South Korea’s capital, Seoul, has rapidly increased not only the number of cultural events since the 2000s, but also its marketing budget in the mid 2000s. However, despite the efforts made to promote city events and marketing, this city used to be incomplete in terms of its city brand compared to other cities in the country. These phenomena led to choosing Seoul and its Hi Seoul Festival to serve as a case study to discuss the interrelationship between event and city branding. Thus, this paper aims to compare Seoul with other domestic and foreign cities to demonstrate the significance of the event in city branding.

Ⅱ. Literature review

1. Branding a city and city brand

With globalization, one of cities’ major goals has become increasing their competitiveness. To increase the awareness and appeal of a city in its competition with other cities and regions, urban authorities have begun to embrace the branding process as part of city marketing and urban development efforts[4][5]. Nowadays, a brand is more than a product or service; it is what gives meaning and value to the product and defines its identity[6]. A city brand is also based on a humanistic philosophy which promises the happiness of city residents and further indicates an awareness of people who invest in the city and look after the city[7]. City brand is a means as well as a strategic decision that makes the city be constantly aware of its situation. A successful city brand creates a distinct appeal and then establishes awareness and reputation based on that appeal[1]. A key point of the distinct appeal is to identify and build on the core values and activities in a city. Although the city brand is selectively created, the brand also indicates the identity of the city[8]. Previous researchers have weighed in on the value of building an effective brand for a nation, adapting this for cities as follows: "It includes in attraction of inbound investment and tourism, credibility and confidence by investors, increasing of political influence internally and externally, better and more productive global partnerships with other cities, public or private research and university institutions, private sector organizations, 'city of origin' effect on products or services, and civic pride is ability to focus local harmony, confidence and resolve"[1]. These factors of brand value show that, once a city brand has been developed, it can affect various dimensions in the city. They also reflect that city branding targets various audiences.

2. Various components in city branding

City branding is distinct from the term city brand. It is a process of designing, planning, and communicating the name and identity in order to establish or manage the reputation[9]. City branding starts with the discovery of the city's identity[10]. A key element of a city's identity includes all of the stakeholders who can assist in making the future of the place. It embraces the mixture of people, groups, and organizations that have an interest in the future of the city and includes all vital elements to tell a story about cities that involves their tourism, private sector, foreign and domestic policy, investment and immigration, culture and education, and people[11][12]. It is essential to comprehend and co-work with these diverse components in place. The significance of a collaborative stakeholder approach has been acknowledged in previous literature focused on corporations and more recently has been applied to city branding as an effective branding strategy[13][14]. Likewise, stakeholder engagement is a relatively under-explored aspect of the literature on city branding[11]. This study aims to discuss the relationship between city branding and cultural events as stakeholders and elements of city identity.

3. Roles of cultural events in city

It is important to understand how and why a city supports cultural events, which leads to addressing the role of cultural events. Based on previous literature, four categories have defined the role and impact in event studies: economic, cultural and social, environmental, and political factors[15-17]. The roles of the event include “attraction”, “image makers”, “animator of static attraction”, and “catalysts for other development” in economic meanings[16]. However, these roles are defined by politicians and industries rather than the general public or travelers[16]. These roles assist in the development of the city’s uniqueness[18]. Cultural events play an important role as one of the marketing strategies in most tourism destinations[19]. Many cities consider events as a sort of “quick fix” solution to improve the image of city[20].

4. Seoul and event culture

Seoul is a megalopolis with approximately 10 million residents. It has been the capital of South Korea for 600 years, during which time it has experienced various historical and political issues. The city is internationally praised as the “Miracle on the Han River” for its rapid economic growth and urban development from its dark and complicated historical background. More recently, Seoul has been trying to re-brand itself as a favorable tourist destination and has quickly expanded its art and cultural industry. Both Seoul and South Korea endeavored to develop a world-renowned reputation by hosting international mega-events such as the Olympics in 1988 and the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Since first hosting cultural events in 1995, Seoul has been home to 19 festivals[21].

The number of cultural events has rapidly increased in Seoul since the 2000s, and there was a noticeable increase in the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s marketing budget in 2007. However, despite many efforts and the development of urban authorities, this city seems incomplete in terms of its city brand and even cultural events. Thus, Seoul was considered an appropriate case study for achieving the stated research objective. This study does not simply seek a powerful city brand case and factors of its success; rather, it aims to discuss the role of cultural events in city branding and raise the possibility of the relationship to an effective city branding strategy. Therefore, analyzing Seoul’s brand and its cultural events would provide insights into the future direction of the city.

Ⅲ. Research Methods

The grounded theory serves as the method utilized in this study. Comparisons, an essential part of the development of inductive generalizations[22], are central to grounded theory. It is possible to provide empirical intensity of qualitative approaches to research that include more than a few cases[23]. In grounded theory, the researcher collects and analyses data simultaneously and the data are continuously compared to each other across cases, within cases, as well as the emerging classifications[24]. This paper explores the relationship between Seoul and its cultural events by analyzing secondary data collection. The researcher adopted an epistemological perspective, considering that dialogue with participants is a good choice for exploring phenomena and perceptions in depth. These narratives are mainly framed by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and related institutions. Government documents, marketing campaigns, and interviews with public officials dating back to 2015 were the secondary data collected to study the background of the cultural events and its impact on city branding in Seoul. The field study conducted with 35 interviewees in 2015. Interviewees consisted of 10 officers from Seoul Destination Marketing Organizations, 3 professionals from Seoul Institute for city research and a Professor from Seoul and 2 officers from Korea Tourism Organizations and 19 related to Hi Seoul Festival (now Seoul Street Arts Festival [Table 1].

Table 1. List of interviewees[33]

These interviewees were those who professionally work for Seoul marketing and Hi Seoul Festival. They were considered as those who can provide an in-depth insight in terms of city brand and festivals officially. The interview data collection was also utilized to understand the consequence of the inter-relationship between the cultural event and the city, based on secondary data analysis. The findings were compared to other secondary data collected, such as other domestic and foreign case studies from previous literature. City branding components and the content types of the event would be classified through strategic means mentioned in existing studies. The review of previous literature helped provide a much more rigorous understanding of the selected case studies as additional examples.

Thus, the research grounded in various case studies from previous literature related to the place marketing, city branding, and event tourism in urban context. The data corresponding to this research objective were collected comprehensively from recent news articles to the academic journals. Furthermore, this study focused on the narrative representing cultural events in Seoul and purposefully sought to figure out the role of the event in city branding. These data analysis results are expected to assist city policy and planning, suggesting insights to Seoul and its festival organization for the future direction.

Ⅳ. Findings

1. Hi Seoul Festival becomes Seoul Street arts Festival

According to Seoul Research Data from 2013, the Seoul Metropolitan Government hosted 34 festivals while 25 district governments of Seoul managed 74 festivals[25]. Among these 108 events, only the Hi Seoul Festival was named after the city brand. South Korea co-hosted the FIFA World Cup with Japan in 2002. In the following year, the Hi Seoul Festival was created by order of the mayor with the aim of continuing the excitement from the World Cup in order to foster a new festival culture. Since then, this festival has become an annual event with the support of the city government and the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, which promotes Korean culture. However, according to official records, the Hi Seoul Festival was suddenly held four times in 2008—once in each season—and then, in 2009, the festival was held only once, in May, because of influenza outbreaks. The following year, the festival held once in October. Appendix 1 indicates how much the festival has changed in terms of the main theme, event venues, and time held each year from 2003 to 2015. Based on these data, the festival seemed to achieve consistency in the festival theme with streets arts starting in 2012. The matter of determining the festival’s theme had long generated criticisms and doubts about the sustainability of the festival. An open forum was hosted for the festival to celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2012, and many negative opinions were voiced regarding the festival’s future direction[26]. However, consensus about the direction of the festival was achieved among professionals who managed the festival in the open forum. This was supported by the fact that the Hi Seoul Festival chose the same theme as the previous year in 2013. They even employed exactly the same words as the previous year, “Let’s play in the street, ” in 2014. In 2015, they kept the same theme of the festival and changed only the words to describe the theme as “Seoul Street Arts Festival.” Meanwhile, in 2016 the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture officially announced that the name of the festival had changed[27]. The words “Hi Seoul” disappeared from the festival name and were replaced with the words used to represent the 2015 theme, so it has become the Seoul Street Arts Festival. The artistic director of the festival emphasized that festival programs had been dominated by street arts for three years, so they changed the name to solidify their identity[28].

2. Background of changing festival name

Seoul Metropolitan Government began city marketing in the early 2000s. The most notable outcome was hosting the Korea/Japan FIFA World Cup in 2002. After this mega event, Seoul authorities announced that the city brand had been named “Hi Seoul.” It was launched to promote an active image of Seoul on Citizen’s Day, 28 October 2002, and was Seoul’s first city branding strategy[29]. The brand was created and utilized during Mayor Lee Myunk-Bak’s term from 2002 to 2006. When Oh Se-Hoon was elected mayor in 2006, the city brand still remained, but “Soul of Asia” was added at the bottom of the slogan. At the same time, former-Mayor Lee became president of South Korea. Both Oh and Lee were from the same political party, which seemed to create synergy effects in policymaking for city marketing in Seoul[30]. In fact, the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s city marketing budget during Mayor Oh's term was four times larger than under previous mayors. After Mayor Oh resigned in light of the Seoul Free Lunch Referendum 2011, the new mayor had a different perspective on city context compared to previous mayors. Mayor Park Won-soon postponed or canceled major design projects in the city and focused on improving residents’ lives.

The “Hi Seoul” brand remained during his first term, although it was not utilized. When he was re-elected in 2015, a new city brand was launched: “I. SEOUL. U.”

3. Regional resource and event content

To discuss Seoul's festival and city branding, it is necessary to collect and analyze various cases, from local to international contexts. Case studies of successful local branding in South Korea have indicated distinct brand elements, dividing them into four categories of resources: nature, culture, product, and service[31]. [Table 2] shows successful examples of local cities and their representative local brands based on the brand elements.

Table 2. List of Local cities and their representation [31]

Each city has their own unique representative brand elements. Service resource seems different from the other three types of resources in particular because the service resource brand type combines creative ideas with objects and phenomena whereas the other types come from regional features. A service resource develops a creative brand by combining storytelling with the reverse idea and connecting unrelated services[31].

For instance, Jarasum Jazz festival became a representative brand on Jarasum Island[Table 2], despite there being no connection between Jarasum and jazz in the first place.

Yet these two different factors create good synergy effects for each other, showing the connection created between them. The analysis of the list of events and local brands in Korea showed an overlapping role of cultural events. As previously mentioned, an event is included in a service resource among the brand resource types representing the region.

However, local brands that utilize other resource types also have their own festivals, named after the resource (e.g. nature resource: Treasure Island Namhae Anchovy Festival; culture resource: Andong International Masks Dance Festival; product resource: Icheon Rice Festival and Hoengseong Hanwoo (Korean Beef, Festival). Thus, these events are utilized as a branding tool to promote the local brand.

Approximately 886 festivals were held throughout the entire country of South Korea in 2019[36]. Based on these results, the central government released a 2020 representative festival list in the end of the year. Among 886 festivals, the central government officially selected 35 representative festivals through a grade assessment[Table 3].

Table 3. List of 2020-2021 representative festivals in South Korea[32]

Meanwhile, Covid-19 affected the entire planning and staging of the festivals in South Korea in 2020. According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, approximately 93% of festivals were canceled and postponed to the following year[36]. Therefore, the 2020 list of representative festivals was kept the same until 2021. The central government sponsored festivals financially based on the results of an assessment carried out every year and officially awarded the title of representative cultural festival of the country[32]. This system of assessment and sponsorship suggests that the government recognizes the effect of the cultural event in the region by growing the cultural event to be representative of the region. Interviewee number 14 that “most local festivals in Korea are based on their unique characteristics or products. They also concentrate on a tourism item which they are considered as a commodity to encourage the local economy. Nevertheless, Seoul is different with them. The festival is only small part of many resources in Seoul. A festival is not able to embrace Seoul as a whole”[33]. Similarly, Interviewee number 31 explained that most local festivals focus on promoting their locality or enhancing their local economy, whereas festivals in Seoul do not. The numerous festivals being staged have competitive and attractive elements for their own objectives in Seoul. This assertion can be supported through [Table 3] and [Table 4], as many local festivals in South Korea utilized local content to employ as its festival theme. However, the Seoul case study shows an apparent difference. Most Seoul festivals concentrated on the artistic and cultural content to encourage civic welfare, including Seoul Theater Festival and Seoul Drum Festival[33][36]. This difference in focus is considered to occur due to the significant difference in the size between the metropolitan and local city. He added, “No one considers one festival can represent either New York or Paris”[33]. To explore this argument, this study examined cases of cities and festivals which developed a city's reputation.

[Table 4] lists famous festivals around the world. The extent of their popularity was supported by the number of attendees relative to the period of each festival. This table also shows where the festivals are held and their main content. These data have been analyzed according to two dimensions that make cities and their festivals popular. The first dimension is that festival content has a concrete identity that represent itself (e.g. music, arts, and carnival). However, it seems that there is no connection between location and content of the festival. Thus, such contents could be staged in not only that region, but anywhere in the world, which actually happens (e.g. the same contents in different cities: Rio Carnival in Rio de Janeiro and Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Sónar and Sziget; [Table 4].

Table 4. Famous festivals around the world.

This can be understood as the previously discussed service resource aspect of city brand elements. The public considers the festival itself as a city brand. The second dimension is that the festival content includes a representative resource brand of the city or region (e.g. season, nature, food, and beverages). For example, the Fête du Citron is a famous lemon festival in Menton, France[34]. The city of Menton is the main producer of lemons in Europe, and the origin of the festival stemmed from efforts to attract winter tourists from other destinations[34]. This festival combines carnival events with a celebration of Menton’s reputation as the lemon capital in Europe. The event is similar to other carnival parades, with one significant difference: all parade floats are made of lemons. The festival embraces the city's identity in the content, so it has a regional uniqueness. Therefore, the connection between the city and festival content is bound to be strong.

Ⅴ. Discussion

This paper aims to identify the significance of event content in a city by using a case study. This research has discussed the interrelationship between the city and the event, suggesting future plans for the festival and Seoul. The analysis of the Seoul case study resulted in three key factors: inconsistency, lack of identity, and undue political leverage. Like many other cities and events in the world, it seems that Seoul and the Hi Seoul Festival had a similar objective in the past. The “Hi Seoul Festival” name came after the city brand of Seoul initially. It clearly attempted to become a representative festival of the city. However, as previous literature has mentioned, a brand is more than just a logo and a slogan[6][10]. The Hi Seoul Festival indicates that representing the city cannot be done simply by borrowing a name(city brand). This is evidenced by the inconsistent changes in the festival's content to dates and location over a decade. Nevertheless, this is not why the festival could not be the city's representative festival; it only borrowed the city brand without reflecting city values and philosophy. According to the research results, as much as the festival was unstable, it was also difficult to find consistency in Seoul's city brand. According to the seven principles for successful city branding, consistency over time should be emphasized[1]. However, political leverages have had an extensive impact on city branding, which has led to inconsistent city brand. The weak but coherent city branding was maintained only by political leverage stemming from belonging to the same political party, and the status of the city brand was precarious during every electoral cycle. As a result, the “Hi Seoul” brand disappeared when a new mayor was elected from the opposing political party. The research findings indicated that not only did the city brand “Hi Seoul’ fail to reach a civic consensus, but it also lacked a clear identity based on value and philosophy. Therefore, the festival derived from the city brand was also bound to remain ambiguous, as neither an element nor a tool of the city brand. The analysis of comparative cases from local and overseas also provided two additional factors: service resource and identity of content. When addressing the relationship between the Hi Seoul Festival (currently known as the Seoul Street Arts Festival) and the Seoul city brand (“I. SEOUL. U.”), hardly any connection was found. The research results also emphasized the lack of consistency in both factors. However, utilizing the service resource feature produces better results. The service resource is based on creative development on brand identity through the mixing of unrelated items. It concentrates primarily on the storytelling, so it does not focus much on regional features, which may help overcome the size of the Seoul metropolitan or complex culture resources. Effective storytelling is the key to building a powerful and coherent city brand that people connect with and share. To be successful, a concrete identity is essential for city or festival branding. According to the findings, city branding can employ a festival in two ways. Where there are ambiguous or weak regional characteristics, strong festival contents can become the identity of the city, thereby branding the city. This is in line with service resources, which build a creative identity based on storytelling beyond physical and visible connections. On the other hand, if regional characteristics are strong, cities can encourage promotion by combining their contents by staging festivals. The festival can engage people in enjoying city contents more easily. In short, in the former case, the identity of festival contents should be firm, and the latter should be firm in the city identity.

Ⅵ. Conclusion

Historically, an event and festival have played various roles in urban contexts. For instance, they have been employed as reasons to construct a magnificent stadium and to improve infrastructure for urban development; they have also been used as a showcase site to display the future technology and innovation. All these roles aimed to attract residents, investors, and visitors to the city. Likewise, the hosting of an event is seen by many cities as a significant element of city marketing, and it has been recognized as a means to assist city branding. This research addresses the implication of these city event roles on the city based on the city branding literature. The interview discourse asserts that a festival representing the city is impossible in Seoul, especially given the unstable paths of the Hi Seoul Festival in the past. However, the background of the paths should also include the inconsistent issue of the city brand in Seoul. Another discourse mentioned that cities like New York or Paris had never been represented by a festival. With regard to this assertion, it can be refuted that these two alpha cities do not necessarily need a festival to represent them at this point because they have differentiated their identities from others. Seoul’s city brand and the Hi Seoul Festival have experienced many changes over the last two decades. The case study of Seoul shows distinctive limitations towards the city brand and festival, particularly the identity. Overcoming the limitations can be summarized by three slogans: “Be consistent, ” “Build an identity, ” and “Be independent from political force.” As more and more areas stress their diversity as a key element of their appeal, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that the city reflects the strength of that difference. Therefore, city branding must integrate the essence of the city’s distinctive contents. Although events and festivals have a constructive role in city branding and bring great opportunities to enhance the city’s reputation, it should be followed by a long-term strategy that links the city to its own identities and core values. To achieve this long-term strategy, city branding authorities are necessarily implemented independently from the mayor’s office in the case of Seoul. All these are prerequisites for building a strong identity for the city brand. For the festival, it is necessary to consider either becoming a city brand itself or a tool for the city brand. Furthermore, the results of this study emphasized 'a concrete identity' as an essential factor to the survival of city branding within a global competition[1][12]. As the capital of South Korea, Seoul has a plenty of cultural content called K-culture (e.g. K-pop, K-beauty and K-food etc). In order to utilize these contents, reducing political leverage and establishing a consistent identity could build up city identity and bring competitive results. This research discussed city branding and festival content utilizing data collection until 2019. Since 2020, event culture has been influenced by COVID-19, causing most festivals to be canceled world wide. Therefore, due to social upheaval, follow-up research is required to update the relationship between city branding and event culture in the future. Follow up research may include event tourists' intention based on city reputation and city branding. Further research is required on the attractive factors of each festival and how it helps city branding according to the objective perception survey of festival in Seoul[35].