Analysis of management narrative to understand social marketing strategy: The case of ‘Branding Logan City’

This paper presents a unique city branding case applying narrative analysis to the marketing manager’s account of his long running campaign to brand Logan City. The analysis finds that the campaign has many of the hallmarks of social marketing, but focuses strongly on citizen’s positive self image and social capital development. Elements of city branding are employed but the approach is ‘self directed’, rather than the usual approach of ‘other directed’. The desired outcomes are a positive self and community image laying the foundation for a community confident to undertake various economic development tasks. Implications for social marketing theory and management and future research are discussed.