Nineteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Although Hong Kong has had the umbrella brand of “Asia’s World City” for more than two decades, this overarching brand position mainly targets at tourists and other non-local people. The government has floated some ideas for further developing Hong Kong under the themes of a “green”, creative” and “smart” city, particularly as policies for urban development. Valuable brands built from these city themes may allow local residents to envision the future Hong Kong. However, these development paths largely reflect executive-led and top-down strategies that require stronger and wider recognition by local residents. Branding a city based on its unique and strong attributes should be able to strengthen local identity and capture citizen support and participation. City brand equity refers to the capacity of a city to generate brand value to its target stakeholders, which is characterized by a series of components, namely awareness, perceived quality, associations of attributes, loyalty, and image and uniqueness. This research aims to identify the components of local brand equity of green, creative and smart cities of Hong Kong through survey of 250 citizens for each city theme and interviews with 46 citizens. Since destination brands often simplify or even ignore local perception, it is important to gauge the local recognition of brand equity, which provides an important foundation for developing a strong and locally embedded brand. Therefore, Hong Kong’s potential should be maximized through wise marketing and a clear understanding of the green-creative-smart city themes can truly deliver the greatest value to everyone.