Challenges in fostering a public debate on strategic place brand management: the case of Rio de Janeiro.

This paper develops a critical assessment of a marketing practitioner’s activities in her attempt to foster a pubic debate in Rio de Janeiro about the need of a more rigorous city brand management strategy. The study contributes to bridging the theory and the practice of place branding through the joint effort of a practitioner and an academic researcher, acting as a sounding board, in discussing the main challenges lying in place branding stakeholders engagement. The main challenges relate to the overlapping between different areas of policy making (and then different political bodies at stake), the clash between the sense of urgency characterising the attitude of Rio city government and the time needed to devliver the proper educational/training activities necessary for an ethical place branding thinking.