The case of city branding in Buenos Aires

The current agenda of local governments are diverse and dynamic. Political issues mix administrative tasks in a blend where it is difficult to recognize the beginning and the end of each element. Generally, the publicity campaigns carry out for cities are postpone or margined regarding these urgencies. City branding, as a relatively new kind of publicity, appears in the situation as a new instrument that looks for making space between these social and economic requirements, to manage the image of the city in the developing course of it. This research has the purpose of investigating how city branding practices find room in Buenos Aires government activities and precisely how effective are they to brand the city using social media. For that, the theoretical section includes branding meaning and the relation of it with governance and social media. The method used combines a series of interviews with Public Administrators and researchers on the matter with a media content analysis process focuses on the official Facebook Fan Page of the Buenos Aires Government. The results permit to confirm some hypothetical ideas about this practice. The Buenos Aires government is effective at the moment of branding through social media due to include the three elements analysed in this research: actions to recognise the city identity, stakeholder involvement process in the branding practice, and connection between city branding and infrastructure development plan. Nevertheless, it found some imbalances in the branding practice and proposes two general recommendations to improve this process. First, the government should integrate the branding process, especially the external and internal to the city branding practice. This action should integrate as well a more definite and regular effort to recognize the city identity together with the incorporation of external actors at the process. Second, researchers on the matter should attach importance to the study of Latin America city branding cases and include them in future literature.