Introduction: A Thoroughly Branded, but Little-Known Middle East

This edited volume critically analyses processes of strategic communication and image-building under the general conditions of globalisation, neoliberalisation, and postmodernisation and, in a regional perspective, of persistent authoritarian rule and increased endeavours for “worlding.” It fills an important gap in the research on place, product, and personal branding in the MENA region.

This chapter explores general theoretical and conceptual approaches to branding, which serve as the broader framework for the edited volume. It includes a passage through the global, mostly Western, history of branding, a clarification of terminology, and the global macro-contexts in which contemporary branding takes place.

This chapter gives an overview of empirical developments, from product and personal branding to a tour d’horizon of place branding, in the MENA region, starting from its hotspot along the Arab side of the Gulf, through West Asia and the Maghreb, to the region’s peripheries.

This chapter points to the multi-scalar aspects of place making. It is interested in how a wide range of actors at different levels contribute to the construction of brands for Tangier and specific places in it. Special attention is directed to how strategic communication positions the city in space and time.

This edited volume critically analyses processes of strategic communication and image-building under the general conditions of globalisation, neoliberalisation, and postmodernisation and, in a regional perspective, of persistent authoritarian rule and increased endeavours for “worlding.” It fills an important gap in the research on place, product, and personal branding in the MENA region.