Elderly Cityscape - Age-Specific Results of a City Brand Association Research

Abstract

One of current areas of research on settlements and places is place branding, in which settlements are examined from the perspective of brand management. Although often the more general term „place branding” is used, the branding of places means in most cases city branding. Collecting and analyzing city brand associations is a relatively new research area within city brand research.

This paper considers brands and place brands as entities formed in the mind. The theoretical framework of the study is based on Aaker (1991) and Keller (1998) and especially on Sebastian Zenker's city brand models. As a starting point the model of Zenker and Braun (2017) is discussed that interprets place brands as associations connected to a place in the mind of the consumer.

In the study, the relationship between a city brand and the consumer of the brand is analyzed with associations. The city analyzed in the study is Nagykanizsa, a middle-sized city in southwestern Hungary and the “consumer” is the elderly generation living in Nagykanizsa. The paper collects associations from elderly inhabitants of the city, thus narrowing down the research to a specific age group.

Associations to the city are collected in several contexts: 1) free associations, 2) associations describing why elderly are proud of the city, 3) associations to things elderly are satisfied with, and 4) dissatisfied within Nagykanizsa.

The current picture, drawn from the associations shows which features of the city make the daily life of elderly people in the city difficult and / or easy. Based on the results the city image of the elderly inhabitants is described, showing that tourist attractions and the city’s infrastructure make inhabitants proud. They are however dissatisfied with the traffic infrastructure of the city, especially the condition of the sidewalks. Bus traffic in the city is regarded both as satisfactory and dissatisfactory, depending on the area people live in and the directions they travel. The study also points out, that members of the older generation, in addition to evoking an earlier image of the city, also consider the needs of future generations, especially the lack of workplaces. Based on the collected associations Zenker and Braun's (2017) model is modified.

In the last part of the study, suggestions are made to help to integrate the elderly inhabitants of the city more into city life. It is suggested that the livability of the city can be improved and mobility issues are important for elderly people. At the end of the paper limitations of the research are described and new research directions are pointed out.