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Building a Place Brand: A Case Study of Surrey Hills

Article  in  Tourism Analysis · December 2007

DOI: 10.3727/108354207783227894

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 Building a Place Brand
The Case Study of Surrey Hills

Outi Niininen
Department of Accounting and Management
School of Business
La Trobe University
Bundoora 3086, Australia
E-mail: o.niininen@latrobe.edu.au
Tel: +61 (3) 9479 1229
Fax: +61 (3) 9479 5971

Sameer Hosany
School of Management
University of Surrey
Guildford
Surrey GU2 7XH
Email: s.hosany@surrey.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 1483 683102
Fax: +44 (0) 1483 686301

Yuksel Ekinci
School of Management
University of Surrey
Guildford
Surrey GU2 7XH
Email: y.ekinci@surrey.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 1483 686376
Fax: +44 (0) 1483 686301

David Airey
School of Management
University of Surrey
Guildford
Surrey GU2 7XH
Email: d.airey@surrey.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 1483 689656
Fax: +44 (0) 1483 686301

Citation:
Niininen, O., Hosany, S., Ekinci, Y. and Airey, D. (2007) “Building a Place Brand: The
Case Study of Surrey Hills”, Tourism Analysis, 12 (5/6), 371-385.
 2

Building a Place Brand

The Case Study of Surrey Hills

Abstract

Although branding of goods has been getting an increased attention in both the academic

and practitioner communities, research on place brand building process has been sparse.

This study seeks to address this lacuna and proposes a four-component place brand

building framework namely: determining a brand vision, communicating the brand

vision, managing partnerships and measuring brand performance. The validity of this

conceptual framework is assessed using Surrey Hills as a case study. Drawing on the

findings of the case study, important challenges are identified that face emerging work on

place brands. Some of the emerging issues include control, funding and stakeholder

commitment.

Keywords: place branding, destination branding, brand building process, local

involvement, tourism stakeholders.
 3

Introduction

Brands are present in virtually every facet of everyday life. Brands incite beliefs, evoke

emotions and prompt behaviours (Kotler and Gertner, 2002). They are connotations of

clear image, distinctiveness, perceived competitive advantage (Seaton and Bennett, 1996)

and act as an expression of a relationship between the customer and the product (Arnold,

1992; Fournier, 1998). In the generic marketing literature, a number of theoretical

frameworks have been developed to understand brands, brand building and brand

management processes (Aaker, 1996; Kapferer, 1997; Keller, 1993; de Chernatony,

2001). While branding of goods and services is well documented, place branding is still a

relatively new area of academic investigations for researchers (Gnoth, 1998; Cai, 2002).

In an increasingly competitive market, branding of places is important as they evoke

certain qualifications and stimulate emotional values in the tourist’s mind. Branded

places, such as cities and regions, provide an umbrella of trust, a guarantee of quality and

a set of ready-made lifestyle meanings (Anholt, 2002). As such, the key aim for place

branding is to influence tourists’ intention to visit a place and intention to recommend

behaviour. Therefore, place branding has emerged as a powerful marketing weapon

available to contemporary destination marketers (Morgan and Pritchard, 2002).

Despite the paucity of research on branding in the context of tourism, some consensus

has emerged among academics that tourist places can be branded in a similar manner to

that of consumer goods and services (e.g. Pritchard and Morgan, 1998; d’Hauteserre,

2001; Anholt, 2002). Indeed, there are many examples of successful place branding

studies. For instance, the Tourism New Zealand Board created a powerful travel place
 4

brand – New Zealand, 100% Pure – which was successfully positioned as an appealing

niche player in today’s global tourism industry (Morgan et. al., 2002). Crockett and

Wood (1999) revealed that Brand Western Australia (Brand WA) has been successful in

repositioning Western Australia as a premier nature-based tourism destination. Pritchard

and Morgan (1998) reported that Wales was positioned as a successful place with its

“Wales the Brand” in United States of America (USA). As such, from a destination

marketer’s viewpoint, branding is gaining momentum across countries worldwide and

more tourist places have been embracing branding strategies (Westwood, 2000).

Still, academic research on the place building process has been sparse. The objective of

this paper is to address this lacuna by outlining a framework of key elements in the place

brand building process. It further provides evidence about the validity of such a

framework through a case study method. Surrey Hills was chosen as the case for two

main reasons; first, it was convenient to the authors, and second it is a recent example of

place branding initiatives. Accordingly, the first part of the paper reviews key

components of place brand building. The second part investigates to what extent these

concepts have been applied in the context of the Surrey Hills. The final part discusses the

results and identifies future research areas.

Theoretical Background: The Components of Place Brand Building

The tourism industry is getting increasingly competitive as thousands of destination

marketing organizations (DMO’s) compete for the attention of the travellers who are
 5

becoming more experienced in choosing and buying holiday vacations. This trend has

established place marketing as an important tool to achieve competitive advantage in

global tourism markets (King, 2002). Over the years, place marketers have pursued

branding in an attempt to refocus consumer attention onto the positive aspects of

countries (e.g. Spain; Cool Britain; Hrvatska, AKA republic of Croatia); and/or to create

awareness of potential tourism places given that places are becoming highly substitutable.

According to Richie and Richie (1998:17) place brand can be characterized as:

“a name, symbol, logo, word mark or other graphic that both identifies and

differentiates the place; furthermore, it conveys the promise of a memorable

travel experience that is uniquely associated with the place; it also serves to

consolidate and reinforce the recollection of pleasurable memories of the place

experience”.

Even though still in its infancy, recent literature produces some examples of the

successful application of branding theory to places such as Spain, Australia and the New

Zealand. These destination brands are recognised as being successful due to the visibility

of the branding efforts in the popular media, the excellent positioning of the place in

terms of Unique Selling Propositions (USP) and the long term history of the brand

(Gilmore 2002; Olins 2002). Place brand building is a long term commitment that

involves identity creation and emotional attachment between the place and potential

visitors (Morgan et al., 2002). In the context of tourist places, this can be achieved by

different marketing tactics such as being able to see brand values from the tourists’ point
 6

of view and promoting these values by highly choreographed and focused

communication campaigns (Pritchard and Morgan 1998). The ultimate goal is that

branded places should be able to establish emotional links with their visitors. The

potential to evoke an emotional attachment is even greater for tourism places than for fast

moving consumer goods and services (Morgan et al., 2002) because the nature of

vacation products are rich in terms of hedonic experiences (Nelson, 1970; Mattila, 1999;

Liljander and Strandvik, 1997). However, the process of creating this link is a very

complex and ongoing process that involves various stakeholders such as residents,

visitors and tourism organisations in the area. Following a review of the generic literature

on brand development and brand management processes (e.g. Aaker, 1996; Keller, 1993;

Kapferer, 1997; de Chernatony, 2001), we propose here a framework to understand the

place brand building process. This is illustrated in Figure 1.

 7

Figure 1: Key Component of Place Brand Building

Determining a - Identification of the brand values

(cognitive/personality/personality
Brand Vision attributes)
- Determining brand strategy
- Segmentation, targeting and
brand positioning

Communicating the - Visual identity (brand name,

Brand Vision logo)
- Designing and managing
promotional campaigns
Building a
Place
Brand

- Managing various stakeholders

Managing and the relationship among them
Partnerships
- Managing challenges
- Planned anticipation of future
changes

Measuring Brand - Measuring branding success for

Performance continuous improvement.
-Assessing visitor numbers,
tourism revenues, brand awareness
and brand loyalty

As depicted in Figure 1, a place brand building process is dependent on four key

components: (1) Determining a brand vision, (2) Communicating the brand vision, (3)

Managing partnerships (4) Measuring brand performance.

Determining a Brand Vision

 8

The key issue when designing place brands is to understand place brand values and to

develop a long term brand management strategy. Place brand values should be durable,

relevant, and communicable and hold saliency for both the stakeholders and potential

tourists. Establishing the core values of a place involves surveying local businesses,

economists, competing places, previous as well as potential visitors (Morgan, Pritchard &

Pigott, 2003). Brand values should be based on the actual place characteristics or features

and not on fabrication. As places are such multifaceted entities, it would be unwise to use

the ‘wide focus’ or ‘catch all’ approach when setting key brand values. The messages to

potential tourists should be clear, concise and based on true product features and yet

focussed to a copy that holds specific meaning to each target market. In other words, a

place brand should represent the ‘reason for visiting’, the core values and reputation of a

place (Gilmore 2002).

Following this investigation, place marketers should formulate their positioning strategy

in order to identify a potential source of competitive advantage. The process requires an

understanding of how a place is perceived to perform on attributes deemed important to

its target market in relation to competing places (Pike and Ryan, 2002). This has led to

the recognition that segmentation techniques could be particularly pertinent and even

essential in the current wave of place branding. Several market segmentation variables

can be identified with the most notable ones from the traditional marketing literature

being geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioural (Kotler, 1994). Yet,

place marketers encounter problems of how appropriately to segment the market.

Inadequate segmentation could cause the tourism place either to overlook strategic
 9

marketing opportunities or fail to fully tap the benefits of their marketing campaigns

(Bloom, 2005). Traditionally, tourism marketers had a tendency to use relatively general

categories such as geographic, demographic and socio-economic variables as primary

segmentation bases (Sung, Morrison & O’Leary 2000). Other studies in tourism have

focused on psychographic variables to identify characteristics of travel behaviour and

have included activities (Hsieh, O’Leary & Morrison, 1992; Moscardo et al., 1996;

Jeffrrey & Xie, 1995), motivations (Cha, McCleary & Uysal, 1995), opinions (Cohen &

Richardson, 1995), values (Madrigal & Kahle, 1994), and benefits sought (Frochot &

Morrison, 2000; Frochot, 2005).

Communicating the Brand Vision

The second stage of building a strong place brand is to communicate the brand vision to

the target audience. This involves identifying the visual identity and designing and

managing promotional campaigns. Selecting the brand name for a place is important in

correctly communicating the place brand vision. A successful brand name helps in

positioning a place from the visitor’s point of view and conveying a rich combination of

symbolic meanings of the place (Kohli, Harich and Leuthesser, 2004). Choosing a brand

name for a place can appear as an ‘easy’ task as most places wish to be known by their

geographic, cultural or historic names. However, in some places, the choice of the name

can cause political uproar unless it represents all the local minorities fairly and equally.

Brand names that are true to the product category can also hasten the brand recognition as

‘typical’ brand names support the preconceived notion of a place image held by tourists.
 10

Meaningful brand names are also favoured in situations where the promotional budget is

limited and when a brand awareness campaign can be stretched over a long period of

time (Kohli et al., 2004).

Similarly, from a brand management viewpoint, slogans are regarded as one of several

identity elements to differentiate a brand (Keller, 1998). For Supphellen and Nygaardsvik

(2002:385) slogans “can function as useful hooks and handles to help consumers grasp

the meaning of a brand in terms of what a brand is and what makes it special”. Powerful

slogans can build brand equity through brand awareness and brand image (Keller, 1993).

Brand slogans can be used to communicate further the brand benefits associated with a

place. For example, the slogan used to promote Thailand as a tourist place, “Amazing

Thailand”, is an attempt to associate the place brand with the hedonic or experimental

benefits of the country which is to amaze people with extraordinary experiences

(O’Shaugnessy, 2000). The “New Zealand, 100%” slogan portrays the

hedonic/experiential benefits of a place that evokes the idea of a relatively undiscovered,

untouched land (Morgan and Pritchard, 2002).

The next phase in communicating the brand vision is to design and manage promotional

campaigns. Highly choreographed and focussed communication campaigns are the key to

increasing awareness of a place brand (Pritchard and Morgan, 1998). Place personality

traits can be expressed both directly and indirectly in numerous ways such as through

tourist’s imagery; local residents’ attitude to a tourist, behaviour of employees working in

hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions. Similarly, place personality traits can be
 11

connected to a place in an indirect way through, for example, marketing communications,

attraction development, cooperative advertising, value pricing, symbol or logo,

distribution channels, celebrities of the country, and media construction (Cai, 2002). In

addition, celebrity endorsement is seen as an important means of providing a point of

differentiation among competing places (Crockett and Wood, 1999). Kotler et al., (1998)

suggest that celebrities are likely to be effective when they personify a key product

attribute. For example, Brand Western Australia successfully promoted itself through the

endorsement of supermodel and actress, Elle Macpherson. Indeed, this endorsement “has

provided Western Australia tourism advertising with high levels of recall inquiry, as well

as millions of dollars in free publicity” (Crockett and Wood, 1999: 285).

Managing Partnerships

For places, crafting and managing the brand vision is not always an easy task. The

underlying philosophy is to formulate the vision through a publicly driven process based

on stakeholder involvement, commitment, values and consensus rather than relying on a

more private “expert-driven” process based solely on market forces in order to achieve

sustainable branding (Ritchie and Crouch, 2001). Branding of a place poses numerous

challenges such as lack of overall product control, limited marketing budgets and

political pressures (Morgan and Pritchard, 2002). Unlike other products, places are

composite products consisting of a bundle of different components including

accommodation, hospitality, attractions, arts, entertainment, culture, heritage, the natural

environment as well as the local problems (Ritchie and Crouch, 2000). As such, DMOs
 12

have relatively little control over these different sectors/agencies that comprise the place

brand and yet they constitute the stakeholders in crafting the place brand identity

(Morgan and Pritchard, 2002). At the same time, public sector place marketers are

severely hampered by a variety of political pressures to reconcile local and regional

interests and to promote an identity acceptable to a range of public and private sector

constituencies (Kotler, Haider and Rein, 1993). In addition to confronting the politics of

place branding, DMOs have limited budgets in comparison with marketers of major

consumer brands to support marketing campaigns such as promotions (Morgan and

Pritchard, 2002).

Measuring Brand Performance

Destination marketers assess success of their branding initiatives through a number of

measures such as visitor numbers, tourist revenues, tourist satisfaction, residents and

tourist attitudes to the place brands, brand awareness and brand loyalty. Brand awareness

is defined as the ability of a potential buyer to recognize or recall that a brand is member

of a certain product category (Aaker, 1991). Keller (1993, p3) emphasises the importance

of brand awareness in consumer decision making for three reasons. Firstly, it is important

for the consumers think of the brand within the product category. Therefore, raising

brand awareness increases the likelihood that a brand will be a member of the consumer’s

consideration set. Second, brand awareness may have an impact on brands in the

consideration set, even in situations where there are no other brand associations. Third,
 13

brand awareness can have an impact on the consumer decision-making by affecting the

formation and strength of brand associations in the brand image.

Assael (1987, p.87) describes that “there is a close link between learning, habit and brand

loyalty moreover, brand loyalty is something that demonstrates itself as favourable

attitude towards a brand resulting in consistent purchase of the brand over time”. This

indicates that loyalty represents attitudinal and behavioural commitment to a place brand.

In line with this, Jacoby et al. (1978) define attitudinal loyalty as psychological

commitment that causes an individual to repurchase the same product repeatedly over

time. Although place brand loyalty is somewhat a recent issue in the tourism literature,

Baloglu (2002) emphasises that any form of loyalty to a tourist destination should be

examined through cognitive, affective and behavioural variables.

Methodology

As the branding practices of regional tourist places have, to the best of our knowledge,

not previously been investigated an exploratory research methodology was adopted. The

case study of Surrey Hills was used to illustrate the place brand building process and to

identify current challenges and opportunities for emerging regional place brands. Yin

(1989: 23) defines a case study as “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary

phenomenon within its real-life context when the boundaries between phenomenon and

context are not clearly evident and in which multiple sources of evidence are used”. Case

study research is particularly welcome in situations where only little is known about the
 14

phenomenon and in situations where current theories seem inadequate (Eisenhardt, 1989;

Yin, 1989). Indeed, in exploratory phases of research, case study research offers various

advantages which include design flexibility (Hartley, 1994), the provision of deeper

understanding, the ability to collect fuller contextual information (Miles, 1979), and the

facilitation of theory development (Van Maanen, 1979; Yin, 1994). Data was collected

via in-depth interviews with six key stakeholders behind the Surrey Hills brand. Face-to-

face interviews were deemed appropriate given that this approach provides the

opportunity to strike a rapport with interviewees in order to obtain relevant information.

The interview procedure followed that recommended by Eisenhardt (1989), i.e., a loose

but semi-structured approach based on questions of a general nature derived from a

review of academic and practitioner literature. However, respondents had the opportunity

to detail any considerations deemed most pertinent and to omit or explain the perceived

irrelevance of other matters. Interviews were taped and analysed where common themes,

issues, contexts and problems raised by interviewees were noted and disparities in

response patterns listed. As interviews were conducted with a number of key Surrey Hills

team members (all possessing extensive and specialist knowledge of the relevant

matters), within-case comparisons of responses revealed a range of disparate

interpretations of the issues. Hence, it is concluded that the selected interview format did

not lead to biases or excessive conformity among replies. After introducing the Surrey

Hills region, the case study findings follow the structure set out earlier; determining a

brand vision; communicating the brand vision; managing partnerships; and measuring

brand performance.
 15

The Case Study: Surrey Hills

Background of Surrey Hills

Surrey Hills stretches across a quarter of the County of Surrey in South East England, just

south of London as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. The Map of Surrey Hills

Surrey Hills was one of the first UK landscapes to be designated as an Area of

Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1958. Today it is one of 37 AONBs in England

where these designated areas hold equal status in planning terms with National Parks

(Surrey Hills Management plan 2004-2009). In summary, Surrey Hills can be best
 16

described as wooded areas with a diverse landscape featuring hills and valleys. The

Surrey Hills area contains a mixture of farm land, chalk grassland, heath and sunken

lanes linking together some traditional English villages. In short it is a distinctive

landscape with rich heritage (Surrey Hills Management Plan 2004-2009). As described

later in more detail, a Surrey Hills Partnership acts as a focus for the stakeholders based

in this area.

Determining the Brand Vision: The Surrey Hills’ Brand Vision

As an AONB, the primary consideration of the branding strategy was the conservatory

enhancement of the natural beauty of the region. In addition attention had to be paid to

the needs of agriculture and forestry as well as to the social and economic needs of the

local communities. ‘The holistic product for the Surrey Hills is described as a stunning

landscape, the views, pubs and villages, the accessibility of the region. In short, it can be

best described as the quintessentially English experience’ (Cation, 2004; Finch, 2004). In

other words, ‘the Surrey Hills is not a conservation area. We are encouraging tourism,

managed landscapes, and for people to live and work here, there has to be industry

locally, and the biggest industry probably now is tourism’ (Maltby 2004). The Surrey

Hills management plan states that ‘particular regard should be paid to promoting

sustainable forms of social and economic development’ (pp. 8). The Surrey Hills name

symbolises the regional beauty spots collectively. For Maltby (2004), ‘It is our landscape

heritage’, but the area should also be described as a ‘living, breathing and working

landscape’.
 17

The ownership of a place brand exists at several levels, from the managers designing the

branding process to the local people living within the boundaries of that place.

Furthermore, such ownership can be either legal (trademark), physical (e.g. owners for

land or facilities) or psychological (loyalty and commitment towards the brand by local

residents) (Gilmore 2002). The Surrey Hills has its origins from the 1949 Act on Social

Justice where the issues of welfare and the role of green countryside in contributing to the

well being of society was acknowledged. As an outcome the National Parks and the

AONBs were established. In essence, ‘Surrey Hills’ as a name describes the region. It

was not intended as a brand name but the designation has such strong associations with

the region that it would be impossible to re-name it. More specifically, the Surrey Hills

brand conveys a multitude of meanings about the geographical location and features of

the region. In other words, the Surrey Hills brand name has kept true to the product

features and has possibly hastened the adoption of the brand. Furthermore, it is also a

very generic brand name in a way that has permitted the development of more specific,

smaller branded towns/areas under the Surrey Hills umbrella-brands like for example the

various so-called “Gateway towns” of the region (Little 2004). Traditionally, the most

common strap lines used in presentations, publications and other promotional materials

promoting the brand were: ‘quintessential’, ‘beautiful and accessible’, ‘historic and

fragile’, ‘Little Switzerland’ (referring to the affluent and beautiful characteristics of the

region) and ‘Londoner’s Hideaway’. All these slogans attempt to communicate the

benefits associated with the region. Ironically, the most prominent strap line: ‘Area of
 18

Outstanding Natural Beauty’ has not been widely used and was merely considered as a

regional planning term: ‘AONB’ (Cation 2004, Fairbanks, 2004).

The Surrey Hills place follows the classic marketing segmentation approaches:

geographic, demographic, behavioural, motivations, and to some extent, benefits sought.

Geographically the place has an excellent location as there are an estimated 1.5 million

people living within 10 km and a further 5 million people within 30 km of its boundaries.

The target market is further split into local day trip visitors, visiting friends and relatives

(VFR) and business tourists. Short break holidays are the segment identified as having

the most future growth potential and the greatest benefits to the local economy. Viable

products are currently being mapped and the distribution of such material being

organised. Further, the target market for the Surrey Hills is different according to the

local distinctiveness and the features of each Gateway Town. In other words, each

Gateway Town has its own unique image and promotes distinct tourism packages (Little

2004).

Typically the targeted people are London based, from the ABC1 socio-demographic

group, couples, young families or empty nesters. The business travel segment is currently

leading over leisure travel. This includes conferences and meetings as well as other travel

associated with the businesses in the area. Given its geographical proximity, London

residents are a key target segment. Indeed, owing to its historic connections, the Surrey

Hills is seen as the ‘playground for London’ (Finch, 2004). Surrey Hills is seen an area to

de-stress and where Londoners can feel a sense of well-being (Little, 2004). The practice
 19

of behavioural segmentation is also prominent in the region as the landscape is utilised by

walkers, mountain bike riders, 4x4 enthusiasts and horse riders. The various local towns

also attract day visitors (Maltby 2004). The planned ‘stress relief’ packages would appeal

to the benefits gained by the visitors (Fairbanks, 2004). The key positioning variable

emerging from the interviews is ‘accessibility’ given that the main competitors, more

specifically other AONBs and National Parks, are several hours drive away from the

Surrey Hills region, or more crucially from the London region. Justifying further tourism

investment can be difficult as ‘it is almost impossible to measure the total visitation

numbers to the Surrey Hills region… as we have no gates of entry where we can count

the visitors but we estimate that the annual visitor numbers are about 10 million’

(Fairbanks 2004). There are also great differences between visitor numbers within the

region: ‘some honey pot areas attract 100 000 - 300 000 tourists per year. Those paths

get very eroded. We want to promote other areas as well, not stop people coming’

(Maltby 2004).

The development of the Surrey Hills brand values and the reflection of these values into

tangible elements has been an on-going task. The Surrey Hills Partnership took an

innovative approach in identification of its brand values though the Gateway and Jigsaw

projects. The findings of these projects have guided current and future brand

development work. The Gateway project is typical of how, through focus group

interviews, the area is searching to uncover local distinctiveness of some key towns

(Little, 2004). The Jigsaw project initiated in 1999 was an excellent way to capture the

core values held by local residents and other stakeholders. For this project, local people
 20

were invited to bring photographs that in their opinion best represented the Surrey Hills

area. In total there were over 1,700 photographs which were helpful in identifying key

issues in the management of the region as well as the Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

for the brand. In fact, it was these photographs that gave the inspiration for the design of

the current Surrey Hills seedpod logo.

Communicating the Brand Vision: The Surrey Hills’ Brand Communication Strategy

Surrey Hills partnership took a different perspective in communicating its brand vision

through a series of separate projects aimed at involving the local community. The use of

such projects is also an excellent way to define and communicate the brand vision for a

place (or any brand with such a multitude of stakeholders). Furthermore, these projects

are good in finding relevant information for decision-making as well as gaining ideas

towards the artistic design of a logo. Finally, they are a good way to engage the (often

passive) stakeholders of a place, a type of internal marketing to gain acceptance for the

new brand and to motivate local residents to get involved with these new developments.

Indeed, in the words of Little (2004), “Local pride is a huge drive for anyone living in

that area. Anyone who lives in that place can be a host and so many businesses are linked

to tourism, directly or indirectly”.

Surrey Hills brand is expressed most prominently in its figurative picture mark – a

seedpod as illustrated in Figure 3.

 21

Figure 3. The Surrey Hills Logo

The Surrey Hills logo has been inspired from an original carving by the internationally

renowned sculptor, Walter Bailey. The logo depicts the idea of a seed or acorn as it starts

to germinate. It represents an emblem for hope, rebirth and regeneration in Surrey’s rural

areas. The seedpod logo has been used aggressively to re-relaunch the area. An example

of this is the Boundary Markers Project 2000. The project was initiated by a series of

impressive boundary markers (originally designed as traffic calming measures) that were

erected at prominent sites (e.g. main routes of entry to the Surrey Hills area and smaller

designs for hundreds of minor roads) that also served to reinforce the identity of the

Surrey Hills as a cohesive tract of beautiful wooded and farmed landscape that needs

protecting. These boundary markers were carved by chainsaw and made of wind-blown

oak. Apart from their traffic calming function they have also managed to identify the

Surrey Hills from the emerging regions, with a logo marking each route entering the

AONB. In other words, ‘the Boundary Markers are seen by thousands of people every

day and we are getting exposure for the logo. [But] it is quite ironic that the name Surrey

Hills is recognised and it is out there but the understanding [of its AONB characteristics]

is not necessarily there’ (Fairbanks 2004).

The work towards developing Surrey Hills as a regional tourism brand is recent

(Fairbanks, 2004); Cation, 2004). The identity of the Surrey Hills has greatly improved

since the relaunch of the AONB, given that before, the name referred more to a
 22

geographical area than a ‘special’ location (Maltby 2004). The brand’s identity is best

summarised by Caroline Cation (2004) as ‘the Surrey Hills name has integrity, and clear

boundaries, yet it is a beautiful landscape’. However, it is difficult to manage the brand

that represents this beautiful landscape as evidenced in the following interview extracts:

‘The difficulty with the brand is to manage it. The quality, its attributes, its

values…. As Surrey Hills is a name for a landscape it is difficult to limit the use of

it and impossible to Trademark it, register or protect it. I mean how can you

brand a beautiful view?… We can register and protect the use of our own logo

but even that has only come about in the past 4-5 years… We do not print ™ with

our brand as the primary purpose of the brand, the brand image and the

attributes of the brand are about the landscape, about high quality, beautiful

countryside. We wouldn’t gain anything by enforcing the trademark, but we do

not allow our logo to be used by private businesses’ (Cation, 2004; Fairbanks

2004).

However, while the partners behind the Surrey Hills do not have much control over the

use of the brand name, they have the power to regulate the logo usage. For example, the

logo can only be use for approved purposes, for example, when selling high quality local

produce. Furthermore, in order to enforce the use of the logo, Surrey Hills have published

the “Surrey Hills Design Guide: Preserving an Identity”. The brochure provides strict

guidelines about the design elements of the logo. For example, the typeface should be
 23

“Sabon” and the colour “Pantone”. The guide also provides specifications about the

design of promotional materials.

The Surrey Hills branding initiatives occur at various other levels and are not limited to

its landscape. For example, the Surrey Hills Food Brand is an innovative, farmer

controlled marketing scheme which offers consumers the opportunity to protect the

farmed landscape through buying high quality local food under the Surrey Hills brand.

This initiative has firm support from the farming industry whereby local farmers have the

opportunity to participate in a conservation programme and market their high quality

produce locally under the Surrey Hills brand. In other words, there is a positive cycle of

farmers maintaining the countryside and producing high quality food. Surrey Hills brand

ensures the consumers buy produce from audited local farms and proceeds assist in

maintaining the valued countryside (Colebrook 2004).

In addition, as part of their promotional campaigns, Surrey Hills rely heavily on

brochures to inform its target market about the benefits of its product. Brochures are

produced in collaboration with major UK rail companies such as South Central and South

West trains. For example, in one of their brochures entitled “Rail to Ramble” Surrey Hills

worked in partnership with The South West Trains to promote the area. Brochures were

distributed at major train stations and contained useful information about Surrey Hills. It

also explains how to travel to the region using the South West Trains and provides a

ticket price guide for commuters.

 24

Currently, the Surrey Hills team is working on the ‘Bedside Companion’ pack that will

include basic information about Surrey Hills as a region, hotels and Bed and Breakfast

(B&B) within the region, and other vital tourist related information (Cation, 2004).

Through such an initiative, the aim is further to communicate the coherent brand vision

of the place and also to educate visitors of the AONB nature of the region. Furthermore,

the Surrey Hills team uses celebrity endorsement as a way to communicate to its target

market. Ms Penelope Keith, the star of ‘The Good Life’ and “To The Manor Born” is the

patron for the Surrey Hills area. Also, there are some ‘unofficial’ links to celebrities who

live in the area (e.g. Eric Clapton) or historic claims of events.

Managing Partnership: The Surrey Hills Partnership

The Surrey Hills partnership is a large public and private body. The public organisations

are guided by elected members of their individual councils; private businesses are guided

by their own objectives. As such the Surrey Hills does not hold authority over these

partnership members but works through persuasion. However, the AONB legislation does

set out strict limits to what developments can take place (Finch, 2004). Local people as

well as businesses are consulted regularly through specialist projects, e.g. ‘the Centres of

Excellence project is about encouraging local involvement’. Through focus group

research with regional stakeholders, the project seeks to define what makes their town

unique and in what product (or service) the region excels in (Little 2004). It also seeks to

identify gateways to Surrey Hills, i.e. urban centres where visitors can access the

countryside, use facilities and be given relevant information regarding the Surrey Hills
 25

such as ‘local distinctiveness and local produce. Hopefully some tourism place

management groups, run by local people, will emerge from this project. Local

involvement and local enthusiasm is the absolute key. If local businesses feel they have

something to gain then they will get involved’ (Little 2004).

The Surrey Hills partnership is split into funding and advisory partners. Core funding

partners include the following organisations at the national level: (1) The Countryside

Agency and (2) The National Trust with the following at the level of local government

(3) Guildford Borough; (4) Mole Valley District Council; (5) Reigate and Banstead

Borough Council, (6) Surrey County Council; (7) Tandridge District Council; and (8)

Waverley Borough Council. Also, there are eight advisory partners behind the Surrey

Hills initiative. In essence, the Surrey Hills partnership aims to protect the landscape;

manage the land (including tourism) and enhance the public’s enjoyment of this area. The

recent Action Plan was needed to clarify the region’s tourism strategy in light of

conservation versus the increased pressure from tourism and leisure to use the area. The

main tourism themes put forward were (1) identifying and managing gateways to the area

where key messages can be provided to the tourists; (2) managing the increased demand

for transportation in a sustainable manner; and (3) facilitating the local tourism industry

(Fairbanks 2004).

From the tourism marketing viewpoint, one of the weaknesses is that, in the past, partners

behind the Surrey Hills have put less emphasis at managing the brand or the tourism

facilities of the region. Tourism and marketing are, in fact, marginal tasks for the
 26

Partnership and only introduced recently to the agenda in the past 4-5 years. Partnership

meetings tend to ‘address and manage current pressures on the landscape including

traffic; planning and development; as well as enhancing publics’ enjoyment and

understanding of the landscape’ (Fairbanks 2004) as opposed to brand management and

tourism related issues. The Surrey Hills AONB was established by the government, ‘we

would not be here if it was not an AONB. We purely exist on Central Government

funding. Our primary responsibility is to protect that natural landscape, the secondary

duty then is to increase the public’s understanding and the third purpose for us is to

support land management, farming and tourism’ (Fairbanks 2004).

The partnership behind the Surrey Hills also faces several challenges. One of them is

about funding. It is clear that smaller regions (and nations) have limited budgets. At

present, like other places in their quest for branding initiatives, Surrey Hills faces funding

constraints for the ongoing development and promotion of its brand. The core annual

budget for the Surrey Hills Partnership is only £180,000 with an additional £100,000

allocated for specific tourism projects. Seventy five percent of this budget derives from

central government and the remaining 25% funded by local authorities. Limited budgets

exaggerate the need for a skilled Marketing Manager as funds will only enable small

scale and targeted promotions. However, in the case of Surrey Hills there is evidence of

clever marketing activities e.g. the Boundary Markers scheme. The success of specialist

projects, and their acceptance by local residents, can be attributed to the integrity of the

branding activity. The Surrey Hills is built around the AONB characteristics of the region

thus making it easier to gain the support from local residents as well as external funding
 27

sources. The ability of the Surrey Hills AONB office to secure external project funding

should also be heralded, thus extending the remit of a place management team also to

include bids from external funding sources.

Finally, the tourism products for Surrey Hills heavily rely on maintaining the current

appearance of the region. ‘The work towards maintaining the Surrey Hills landscape is

not always easy to explain to the visiting public. The symbiotic aspect of a working

landscape needs emphasising: the farms and landowners need to be able to gain from

their land, and the land needs to be worked for it to maintain its picturesque features.

This includes measures that are not always appreciated by the public… Surrey Hills is

[also] a working landscape and it needs to be managed, it does not happen by itself, you

have to continue managing it. If you don’t manage it becomes derelict and it will be lost’

(Maltby, 2004). In addition, we have evidence of conflicts arising between Surrey Hills

various stakeholders in the area. For example, the local residents can be divided into

commuters (to London) and those working locally. There is a potential source of conflict

regarding traffic issues, commitment to the local community/region, and potentially vast

difference in the disposable incomes. The recreational uses of the region can also conflict

each others as walkers, horse riders, mountain bikers and 4x4 enthusiasts need (or wish)

to share tracks (Maltby, 2004). Indeed, in the words of Fairbanks (2004): “Pressures

created by tourists can be an issue as many local people sit on the committees involved

with the Surrey Hills Partnership. Increased use of the landscape can create conflicts

with local people’. Local people have pride in the Surrey Hills name and its AONB

nature. It makes them feel special…. And it also add to the value of their property’
 28

(Cation, 2004). Thus, Surrey Hills face the challenge of mediating the conflicts between

the uses of the region by its various stakeholders.

Measuring the Brand Performance: The Surrey Hills Brand Performance

Currently, it is difficult for the Surrey Hills team to measure the brand performance

because of limited budget and the difficulty in assessing total visitation numbers to the

region. Justifying further tourism investment can be difficult as ‘it is almost impossible to

measure the total visitation numbers to the Surrey Hills region… as we have no gates of

entry where we can count the visitors but we estimate that the annual visitor numbers are

about 10 million’ (Fairbanks 2004). There are also great differences between visitor

numbers within the region: ‘some honey pot areas attract 100 000 - 300 000 tourists per

year. Those paths get very eroded. We want to promote other areas as well, not stop

people coming’ (Maltby 2004).

However, the value of the Surrey Hills brand is getting some recognition from some local

businesses. For example, under the Surrey Hills name, butchers shop, antiques shop and a

local brewery have been opened recently. As part of assessing the brand awareness

among other tourism businesses, the Surrey Hills team carried out some research and

were “surprised to find out that the local tourism entrepreneurs had low awareness of the

brand. Even though it is a marketable asset for them” (Fairbanks, 2004).

Conclusion
 29

The study looked at the branding efforts of Surrey Hills, a new emerging regional tourist

brand to support the validity of a place brand building model. The proposed framework

consist of four key components: 1) Determining the brand vision, 2) Communicating the

brand vision; 3) Managing partnerships; 4) Measuring brand performance. On the

surface, these components are similar for all successful branded places. Yet the purpose

of the organisations behind these brands can offer much greater explanations about the

type of management activities prioritised in the region. In the case of Surrey Hills, the

focus is very much on protecting the landscape and maintaining its current state where

the land is worked by local farmers. But it is also about managing the social structures

present in the region at times when farming is very much under pressure from society’s

demand for more efficiency and cheaper produce (Colebrook, 2004). This can create

great conflict as once the tourists’ awareness of the region is increased; there is increased

demand for the tourism and leisure use of these limited resources.

The current case study has unique features that are valuable in the understanding of place

brands at micro levels. One of the key issues that emerged from this study is the

importance of managing partnership. Regional places do not have the powers to legislate

the use of the land. Instead, they work through partnerships and rely on persuasion. In

situations like these it is difficult to ensure that the place brand image incorporates

desirable, strong features. The development of Surrey Hills branding has been successful

for two main reasons: (1) the development of the brand has paid homage to its local

features through their brand development process; (2) a strong partnership was
 30

established and managed through the AONB legislation that offers the Surrey Hills

AONB officers clear guidance as well as legislative powers to direct future development.

Although the evidence regarding validity of brand performance was limited this can

largely be explained due to limited financial resources.

In response to the first point, The ‘Surrey Hills’ is a good example of a brand name that

‘conveys a rich combination of symbolic meanings of the place as well as place

attributes’ (Kohli et al, 2004). Furthermore, the name is paying homage to the landscape,

geographical and historical meanings of the place thus making the brand more easily

accepted by the stakeholders. The brand name also supports tourists’ expectations of its

features. In this instance, the branding of the place is not about creating a new entity but

giving more defined borders to ‘what was already there’, pooling together known

landmarks and attractions under one name. The Surrey Hills is also a generic place brand

in a sense that it allows the development of unique identities for towns within its

boundaries (e.g. the Gateway project), in a similar manner that the ‘Spain’ brand allows

for the unique identities of ‘Barcelona’ and ‘Madrid’.

The Surrey Hills as a place brand is still in its infancy and some elements of its brand

personality are still developing. For example, the core value of ‘outstanding natural

beauty’ and ‘protected landscape’ have not yet reached their desired central position. At

the same time, some signs of frustration are also evident regarding the manner in which

residents, visitors and some local businesses were keen to utilise or benefit from the

Surrey Hills brand without fully appreciating the AONB nature of it. Some examples
 31

include irresponsible use of the landscape by recreational visitors leading to erosion;

resentment from other leisure users of the same area; lack of understanding of the

(agricultural or forestry) work that is required to maintain the landscape in its current

state; residents resenting visitors’ use of the landscape; and the increased traffic demands

for the region. Such findings are supportive of the argument that places are becoming

commodities and with such a multifaceted product, it is possible for the consumers to

choose only some of the brand’s features.

A second key issue that emerged from this case study is about achieving local

commitment in developing the Surrey Hills brand further. Even though the Jigsaw and

Gateway projects have successful involvement of locals, at the moment, tourism is not

viewed as a desirable development by all locals. Furthermore, the loyalty towards the

Surrey Hills brand needs strengthening and the partnership needs to achieve wider

exposure for the brand (Fairbanks, 2004; Cation, 2004). Indeed, for a place brand to be

successful in the long term, for Crockett and Wood (1999: 286), “it has to reflect the

entire state’s culture and residents should have ownership of the brand”. Similar to the

Western Australia place brand, Surrey Hills can initiate a brand ownership campaign

where approved licensees will be able to use the visual elements of the Surrey Hills in

their own marketing and promotional efforts and thus support the brand identity. Surrey

Hills as an AONB will thus act as the “umbrella” brand with the other sub-brands (for

e.g. Surrey Hills Farming and Surrey Hills Tourism) whilst keeping a degree of

individuality and these together will create a unique identity for the Surrey Hills region.
 32

Some areas for future research include measuring the brand strength of the place brands

brand through primary research with its stakeholders. In this respect, two types of studies

would assist the Surrey Hills Partnership to evaluate the success of their branding efforts:

(1) the perceptions of the target market and (2) the ownership, loyalty and commitment

exhibited by those living/trading within the Surrey Hills boundaries. Word-of-mouth and

referrals can also be used as a proxy for this (Gilmore, 2002). Such research findings

could also boost future funding bids.

Finally, as place branding researchers, we are now searching for the underlying forces

within places, beyond the scope of tourism marketing research and education and suggest

that no place brand should be analysed outside the context of the regional development.

Further studies should investigate issues on managing partnership in building place

brands. For example, are there conflicts between residents and partners? How do brand

managers mediate these conflicts? Although this study makes a contribution to

understanding of place brand building, it has several limitations. The main limitation is

the use of single case study. Further studies should investigate the brand building

framework by adopting multiple case studies. This would allow for cross-case

comparison and increase external validity of this study.

 33

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Interviews

Cation, Caroline, (2004) Surrey Hills AONB Office, Marketing Manager

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Partnership, National Farmers Union

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Finch, Sue (2004) Surrey County Council.

 41

Little, James (2004) Natural Discovery LTD (tour operator), also working as a Consultant

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