The Way to Become a Brand City: a Research on Communication Academicians Working Oncity Brand in Izmir

The intense competition in all areas of modern world, makes the branding of cities almost imperative with globalization’s effect. The branding process which differentiates cities from the others and put them forward in the global competition, focuses on the basic dynamics of being a brand city. The aim of this study is to identify the components of being a city brand and to present important processes that must be taken into consideration in order to become a brand city from the communicative perspective. For this purpose, a two-step research has been designed. At the first step of the research, semi-structured face to face interviews will be held with the communication academicians who are working on the city brand in Izmir for data collection. Thus, utilizing the experience of these academicians the perceptions and opinions about the city brand of them will be uncovered. Therefore, in this study a qualitative methodology and phenomenological design will be wielded, and data will be presented in a descriptive analysis in accordance with this design. In the second step of the research, the interview data will be analysed by quantitative and qualitative content analysis and the findings will be interpreted and evaluated within the framework of themes obtained from the interviews