Branding Madrid as a Sustainable City: The role of Mega Projects

Abstract

The paper awards the role of mega project as core element of building a branding strategy for city image promotion. The studied area is the city of Madrid that is promoted as a ‘sustainable city’ using as a main axis the Madrid Nuevo Norte Project. The study proposes a conceptual combined branding corporative strategy through the analysis of two particular models. The first one is the branding model of 4Rs and the second the marketing model of 8Ps. The study supports that the proposed branding strategy creates the appropriate framework in order the city of Madrid to increase the value of its image by linking the MNN project and being considered by consumers, visitors, companies and other stakeholders as the new benchmark for a sustainable European city.

Keywords: Mega Project; Urban sustainable development; city branding; conceptual model; Madrid