Diego RINALLO

Like products, also places are nowadays branded. Cities and nations use place branding strategies to attract tourists, new residents, and investors (Anholt 2016). Rural areas are also increasingly adopting place branding strategies to foster economic development by fostering collaboration among local actors (Donner and al 2017). Processes and outcomes of place branding in rural areas are understudied (Gulinova 2021). We contribute to the literature on the topic with a study of a rural context that adopts place branding practices to promote local products through food tourism. Specifically, we focus on restaurateurs as key actors in the transmission of place branding meanings. A socio-semiotic approach allows us to highlight how restaurateurs attach to place branding different sets of meanings, influencing their relationships with place and consumers. We consider restaurateurs as cultural intermediaries (Bourdieu 1987) that can mediate place branding meanings (Warren and Dinnie 2018). In doing so, we also respond to recent calls for consumer research to consider social and cultural dynamics (Rokka 2021) and the broader context (Askegaard and Linnet 2011) in which consumption occurs. This paper is structured as follows. First, we present our theoretical framework, highlighting the importance of mobilizing local marketers to join forces in place branding processes so that the shared meanings can be transferred to consumers. We then present our qualitative methodology, based on a socio-semiotic analysis of restaurant-level data sources. We finally present and discuss our findings, highlighting restaurateurs’ varying attitudes towards local place brands and the ambiguities of place meanings.