THE DIMENSION OF PLACE MARKETING IN THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC RESILIENCE OF TERRITORIES

Abstract

The article substantiates place marketing and place branding as applied instruments for strengthening the socio-economic resilience of territories under wartime conditions. The study is timely because territorial welfare depends less on the scale of asset losses than on disruptions to functioning flows – production, services, employment, incomes, and the provision of basic needs. Accordingly, resilience and reconstruction should be assessed through the restoration of these flows. The research employs a conceptual–analytical approach that synthesises economic and regional interpretations of resilience, combines an interpretive analysis of reconstruction discourse with a decision-oriented logic for structuring managerial interventions, and draws on secondary analysis of international organisations’ documents to the macroeconomic and institutional context of reconstruction. Brand communications are conceptualised as a signal of governability grounded in verifiable actions: clear rules, timelines, designated responsibilities, service standards, and public reporting on completed stages, resources deployed, and measurable outcomes. Branding is shown to function as an institutionalised practice of interest alignment that links positioning to a portfolio of decisions and evidence-based reporting, thereby sustaining trust as a managerial resource. The article delineates resilience domains that are directly actionable in reconstruction – communicative, socio-economic, entrepreneurial, and institutional – and demonstrates that employment recovery trajectories may diverge from trends in well-being indicators. It is clarified that resilient positioning should avoid universal slogans and instead set credible limits to commitments through concrete institutional changes and an explicit portfolio of decisions. The need is substantiated for audience segmentation by grounds of trust and for the use of digital channels with transparent measurement indicators. Key conditions of resilient communication within place marketing are identified as the verifiability of delivery, differentiated grounds of trust across audiences, and the alignment of economic and well-being indicators. The proposed framework can be used to design standards for engagement with investors and businesses, to structure a project portfolio as the carrier of the place brand promise, and to develop accountability dashboards that reinforce trust and reduce transaction costs in reconstruction.