This Ph.D. thesis is approaching architecture from the marketing communications perspective.
Namely, it deals with the role of architecture in rebranding post-socialist capital cities and
nations after 1991, placing a particular emphasis on Ljubljana, Zagreb, and Skopje. As a consequence of the underlying influences of globalism and nationalism, these capital cities exhibit dual identities, the traditional (national) on one side and modernist (globalist) on the
other. The thesis is first to suggest that an architectural artifact can be perceived as a celebrity endorser, having a set of symbolic properties that move from an endorser to a place and nation brand. Attribute associations of the capital city and nation brands come from the celebrity
endorsers, namely monuments and public buildings. Namely, the meanings embedded in the architectural artifacts, i.e., their symbolic properties as the celebrity endorsers, are, through the erection in the public space, transferred from the celebrity to the city and the nation brand.
Moreover, as presented in the consensus map, capital city and nation brands share overlapping attribute associations and brand meaning. As follows, this thesis is the first to find that these brands are forming co-branding. Building on the work of Keller (1993, 2003, 2020) on cobranding,
this Ph.D. thesis argues that the brand author is borrowing equity from these architectural artifacts to create or enhance brand associations of both the capital city and the
nation simultaneously.
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