Original Article The relationship between place branding and environmental communication: The symbolic management of places through the use of brands Received (in revised form): 7th August 2013 Jordi de San Eugenio Vela is a full-time professor at the University of Vic (Catalonia, Spain). Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Business and Communication. From 2011 to 2013 he was the head of the Communication Department. He received his PhD in place branding from Pompeu Fabra University. He holds a MA in Environment Management from the University of Girona and a BA in Journalism from Pompeu Fabra University and Geography from University of Girona. His research interests include place branding, public diplomacy, environmental communication and humanistic geography. ABSTRACT This article aims to demonstrate the way in which global contemporary society manages the meaning of place through the use of brands, which, as we under- stand it, leads to a coming together of place branding and environmental communica- tion; this occurs primarily through a cognitive, humanistic and rhetorical interpretation of the transformational process that converts geographical space into a brand. Furthermore, the article will outline some of the possibilities for analysing the phenom- enological dimension of place branding (human–environment relationships) from the perspective of the multidimensional nature of the subjective experience of places. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy (2013) 9, 254–263. doi:10.1057/pb.2013.20; published online 11 September 2013 Keywords: place branding; environmental communication; sense of place; phenomenology INTRODUCTION Within the context of rising competition between territories, identity has become the most important element of recognition, differentiation and commodification in the communicative process within which cities, regions and countries position themselves. Geographical spaces thus compete in terms of this identity, which is then subjected to fierce comparison and competition (Nogué, 1999; Anholt, 2007). Counterintuitively, against a backdrop of globalisation, space acquires a notable influence in economic, political, social and cultural contexts (Harvey, 1989; Nogué, 1999). Capital flows and investment decisions must necessarily consider the positioning of places, and it is thus that we witness the transition of place as a space into place as a flow (Castells, 2000). Within this concept of place as a flow, the logic of territory management – that is, the premeditated and/or induced construction of collective identities as a first-order element of competitiveness – takes on characteristics that are very similar in nature Correspondence: Jordi de San Eugenio Vela, University of Vic, Sagrada Família, 7 08500 Vic, Barcelona, Spain © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1751-8040 Place Branding and Public Diplomacy Vol. 9, 4, 254–263 www.palgrave-journals.com/pb/