Are city brands valuable? From Claims to Calculations

In June 2024, Dortmund’s city council adopted a new brand narrative. By May 2025, the corresponding design was introduced. Under the guiding claim “The Only One of Its Kind”, the city didn’t just launch a new logo—it articulated a self-image. This self-description seeks to express Dortmund’s industrial heritage, social cohesion, and new openness all at once. The branding project was based on a multi-phase participation process involving over 350 local stakeholders, a nationwide survey, and extensive coordination within the administration. The result is a modular system that distills the city’s identity into four character traits (“honest at heart,” “unpretentious,” “hands-on together,” “open to the world”) and a flexible design system—featuring a striking “DO” logo and typography tailored for the digital public sphere. The new brand image was first made visible at the DORTBUNT city festival. Yet beyond its symbolic shape, a more tangible question arises: What is Dortmund’s brand actually worth?

To answer this question, it is helpful to look at internationally established methods for valuing city brands. Analogous to corporate brand valuations, the goal is to quantify the economic contribution of a city brand—often using the royalty rate model, which operates based on a city’s gross domestic product (GDP). The core assumption is: if a city had to license its own brand—like a company pays to use an external brand—what percentage of its economic output would it need to pay? This percentage, the so-called royalty rate, varies between 0.5% and 7%, depending on brand strength. In practice, for mid-range brands, a rate of 2% to 4% is usually applied.

For Dortmund, this yields a remarkable picture. The city’s GDP in 2022 was approximately €26.7 billion. Using a conservative estimate of 2% brand-induced impact, the brand value would be about €533 million. In a more optimistic scenario with a 4% influence, the value would exceed €1 billion. This monetary value encompasses all economic activities influenced by the city’s image, recognition, emotional resonance, and narrative positioning: tourism, business investment, talent attraction, events, networks, and funding. The brand value is not a symbolic fair-weather indicator—it’s a real component of urban competitiveness. Or at least the attempt to treat it as such. Because the equation “image = euro” remains an ambitious one—with side effects.

Even though methodological issues continue to be debated, the question of whether such branding efforts are worth it economically can be asked reasonably and answered in model form. But that is not the central concern here. More important than methodological disputes is the fundamental question of whether cities should be treated like economic goods—and if so, how city brand initiatives relate to the claim that brands generate economic value. The idea that image, emotional attachment, and narrative coherence can lead to measurable economic effects—such as increased investment, talent retention, or tourism—is no longer mere assertion. It has become the object of empirical urban research. Still, the link between symbolic representation and macroeconomic benefit remains demanding: it requires solid data, realistic assumptions about brand strength—and a willingness to think of impact not only in communicative, but in structural terms. Above all, it demands readiness to face criticism and contradictions—and the possibility that brands may resonate in ways that were not intended.

So where does the question about the economic value of a city brand lead us? First, it offers an analytical approach: the calculation of Dortmund’s brand value shows that economic effects of city brands can be modeled. The scale—between half a billion and a full billion euros—is anything but trivial. Image, appeal, and recognizability can influence real economic decisions—and thereby create value.

But the economic logic doesn’t explain everything. What a city brand actually means can’t be captured in numbers alone—it unfolds in symbolic and social contexts, and often in the gaps between two slogans. The question also reveals a deeper tension: Those who judge city brands solely by their economic benefit reduce them to tools of location marketing. But brands are never neutral. They convey political ideas of belonging, visibility, and future. Who’s included? Who’s addressed—and who’s not? Calculating brand value may be strategically useful—but it risks distracting from the real core: city brands are political narratives, not economic products. And sometimes, they are just PowerPoint soliloquies.

Finally, the question of brand value is also existential and reflective: What does it mean to claim to be “the only one of its kind”? And who actually identifies with that message? The true value of a city brand does not emerge from its strategic evaluation—it emerges from everyday engagement. It arises where people identify with the brand, question it, transform it, or carry it forward. Between number and symbol, strategy and lived urbanity, lies the space where it’s decided whether a brand is merely claimed—or genuinely comes to life.

A modest proposal: City brand managers should henceforth be obliged to back their claims with numbers—and their narratives with impact assessments. Those who proclaim to “shape the future” should be ready to calculate the return on narrative. Those who write “strengthening community” into their manuals should offer measurable metrics for social inclusion. Why not introduce an annual city brand report with transparent indicators: brand value in euros, increased visitor stay, reduced out-migration, measured identification—and as an appendix: a list of those who do not see themselves reflected in the brand strategy. The shadows of the brand should be part of the balance sheet. That might be uncomfortable—sure. But also honest. Because city brands have long been part of a symbolic governance economy—and those who choose to play that game should be willing not just to count likes, but to check for legitimacy. Maybe that’s the real value of a city brand: not just revealing who we want to be—but also what we prefer not to see.