We talk about the importance of building your place brand in partnership with your community and your stakeholders, but what happens when someone disagrees with your direction? After all, it’s inevitable that you won’t be able to please everyone if you have hundreds of thousands of residents – but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do when it happens.

Here are twelve pieces of advice to help you respond effectively next time you need to defend your place brand strategy.

Lean into your values. 

The best place brands are built on the shared values of a community. They focus more on what brings us together than what divides us. It’s more than a tagline – it’s a platform to tell our collective stories, to reflect who we are and what we stand for. That’s why the process matters as much as the outcome – because when people feel included and heard, they will defend it, not critique it. When disagreements arise, it shows passion and engagement. It’s an opportunity to reconnect and help them see themselves in the brand and embrace it with pride.

Stewart Colovin, SVP, Global Brand Strategy, MMGY Global

Bring your community in as co-creators.

Disagreement is a natural part of place and destination branding, and often a sign you’re doing it right. The key is to engage early and often. Bring community members and stakeholders into the process from the beginning; not just as validators, but as co-creators. Ground the strategy in research and shared values, not just marketing objectives. When disagreements arise, listen with empathy, show how their feedback informed decisions and be transparent about trade-offs. A strong brand should reflect the spirit of the place, and the more voices that help shape it, the more authentic and resilient it becomes.

PJ Yesawich, Executive Creative Director, Miles Partnership

Build long-term relationships with your key stakeholders.

Disagreement is an inevitable part of the process—and often a healthy one. The most effective place marketers treat stakeholder pushback as a critical signal, not an obstacle. It’s essential to actively listen, acknowledge concerns, and back up your direction with real data: insights from traveller intent, booking behaviour, or audience sentiment can depersonalise tension and reframe decisions as outcomes of evidence. Bring sceptics into the process early, show how their priorities align with broader goals, and share tangible wins. Transparent, insight-led engagement—powered by AI where appropriate—builds trust, strengthens partnerships, and ensures your strategy reflects the community while staying future-ready.

Luca Romozzi, Commercial Director, Europe, Sojern

Transparency is essential. 

Disagreement is part of the process and often a sign that people care. When pushback comes, start by listening to understand where it’s coming from. Then share the thinking behind the strategy, whether it is research, benchmarks, or community input. Just as third-party credibility and quantitative data builds trust in external marketing, it can also help build internal consensus, especially when connected to shared goals like quality of life, opportunity, or cultural pride. You won’t always get full alignment, but transparency and dialogue go a long way. Sometimes just being heard can turn a critic into a collaborator—and that’s when the brand starts to feel truly shared.

Tracy Vaughan, Digital Marketing Project Manager, C Studios

Build ongoing dialogue with your citizens.

Disagreement is natural in place branding and marketing — it reflects the diversity of perspectives within any community. The key is to ground the process in valid, reliable data and to consult widely and meaningfully before decisions are made. This helps ensure that the final strategy reflects a broad consensus and is truly representative of the majority, while also acknowledging minority views.

Our experience — including insights from our Redefining Success: How Social Sustainability is Shaping the Future of Destination Management Organisations study, produced in partnership with CityDNA — shows that engagement must be more than a one-off exercise. From day one, destinations should put measures in place to embrace different opinions, address concerns, and make people feel heard. This ongoing dialogue not only reduces resistance but also strengthens trust, ensuring the place brand evolves with the community rather than apart from it.

Barry Rogers, Director of Destination Strategy, TOPOSOPHY

Assess the emotional drivers behind the disagreement.

When facing disagreement, it’s helpful to first step back and assess the emotional drivers behind it. People often resist change when they feel disconnected from the process, so fostering a sense of inclusion is crucial. For community members, creating spaces for open dialogue where their concerns are acknowledged can turn tension into collaboration. For stakeholders, framing the strategy as a long-term investment is key. You’ll need to support your claims with clear reasoning or data, demonstrating how the strategy can deliver both immediate results and long-term value, which will help reassure them and gain their support. However, in both cases, it's essential to listen—and show that you’re listening. When people feel heard, it builds trust and facilitates more productive conversations.

Mirko Lalli, CEO, The Data Appeal Company

Ask open-ended questions to get constructive feedback.

When facing disagreement, transparency is key—clearly communicate the process, timeline, and decision points upfront. Bring community members and stakeholders into the journey through surveys, workshops, and pre-reads. This fosters trust, ensures they feel heard, and makes them part of the solution. Ground the strategy in rigorous research and audience segmentation to understand varying priorities and motivators. And instead of asking “Do you like it?”, ask “Which direction do you prefer, and why?” This shifts the conversation from reaction to reflection and helps guide productive feedback rather than triggering defensive responses. Inclusion and clarity build alignment.

Matthew Kruchko, Head of Global Operations, Gravity Global

Listen to concerns and validate feelings.

When community members express disagreement with place branding and placemaking directions, they are expressing how strongly they care. Concerns are rarely just about colour choices or design themes — they’re about whether the strategy reflects local identity and values.

In these moments, I shift the focus away from debating details and toward clarifying intent and building trust. By listening carefully and inviting community members to share what matters most to them, we elevate the dialogue toward shared goals: creating environments that are welcoming, intuitive to navigate, and memorable to experience.

When people feel their voices shape the outcome, the brand doesn’t just represent the place — it belongs to the community.

Nima Gopalakrishnan, Project Director, Entro

Ask yourself – do they dislike the brand itself or the visuals? 

Convert the conversation from the irrational ‘liking/not liking’ of a campaign to a rational discussion about the meaning behind it. Is the problem with the brand platform or with its creative expression? People vex over visuals more than anything else. If this is your case, show why your brand idea requires your visual choices.

There is also nuance to the nature of the place and community. In tightly-knit communities, dissent is inevitable as it is an expression of care: meet as many people as you can to bring them on. In hierarchical societies, dissent is a test of your conviction: plough through despite objections to earn stakeholder respect.

Dr Natasha Norman, Co-founder, INSTID (Institute for Identity) 

Ground your strategies in place-based insights.

Disagreements around place branding strategies are inevitable — especially when multiple visions and priorities coexist within a community. From what we observe at Propulso, one of the most constructive ways agencies and local governments can address pushback is by grounding conversations in real-world behavioural data. When developing or defending a strategy, showing how people are actually using a place — which zones they visit, how long they stay, where they come from — helps move the dialogue away from opinions and toward shared evidence.

We've seen clients use location-based insights not just to build more relevant strategies, but also to reassure hesitant stakeholders by validating their decisions with concrete results.. Whether it's proving that an unpopular campaign did, in fact, drive economic activity, or identifying underperforming areas that need rethinking, data acts as a neutral bridge. It doesn’t erase disagreement — but it creates space for honest, fact-based collaboration that strengthens the place brand over time.

Vincent Desmarais, Account Executive, Propulso

Explain the ‘why’ to your stakeholders.

It’s hard to argue with research. Starting with input and research from the community that guides your place brand or place marketing strategy, helps set a solid foundation. Additionally, it’s important to launch a place brand or marketing strategy with a planned event that explains to stakeholders and the community the why. Regardless, you can’t make everyone happy and there will always be opinions out of your control. So knowing that your foundation is solid and being confident in your plan of action is important for determining when and how to deal with those instances.

Jessica McCarthy, President, Joy Riot

Aim for consent – not consensus.

In my book The Civic Brand: The Power & Responsibility of Place, I explain why communities should aim for consent, not consensus. True consensus is rare in diverse places and can lead to watered-down decisions. Consent means people feel heard, respected, and involved - even if the outcome isn’t their first choice. When engagement is genuine and transparent, people are more likely to support the direction. This approach builds trust, reduces opposition, and strengthens a community’s brand by showing it values its people and their voices.

Ryan Short, CEO, CivicBrand