Brand as an image

The presented article attempts to describe the local, regional and national brand in the terms of an image. The analysis is based on the assumption that an images are a significant interpretative framework of defining national and local brand. Reffering to the Walter Lippman’s concept of a “pictures in our heads” we try to drift away from the tradition of thinking about a local and national brand and open new way of its interpretation. The applied approach allows to define local/national brand as a) a mental image, something imagined, allegorical image of a city, country, product, which is created by the people (a social actors), which is shared, identified and longstanding and as b) a construct having a material strand. Based on gathered empirical materials the Authors describes the process of social creation of a local and national brand as well as distinguishes four main types of local brands/images: imposed images, long duration images, images for selling and brand mind map images