This volume examines the potentially deleterious impact of place branding on the social fabric, ecosystems and local economies of the places concerned. As the different essays show, place branding is a fundamentally political practice, often driven by hidden agendas that marginalize certain groups within society. Contributors explore place branding from a wide variety of angles, including: the role played by the visual arts in city branding; the applied arts, and speci cally the fashion industry's potential for shaping perceptions of a particular place; the different ways in which sport has been exploited by the political elites; the role of design in place branding, including the architectural design of sports stadia; and the potentially insidious economic and societal consequences of excessive consumption of branded places.