Few voices in Switzerland bridge theory and practice in place branding as consistently as Claude Wagner. As Professor for Communication and Leadership at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) and long-time head of the CAS programme in Standortmanagement, Claude has spent more than two decades advising municipalities, teaching executives, and analysing how reputation, policy, and lived experience shape the competitiveness of places.
We caught up with him to discuss why perception can outlast reality, how Swiss cities are navigating demographic and social shifts, and why effective place branding ultimately begins with people rather than marketing.
Claude, you have been working on communication, leadership and place management for many years. Was there a specific moment that fundamentally shaped your view of place branding and the importance of places?
Yes, one moment in particular has stayed with me.
In one of my first courses on location marketing about 20 years ago, an economic development officer from the Zurich Oberland told us that during relocation discussions with CEOs he was regularly confronted with the topic of a mass shooting. The incident in question had happened more than 15 years earlier, when two bank employees were shot by a colleague of them. Yet the story had never really disappeared from people’s minds — even among CEOs coming from abroad. Understandably, this increasingly frustrated him.
That story made me realise just how abruptly and permanently the image of a place can be damaged by a catastrophe of any kind. A single event can reshape perception for decades.
We can see a similar dynamic today in the Emirates. A sense of insecurity may stick to the region’s image for a long time and manifest itself across many sectors. Places facing such reputational shocks clearly require active place branding if they want to shift these associations again.
Switzerland is culturally and linguistically complex. From your perspective, what opportunities — but also tensions — does this create for place branding at municipal or regional level?
The advantages of Switzerland’s cultural and linguistic diversity are most evident when attracting companies and very wealthy individuals from abroad — particularly in cities and their surrounding municipalities.
This diversity, combined with high technical expertise thanks to institutions such as ETH Zurich or EPFL, has certainly helped attract companies like Google. It also plays a role around Geneva and Lake Geneva, where the francophone business world appreciates the language competence of Swiss authorities, but also the country’s stability, openness, and tax advantages.
Even smaller regions take advantage of this dynamic. The canton of Obwalden, for example, actively promotes itself in Germany to wealthy private individuals, highlighting its lump-sum taxation and its rural idyll with lakes and mountains.
The tensions appear more clearly at the municipal level, especially in suburban areas and rural communities. Cities have become increasingly unaffordable for the average Swiss resident. The middle class is pushed into suburbs that were traditionally home to lower-income and often immigrant working-class populations.
This creates social tensions in suburban areas — and increasingly in rural regions as well, where housing remains affordable and where many former suburban residents now settle. Unsurprisingly, this shift does not always sit well with long-time rural populations.
Another development I observe is the gradual decline of Switzerland’s traditional linguistic diversity. Today, a French-speaking Swiss and a German-speaking Swiss increasingly communicate in English. This trend starts in school and will likely be difficult to reverse. In a way, it reinforces the famous “Rösti divide”.
Your academic background is in linguistics, pedagogy and communication science. How does this influence your approach to place marketing compared to more economically or marketing-driven approaches?
I tend to emphasise emotional aspects more strongly than pure data when it comes to branding places.
Instead of starting with statistics, I begin with the interests, needs, values, and expectations of potential newcomers. The positioning of a location should be built around the strongest emotional benefit that a place can offer to its target audience.
Methodologically, I also place people at the centre of the process. Through workshops with key stakeholders and sounding boards, we often learn far more about a location’s strengths and weaknesses than through benchmarking exercises.
As Gubler, founder of Greater Zurich Area (GZA), once put it: location marketing is “first of all a people’s business.” First you must satisfy the needs of the companies and residents already there — only then should you think about attracting new ones.
At the same time, protectionist tendencies are clearly increasing in Switzerland. In the long run, that can become dangerous for a small, export-oriented country.
In theory, place branding is often described as strategic narrative-building. From your experience, how can places balance authentic identity with economic and political expectations?
A location cannot be positioned in contradiction to reality.
Winterthur will never be Zurich in terms of its financial centre or economic dynamism, just as Biel is not Bern. Every place has its own strengths. The task of place branding is to recognise that particular value and bring it to the foreground.
This often requires convincing work by professionals in location management and economic development.
Internationally, which cities or regions do you currently consider particularly forward-thinking or inspiring in place brand leadership? What are they doing differently or better?
I would not single out one specific city.
For me, the most inspiring places are those that prioritise slow mobility, mixed-use neighbourhoods where businesses and housing coexist across generations, and large new green spaces. Cities that renaturalise rivers so people can swim again, that ensure social diversity in urban centres, that sustain cultural life, and that think sustainably about energy — for example through district heating networks — are the ones positioning themselves well for the future.
On a regional level, I find the development of Bordeaux particularly interesting. Since the city became reachable from Paris by TGV in just two hours, living in Bordeaux while working in Paris has become a realistic option, even though the distance is around 500 kilometres.
Large infrastructure investments have clearly paid off: new tram lines, residential blocks embedded in huge parks, rising quality of life, and rents that remain far below Paris levels. Tax revenues have increased accordingly.
I sometimes wonder why similar developments do not succeed more often in Switzerland — for example in Olten, particularly in the Olten Süd-West district, which has remained half-abandoned for years due to poor connections and an underdeveloped environment. The distance from Zurich to Olten is 50 KM, it would be a win-win-situation also for Zurich, when for example young skilled workers could commute easily.
Looking specifically at Switzerland: which cities, regions or initiatives currently strike you as particularly bold or strategically convincing in their positioning?
From an economic perspective, Schlieren is remarkable.
What Albert Schweizer and his team have achieved there is impressive. Within roughly 25 years, the number of registered companies — many of them biotech and healthcare firms — has doubled. Corporate tax revenues for the municipality have more than doubled and now account for around 43% of total tax income. Jobs have almost doubled, and the population has grown by over 30%. Everyone benefits.
I knew Schlieren as a child. At the time, the village was almost entirely dominated by used-car dealerships, crime rates were high, and the reputation was accordingly poor. No one wanted to work or live there.
From a social perspective, I find Thun very interesting.
About 15 years ago the city positioned itself primarily through its castle, which gave it a rather old-fashioned image. This coincided with a demographic trend: the number of residents over 65 steadily increased while the number under 18 declined — far more strongly than the cantonal average.
A later attempt to position Thun as “the city of the Alps” also failed. Media and residents quickly mocked the slogan as “the city of the Alps, the city of wrinkles.”
Today, after a rebranding, a very competent communications team has built a positioning around the river and the lake. This has not only improved the city’s image but also strengthened tourism. The slogan “Only staying is more beautiful” speaks especially well to younger day visitors — often from Bern — encouraging them to linger longer.
Housing policy has also helped: a focus on social mix in residential development has contributed significantly to the city’s positive evolution.
Looking ahead: which themes, questions or competencies will be decisive for research and practice in place branding — especially at the intersection of sustainability, digitalisation and social change?
I hope we will succeed in counteracting the declining identification with one’s place of residence, particularly among younger generations.
City centres should remain social anchors. If they do, they can help reduce social conflicts in suburban and rural areas and make place branding easier.
From an economic perspective, it will be crucial — especially in Europe and Switzerland — to provide areas with specialised clusters: for example for data centres or biotech industries that also meet ecological sustainability standards.
Our thoughts shape the words we use, but our words also shape our thoughts. If the quality of life and work in a place improves, place branding can amplify that attractiveness. But if quality of life declines, place branding cannot simply talk the problem away.
Location policy and place branding are inseparably linked.
Thank you, Claude.
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