Place Brand Leaders Yearbook 2025
Spotlighting the people, places, and ideas that shaped the art and practice of place branding in 2025.
The 2025 edition brings together leading practitioners, pioneering city and country teams, and the agencies and experts influencing global place branding practice.
Registered with the Swiss National Library, the Yearbook is TPBO’s annual benchmark publication — a long-term reference for strategy, leadership, and impact.
A Global Reference for Place Brand Leadership
Each year, the Place Brand Leaders Yearbook presents a curated selection of standout places, strategies, and leadership voices from around the world. The 2025 edition highlights how places navigate reputation, investment, talent, sustainability, and public trust — supported by insights from our expert community and grounded in international comparison.
The Yearbook brings together leading place brand and economic development organisations, cities and regions shaping their global position, agencies advancing new thinking in the field, and expert commentary that sheds light on emerging trends and practical pathways to impact.
Who Is Featured in the 2025 Edition
The features below sit within a broader edition shaped by four forewords: Madeleine Sjöstedt, Director General of the Swedish Institute, on Sweden’s long-term reputation strategy; Sithembile Ntombela, Head of Marketing at Brand South Africa, on shifting perceptions through national confidence; David Downs, CEO of New Zealand Story, on the role of storytelling and trust; and David Haigh, Chairman of Brand Finance, on global soft power and place brand value.
At the heart of the Yearbook is our cover story on Sweden, complemented by premium showcases from Chile, Tasmania, Limerick, Tilburg, and Cape Town. Together, these profiles highlight how leading places translate strategy into impact and position themselves in a competitive global landscape.
Explore
The 2025 Place Brand Leaders Yearbook offers an opportunity to celebrate and learn from best practices worldwide. By sharing New Zealand's story, we hope to promote it as a destination but also build meaningful relationships between people.
David Downs
CEO New Zealand StoryThe Yearbook provides an invaluable platform for exchanging ideas, inspiration, and ambitions - bringing together global examples of innovation in place branding, soft power, and nation building.
Sithembile Ntombela
Head of Marketing, Brand South AfricaThe Place Brand Leaders Yearbook is a useful starting point for considering place branding. By harnessing the strategic insights, leaders can take informed, decisive actions to enhance their place brand, ensuring success in an ever more competitive world.
David Haigh
Chairman, Brand FinancePlace Brand Impact Awards
The Place Brand Impact Awards recognise destinations that demonstrate meaningful, measurable progress in strengthening their place brand. The awards celebrate initiatives that link strategy with community benefit, economic resilience, sustainability, and long-term reputation building.
This year’s winning stories were presented at PLACExNordic in Uppsala, Sweden, and selected by an international jury of academics and practitioners. The featured winners — Royal Djurgården, Stockholm and Little Tasmanian, Australia — illustrate how places turn strategy into action, and how thoughtful, consistent work can shift perceptions over time.
The Yearbook features the winning and highly commended entries, offering insight into why these initiatives stood out and what other places can learn from them.
Behind the Edition
The Place Brand Leaders Yearbook Series is curated in collaboration with TPBO’s international expert community. Each story was chosen for its clarity of vision and measurable progress — showing how strategy and authenticity can work hand in hand to build stronger places.
Curious about future editions?
Write to editor@placebrandobserver.com