Enhancing Baghdad City’s reputation through city branding

Reputation is considered one of the most valuable assets for cities as an intangible resource that significantly contributes to enhancing competitive advantage. Reputation helps cities to differentiate themselves and stand out in the global market to stimulate investment and attract various stakeholders. Consequently, cities have adopted urban branding strategies as part of contemporary urban development strategies. This research explores the stages of a city’s reputation emergence and the key dimensions of urban branding. It identifies the vocabulary and variables related to the concepts of city reputation and city branding. The research aims to investigate the reputation of the historic city of Baghdad and its key dimensions and levels at both local and global scales. The study employed a quantitative method for data collection using a questionnaire directed towards a diverse local and global sample to gather their perceptions of Baghdad’s reputation, analyzing it through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (Smart-PLS). The results indicated the positive impact of city branding on enhancing the reputation of Baghdad. By applying the six-dimensional model of city branding to the dimensions of city reputation, we analyze the impact of the model to determine its importance in enhancing the reputation of Baghdad City. Therefore, local authorities must recognize the importance of urban branding in city management as a tool for building a positive reputation, rather than focusing on traditional strategies that may have temporary but not permanent effects on the reputation of cities.