From Brand Positioning to Place Positioning
How to show up more like a neighbour, and less like a tourist
Being Somewhere > Being Everywhere
The world’s best brands understand the value of creating a cultural experience.
Brick-and-mortar retail long ago shifted to experiential. Community collabs and pop-ups are everywhere.
Why?
Because niches are where taste is made. Communities drive true loyalty.
And in an age of digital overload, being somewhere specific cuts through.
But without a clear place strategy, even the most immersive brand experiences risk becoming wallpaper.
Too often, brand presence feels superficial, short-term—just another beat in the hype cycle, blanding out the genuine vibe of our favourite neighbourhoods.
The Shift
If brands want to make a real cultural connection, it's not just about what you activate — it's where, with who, and how.
Enter: Place Positioning.
Place Positioning links street-level resonance with global relevance.
It’s about knowing which neighbourhoods speak to your brand’s soul—and might just become friends for life.
It’s about showing up like a local and becoming a great neighbour—not another tourist.
Place Positioning helps brands tell the world an authentic story about the streets and communities that shaped them.
Because the best brands aren’t just in places—they’re of them.
How do we know? Our team draws experience of working with some of the world’s most recognised brands on defining that sense of place, and shaping up spaces that help them give back to the neighbourhoods, cities and landscapes that define them. From working with Lavazza in Turin, Lego in Billund, or Irish Distillers in Midelton, Cork, we’ve learnt that the brands that invest in place reap rewards in terms of brand equity: they are committed to developing talent, creating real relationships with their neighbourhood, and rooting their provenance. And this all adds up to help position their products and values as distinct in this global world.
Beyond the Storefront
Retail is only one opportunity to make an impact. Place Strategy invites so much more.
Think of a brand home that goes beyond. Lavazza, built a museum, HQ, event space and brand home in their home city of Turin, to support the revival of the Aurora neighbourhood. Even their canteen (called ‘to share’ in Italian) offers affordable Michelin-star lunch menus for locals and workers to mingle.
Now imagine, what if...
your favourite wellness brand became your local sanctuary
your run club became a mentoring platform?
department stores turned into creative centres?
toy stores became family maker spaces?
Where We Come In
Place Strategy brings together community, narrative, and impact into one vision.
At The Place Bureau and Common Strategies, we help brands shift:
→ from campaigns to coordinates
→ from global templates to local textures
This is the return to the real fantastic.
Because the future of brands isn’t just online — it’s on the street.
Let’s map your next move.
Where You Come In
We’d love to hear about places where brands have gone the extra mile to create reciprocal relationships with their neighbourhoods. Where should we be looking in the world?
And if you’re not sure, let’s map your next move together.
Need guidance on…?
Cultural research & site-specific insight
Community visioning & local stakeholder consultation
Place-based brand strategy
Narrative development into concept and experience design
Localised partnership & impact activation
Drop a comment or Click here to book in a short 30 minute chat to tell us about your brand, its provenance, and your local ambitions.
Missed Part One?
Catch up here: The Return to Place →
Makes me think of Cadbury, building Bourneville as a village for their workers. Churches, community centre, affordable housing, swimming pools, trips for workers, all sorts of positive worker reforms. Not sure Mondelez would do the same today.
It's worth taking a look at what Patch.work are doing too - community driven coworking spaces, a place for the community, not just wework-style tenancy agreements.