Paper Title
An Evaluation of City Branding to Reinforce The City Competitiveness (A Case Study of Surabaya)

Abstract
As predicted by United Nations, around 60 percent of people will live in the urban area by 2030, which would create a new challenge for cities as the main economic generator of a nation. The tighter competition between places all around the world, including cities, regions, and province had brought Surabaya, as the second largest metropolis city in Indonesia after Jakarta, to gain a lot of attention from citizens of Indonesia due to its great improvement. Despite of that fact, Surabaya still ranks below the capital city of Indonesia, which is Jakarta, in terms of global competitiveness. Regarding this issue, this research had been conducted in order to provide insights for the government and people of Surabaya. Using the theory of Kotler’s strategic place marketing and the PEST analysis tool, city offering and city brand identity is discovered through interviews with the relevant informants. In addition, a survey using Anholt’s city brand hexagon model had also been done in order to capture the currrent brand image of the city. The result shows that Surabaya could win over Jakarta due to its effective branding. However, the city’s promotion strategy still needs to be improved and synergy between all of the stakeholders is very necessary to maximize the city brand value. Keywords : city competitiveness, place marketing, city branding, brand image, Surabaya