This thesis presents a critical account of place branding governance, questioning whether the decentralisation of ownership enables greater stakeholder participation. To do so, three overarching components are drawn upon from the extant literature, namely (place) brand meaning (Green et al., 2016; Merrilees et al., 2012), stakeholder engagement (Foo et al., 2011; Hankinson, 2009; Hanna and Rowley, 2015) and Bourdieu’s field-capital theory (Bourdieu, 1077, 1984, 1986). The holistic analysis responds to stakeholders’ continued hierarchal involvement, which operates in contradiction to academic claims that stakeholders should be partners, and not merely passive participants, in shaping the place branding process (Aitken and Campelo, 2011; Kavaratzis, 2012). This place branding conundrum is explored through two in-depth case studies of Bath and Bristol. The case studies utilise in-depth interviews with 60 salient stakeholders from the business community, local authority, local community and visitor economy (Mitchell et al., 1997). The thesis adopts elements from a moderate constructivist approach to grounded theory to augment the data collection, data analysis, and the abductive development of emergent theory (Charmaz, 2014; Gioia et al., 2013). This approach ensures a combination of flexibility, integrity, and depth to the research process. The abductive research establishes the 7Cs of a critical approach to place branding governance. These combine the three interconnected components (claims, contributions, capacity) and four supplementary and emergent outcomes (competition, connectivity, chronology, cyclicality). Together these themes show that stakeholders who possess the greatest resources, over a prolonged period of time and across the city, are best equipped to establish and maintain their strategic positions within the place branding process.