Urban marketing is in essence a communication strategy, for this reason communication becomes broad actions that are the basis of any sense of a society. An analysis of this extensive information tells us that even when trying to say the opposite when evaluating marketing, organizational communication is presented as a phenomenon that is studied to know it and to improve the aspects of the process that are negative for the interests of certain groups social or organizations, that is, that in some way limit or do not favor the achievement of strategic objectives.
The rapid growth of urban marketing is a consequence of social progress, which has promoted the creation and development of non-profit organizations favoring the search for suitable techniques, instruments and methodologies, as well as the area of competence in which urban organizations have had to develop. Urban marketing does not imply a mere transfer of the concepts and methods of business marketing but implies an analysis of the activities carried out by these organizations and their adjustment in order to obtain a benefit for all the citizens who intervene in these exchange relations.
Despite all that has been written on the subject, there are not many explicit definitions that can be found of urban marketing. Generally, what has happened in most cases is that the different authors have preferred to establish a definition of the most prosperous branches of this broad field of marketing application, such as social marketing and political marketing, rather than what we could consider is the common trunk of all of them (Santesmases 1991).
The incorporation of the non-business sphere into marketing is driving the adoption of a new central concept that is specified by pointing out that urban marketing is a technology that seeks to obtain certain behavior from people in a city. Therefore, they propose to replace the idea that marketing tries to facilitate the exchange of values by which it seeks to obtain a defined behavior or conduct: that is, marketing is used by for-profit or non-profit organizations to try to get individuals to do certain things or follow certain behavior (2).
In this way the urban economy enriches the traditional economics by adding an essential criterion, the space in general for the spatial economy, the urban space for the urban economy. The study of urban management must therefore integrate a notion that highlights the fact that competition also refers to space, and in particular to urban space. Therefore, we must deduce that there is urban competition, just as there is competition for prices or quality.
One of the priorities of the current regional and local development strategy is therefore the development of territories with competitive capacity in an environment in which uncertainty and turbulence are great. Therefore, it is about promoting innovation, entrepreneurial capacity, the quality of human capital and the flexibility of the production system. To achieve this, rather than carrying out large industrial projects, it is about promoting projects of adequate size that allow the progressive transformation of the city and local economic system, for which urban marketing can guide development paths based on the experiences in the study of cities.
The question is: why is the logic of the market also necessary in urban management? Based on the analysis or studies we have done on the city of ciego de Ávila, we have established three arguments in favor of the market logic:
- Because there are direct or indirect forced or free exchanges, which at least can be described as interaction in two basic senses:
- Mandatory: when urban managers force citizens to exchange with the city Volunteers: when urban managers are in competition with the private sector or when the citizen can choose at which different levels of the same that offers the same service Because there is competition between the various local actors, which modifies the external environment in which the state bodies operate, eliminating the public monopoly. There may be competition between public and private entities to receive the award of contracts or in a physical territorial division of a city between different producers of public services (or public and private).
These factors of exchanges - competition - price, are what constitute the market logic and consequently that of urban marketing.
The urban marketing development strategy is based in this case on a territorial approach to the development of the province and understands that the productive history of each locality and the local resources condition the growth process. Therefore, to develop a city like Ciego de Ávila, in addition to external factors, it is necessary to resort to endogenous factors of that territory and, in any case, this research advises following a strategy of progressive change so that internal adjustments are produced by limiting the conflicts that productive transformations tend to generate (Vázquez Barquero 2003).
In recent decades, land use planning policy is marked by an orientation towards growth, by the predominance of economic objectives, and especially the impact of economic activities.
The marketing - client - society approach assumes that the task of the organizations involved in urban management in this sense is to identify the needs, desires and interests of their target audiences.
Regarding the peculiarities of urban marketing, it is interesting to consider the importance it has within it, its own internal forces, because as Ashwoerth explains well “the most important urban market is the one that already exists within the city itself and the existing activities both in The public and private sectors are the most important agents for the welfare economy than potential exogenous investments, if only because they are much more numerous (2008: p67).
An urban marketing plan aimed at the domestic market avoids pure economic promotion, impulse initiatives or marketing campaigns without objectives. In addition, strategic planning can integrate specific innovation and privatization concepts. These advantages derive from the fact that urban marketing programs are strictly tailored to the wishes of the main target groups and are systematically established.
Taking into account this prospective assessment of urban marketing in the city of ciego de Ávila, we enunciate the following problems that urban marketing presents in this ruble:
- Lack of preparation and coordination of the execution of strategic logistics plans for the city Lack of studies and monitoring of demand and forecasting of supply system requirements Lack of systematic measurement and evaluation of the main attractions of the city of Ciego de Ávila Lack of analysis, design and redesign of the population service system Lack of design of the typical maintenance order schedule for the main attractions of the city Establish criteria for determining the cultural and sports attractions of the city.
These evaluations, which in the form of problems, were required in a brainstorming with key actors from the government and other public sectors. All these conditioning factors projected the reason for the need to improve the public image of Ciego de Ávila as based on objective conditions and group evaluations.
The following scientific problem emerged from these problems:
How to determine the alignment of the urban marketing development factors to the city of Ciego de Ávila?
It has been taken into account that the evaluation of the problems, when considered in themselves, generates a set of measures that, although they have different effects, can be applied independently. This scientific problem is reflected in the following research hypothesis:
"If the alignment of urban marketing development factors is programmed, then the image of the city of Ciego de Ávila is improved"
Reality constitutes a great challenge for cities, which can be studied through research and projects that characterize it. The privilege of urban marketing is to provide citizens with the product or service they demand, in the quantity they demand, in the required place, with the required quality at the required time and at cost, with a positive environmental impact and with the correct information. about the trajectory and history of a certain city. The requirement of research is in the use of the levels of research known as the empirical and the theoretical. The beginning corresponds to the research methods used in this project, such as observation, measurement, experiment, and variables from surveys and interviews.
At the theoretical level, the research is translated into forms and methods of urban marketing that are reliable and recognizable in any process, it is worth clarifying that there are different matrices used to shape the research and that all are present in practice in chapter number 2 in this thesis.
