From the perspective of local brand equity, how do citizens perceive green, creative and smart brand potential of future Hong Kong?

The Hong Kong SAR Government has implemented policies for building Hong Kong under the themes of a "green", creative" and "smart" city, which are important development decisions for retaining citizens from migrating out and attracting newcomers to stay in the city. Valuable city brands built from these development themes may allow local residents to envision the future of Hong Kong. Branding a city based on its unique, strong and valuable attributes should be able to strengthen local identity and capture citizen support. City brand equity refers to the capacity of a city to generate brand value to its target stakeholders. It is characterized by a series of components, namely awareness, perceived quality, associations of attributes, loyalty, and image and uniqueness. This research identifies the components of local brand equity of green, creative and smart cities of Hong Kong through local resident survey of 751 responses of three city theme and interviews with 46 local citizens. The results show that the city themes consist of some of the components of local brand equity only. Interviewees have varied degrees of understanding of how green, creative and smart city attributes across different districts in Hong Kong, but their understanding is narrow and general. The findings also show some areas of opportunities and threats that have eventually affected the interviewees' perception, confidence and willingness to stay in Hong Kong. While Hong Kong has been well served by its current brand over the years, Hong Kong is facing increasing competition both regionally and globally, including challenges imposed by outflows of talents and capital, and debates on declining citizen participation in policy making.