Dr Keith Dinnie joined University of Dundee in 2018. He is a Reader in Marketing and Associate Dean for Business and Community Engagement.

Keith is a leading authority on place branding for cities, regions and nations. He is the author of the first textbook on nation branding, Nation Branding – Concepts, Issues, Practice (Routledge, 2007). The thrid edition of thebook will be published by Routledge in early 2022. He is the editor of City Branding – Theory and Cases (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). His books have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian.

As a Non-Executive Director on the Board of Visit Dundee Ltd, Keith played a leading role in Visit Dundee's successful applications for funding of £190,000 in 2021-22.

In December 2022 he obtained a funding award of £10,000 from the Scottish Inward Investment Catalyst Fund. The fund is administered by Interface and funded by the Scottish Government.

He is a member of the Universities Scotland International Committee Branding Sub-Group. The group comprises the Heads of Marketing of all the Scottish universities. Its work focuses on promoting Scotland across international markets as an attractive destination for higher education.

Keith has delivered seminars, conference speeches, presentations and lectures in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Iceland, Portugal, Greece, China, Korea, Malaysia, South Africa and Japan. His research focuses on the application of strategic brand management techniques within the domains of tourism promotion, export promotion, inward investment attraction, and public diplomacy. His research covers the branding of cities and regions as well as nations.

He has published in Marketing Theory, Journal of Business Research, Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Journal of Current Japanese Affairs, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Brand Management, and International Marketing Review. His research and consultancy work includes projects conducted on behalf of market-leading consultancies Landor Associates and Burson-Marsteller, Brand Scotland, and Changsha Municipality, as well as innovative research conducted into the field of place branding amongst senior decision-makers and brand consultants on a worldwide basis. He is the founder of Brand Horizons consultancy.

He has advised the United Kingdom Government’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra); the Korean Presidential Council on Nation Branding; Brand Scotland; and he has been appointed to the Dundee City Council Brand Group responsible for the branding of Dundee city and region.

BU51026 Place Branding for Cities, Regions and Countries

BU51030 Digital Asset Management

Keith Dinnie's research focuses mainly on place brand management for cities, regions, countries and other localities. 

In 2021 he was awarded three Innovation and Impact Development Fund (IIDF) awards:

-'Keywording digital assets - introduction and guidelines for SMEs' (£2,500; with Dr Szu-Hsin Wu).

-'Exploring the possibilities of upcycling spent grain from brewing to develop innovative sustainable products' (£2,500; with Dr Daniel Clarke).

-'NHS Tayside external branding and employer branding' (£2,500; with Professor Graeme Martin and Dr Stephanie Schreven).

In March 2018 he was awarded a University of Dundee School of Social Sciences Interdisciplinary Incubator Grant (IIG) for the project 'Place and identity in Dundee: Using archive materials to connect place branding and place making'.

In May 2018 he was awarded a University of Dundee School of Social Sciences Strategic Development Impact Funding grant for the project 'Innovation in provenance branding: A multi-sector approach'.