The 400th anniversary of Captain John Smith’s participation in the founding of Jamestown may be a fitting time to examine this colonial soldier’s, explorer’s, and adventurer’s most important campaign – his successful effort to place brand New England. Place branding – differentiating the perceived image of a city, state, country or region in such a way that it appears to have unique, desirable, attractive attributes – is a topic of significant contemporary concern. Like “The South”, “The West”, and “The Midwest”, New England became an American regional place brand associated with a distinctive set of geographical, social, and cultural features. Unlike the others, though, the brand “New England” was both coined and framed at the very beginnings of colonial settlement by a single person with a particular vision of the region and the will to tirelessly promote it to a skeptical England. John Smith’s most important campaign produced one of the most enduring of all American place brands.

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