<![CDATA[City branding integration into regional development planning remains fragmented in non-metropolitan Indonesian districts, while official digital platforms effectiveness in building coherent place narratives is underexplored. This study examines city branding practices in Minahasa Regency through qualitative analysis of two successive RPJMD (2021–2026 and 2025–2029) and a digital audit of three official government platforms across six branding dimensions. The 2025–2029 RPJMD marks a significant shift by formally positioning tourism as core regional identity, yet cross-sectoral coordination mechanisms and measurable brand Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) remain absent. Digital analysis confirms a parallel gap; Instagram's followers-to-post ratio of 0.69 and fragmented platform narratives evidence a condition of branding by default. This study proposes the Identity–Infrastructure–Interaction (I3) framework, extending Kavaratzis and Hatch's approach with explicit digital infrastructure and community co-creation dimensions, contributing to place branding literature for districts with high symbolic capital but limited institutional capacity.]]>
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