Today, place branding is one of the most popular topics amongst marketing professionals and politicians. This paper summarized how place branding practices have evolved in Japan and pointed out that the concept of place branding has been diversified these days. Then, the paper reviewed conceptual discussions about branding in general and claimed that place branding should be attempted with clients’ perspectives. Finally, the paper explored how place brand is built with clients’ perspectives and proposed a place brand building process model. Applying the corporate reputation formation theory, the proposed model indicated that place brand is built based on destination images, reputations, and clients’ actions.