Place marketing approaches are increasingly employed by authorities competing to attract capital. This development has spurred scholarly interest in a growing number of disciplines. While a rapidly mounting number of case studies have provided valuable insights to the field, scholars appear struggling for an advancement of theoretical understanding. As a consequence, the literature is unstructured and the fragmented pieces of insights that exist have to be ordered in a way that allows for a better understanding of place marketing. This discussion paper attempts a few small steps towards that aim. It departs from a simple notion of spatial competition as the least common denominator for place marketing and argues that place marketing is essentially used as a means to improve competitiveness in a hierarchical spatial system. From this basic, yet seemingly overlooked, perspective the article contributes to the emerging literature by presenting six rudimentary but nonetheless essential hypotheses for future research to consider.