Cities are more and more eager to create a positive brand image about themselves in the eyes of their "customers". A recent trend in city branding has been to stage large events, also known as flagship events, with the hopes to contribute to city image change. However, as cities develop innovative marketing strategies to compete against one another for tourists, investors, companies, talents and so forth, research has scarcely focused on one of the main city target groups: its residents. In this regards, an empirical study is conducted on the image effects of the up-coming 2015 World Expo on the residents of its host city: Milan.