Jason Dobbins from Politicsinvivo.com has written a good piece about some aspects of the nation branding industry – from his own personal perspective as a politics blogger:
The arrival of the World Cup is always a great time to remember that nationalism ain’t going anywhere. The best matches, well for someone who writes a political blog [...]
The strange world of nation branding
The nation brand character: the case of Switzerland
Countries can’t pretend to be everything to everybody. Countries are not corporations but like corporations, countries must find their own personality and define the traits of its character, if they want to streamline their identity and reinforce their (nation) brand.
One example of well-characterized country is Switzerland. Besides all the stereotypes about the country like mountains, [...]
Simon Anholt on sports and “nation branding”
It’s always interesting to read Simon Anholt’s opinions. He is, no doubt, the most authoritative voice in the field around nations as brands (I purposedly omit the term ‘nation branding’ since Mr. Anholt is reportedly trying to distance himself from the marketing/communications-based approach to nation branding. For those unaware, his recent piece “Why nation branding [...]
Nation Branding and Slovakia
In this article, Slovak author Martin Búr explores nation branding examples such as the UK’s, New Zealand’s, Australia and South Africa. He also discusses the importance of the filming industry in shaping perceptions, and traces some ideas on how Slovakia could elaborate a nation brand story.
As a result of globalisation, many regional characteristics are starting [...]
Can Singapore Brand Itself As A Nation?
When Britain’s former Prime Minister Tony Blair started cheerleading about “Cool Britannia”, it was one of the first times the concept of “national branding” was mooted and brought to the public.
Previously discussed only in isolated design circles, the notion of changing a nation’s identity – for financial reasons – struck many people as strange.
But recently, [...]
Airline companies as nation branding ambassadors
If there is a business market in which competing companies have traditionally been linked to their country of origin in an intrinsic, almost organic sense, that would be the airline sector.
For historical reasons, the national origin has often been very explicit in national carriers. In the past, most airline companies were created by the State [...]
How The World Sees The Netherlands
Does the continuing debate on the rights of Muslims in the Netherlands affect the country’s nation brand? Does the rise of anti-immigration politicians in Dutch politics affect the image people have of the Dutch? Does hosting international insitutions like the International Criminal Court improve the country’s brand image? The Dutch government has investigated these perceptions, [...]
Brand Singapore – It ain’t broke, so don’t fix it
One month ago an article about China’s brand image was published. It was somewhat old – 2008, but interesting enough to be featured. Now, we’ve got another oldie, an article published in May 2007 at The Business Times (Singapore), concerning the 2007 debate on Singapore’s nation re-branding. Even if somewhat old, it’s worth reading.
The latest [...]
How do you build a country brand?
You can’t really, but you have to start somewhere. Big global brands such as Nike and IKEA are large enough in revenues to surpass the GDP of a small country. However, their brands are managed better than most countries. This is a shame because powerful country brands that are carefully managed tend to yield massive [...]
South Africa launches social media initiative for its nation branding
The 2010 FIFA World football Cup is to be hosted by South Africa and it is just 100 days away. To promote the country, the CMO (standing for Chief Marketing Officer) Council and the International Marketing Council of South Africa have teamed up to launch a crowdsourced advertising contest, by the name Get Wildly Creative [...]
