Nation Branding: A new sort of beauty contest

The Economist newspaper has published an article about nation branding, coinciding with the scandal unleashed with Borat and Kazakhstan: For 15 years you have tried to make the world aware of your newly born country. It is huge—the size of western Europe—rich in natural resources, modernising fast. But progress is frustratingly slow. Then a pestilential…

Du bist Deutschland

Du bist Deutschland (German for “You are Germany”) was a famous campaign designed to enhance positive, optimistic thinking and a better national feeling in Germany, which since the re-unification had undergone a notable economic and social crisis. These are some of the images of the Du bist Deutschland campaign:

Brand India

An extensive special feature has been published here about India’s nation branding: Think India. Now think the future. When we think about the India which will be, we see glorious times ahead, a golden age in the making. However, to reach that state of success or nirvana, we need to take a few giant leaps….

I’ve been published at BranDNA magazine!

I am proud to say that Malaysia’s most famous branding magazine, BranDNA, has published one of my articles, “The Need of Branding Greece” in its last issue. It’s a real pride that they asked me to publish it considering the importance of the magazine in the Marketing and Branding fields in Malaysia, and the fact that…

Branding Jamaica

A legacy article on Brand Jamaica taken from here: A number of current issues seem to suggest that Jamaica needs a clear definition of what kind of country it is, what it stands for, and where it is going. But Jamaicans need to take the lead in defining themselves or else others will define us…

Brand Malta campaign “a total failure”

At this post about Brand Malta campaign I was skeptical about this branding project by the Maltese authorities. Now it has come out that the campaign has been a failure. Reported at Malta Star: Kurt Farrugia 09 September 2006 Outgoing tourism authority (MTA) chairman Romwald Lungaro-Mifsud has kept “hidden” from his colleagues at the MTA…

Botswana to commence national branding project

A consortium of economic development and branding experts are to spend the coming six months developing a detailed brand strategy and implementation plan for the roll-out of Botswana’s national brand. Officials from Debswana form part of the multi-stakeholder team to guide the branding process. If developed and executed correctly, a national brand can provide a…

Australia markets itself – the Australian way

From the Wall Street Journal: Australia Throws Another Tourism Advertising By BRUCE STANLEY How do you advertise a country? As more nations around the world market their charms to the globe-trotting tourist, their international ad campaigns sound surprisingly, and blandly, similar. But amid invitations to visit destinations that are exotic, unique and incredible comes a…

Sloganeering in nation branding

Stolen from www.whisperbrand.com: We found this country slogan analysis performed by the Wall Street Journal. From Incredible India to Uniquely Singapore, each of these place brands make the often repeated mistake in believing that cheerleading is branding. An approach of “let’s trump the competition by use of a chest thumping slogan” is a zero-sum game….

Brand Malta

I’ve just come from a week vacations in the tiny island of Malta. I was very excited to notice that Malta has also embarked in a country branding process, something to be sincere I was not aware of. The Malta Tourist Authority (MTA) is behind the effort, which has nonetheless saddened me because I immediately…

Brand identity for Isle of Man

A website has been launched to explain the Isle of Man’s new brand identity. There are design guidelines, texts about the philosophy of the identity, videos and some other downloads. Probably a short-sighted brand, but interesting to have a look at. The Isle of Man’s new brand identity appears to have been developed by HPI…