Ireland to launch website to reinforce its nation brand

Ireland will launch a national website that aims to promote the country’s by accumulating existing information and resources and amalgamating it at one location, as an exercise of nation branding. At a seminar in Dublin on May 26th, 2010, where the concept was officially unveiled, it was announced that the portal would be a funnel…

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…

Great CNBC story on nation branding

“If countries were cars, which would be the fastest, the safest and the sexiest? The answers are no accident. Nations are increasingly calling on advertising agencies to rebrand them as they have done other big business”, writes journalist Jo Bowman. She has written such a good story for CNBC magazine on the field of nation…

Brand China reels from lost trust

This is an oldie – an “old” 2008 article first published on Singapore’s The Business Times. It was written by Joseph Baladi, CEO at BrandAsian, shortly after the staging of the Olympics in Beijing, China. Even if somewhat old, some of the points being made in this article around Brand China specifically are still worth…

Wally Olins on his Branding Poland project

This is a conversation between branding guru Wally Olins and Polish magazine Brief.pl representatives. In the conversation, Wally Olins explains some of the fundamentals of nation branding, the Poland nation brand case and context, the similarities with Spain, the differences between nation branding and commercial branding, and explains “blandly” why the Branding Poland project had…

“Branding” Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein is a tiny central European country between Switzerland and Austria, whose mainstay is banking. Back in 2000, the OECD put the country on a blacklist due to suspicions about money-laundering and these news impacted on the country’s good name. Liechtenstein’s increasingly known reputation as a tax haven was starting to limit its future prospects,…

What is nation branding, Brand Ghana CEO writes

Some days ago we published a blog post at which we listed 10 things nation branding isn’t. Now we have the opportunity to define nation branding by the what it is and not by what it isn’t. That’s because Mathias Akotia, the newly-appointed Chief Executive Officer at the newly-founded Brand Ghana Office, has written an…

New insights on Finland’s country branding program

Some 80 guests and friends of Finland gathered on a sunny October 14th afternoon at Dutch Zoetermeer to hear a panel discussion about the theme “Finland Country Branding”. The purpose of the event was to raise awareness about the ongoing country branding project in Finland and create discussion around the theme among the Finnish-minded business…

Re-branding Latin America and the Caribbean

Through deals, diplomacy and promotion, Latin America and the Caribbean have begun to cast aside outdated conceptions and reposition the region as one not just open for business but also good at business. A late-20th century description of the countries south of the United States might well have been laden with stereotypes ranging from fun-in-the-sun…