Wally Olins on BRIC countries’ brand potential

In January 2011 I wrote a short essay on how Bric countries were not taking full advantage of their country of origin. In there I argued that Brazil, China and India could build larger, more powerful brands by using nationality more, and that the world was ready for that. This is an excerpt from that…

Branding Kenya video

Last week we looked at a video about Slovenia’s nation-branding efforts. Now it’s the turn for yet another keynote from the Berlin International Congress held earlier this year. It’s now Mary Kimonye, who some of you will remember from previous news and updates from Kenya’s project to develop a country brand.

Video keynote – I feel Slovenia

We’ve refered to Slovenia’s nation-branding efforts before – and also to the country’s promotional ‘I feel sLOVEnia” tagline as early as in 2007. In this speech, Valerija Mencej, Head of the Slovenian State Promotion Section explains the strategy behind the tagline:

Brand new country – South Sudan

It’s official now. Throw your atlases to the bin – they’re useless now. A new country’s born today. It’s provisionally called South Sudan, which will be the baby country’s name while a better, proper name is found (to have a look at the South Sudan’s naming issue, you can read this previous story: Naming a…

Palestinians to embark in nation branding too

Palestine might not be a country yet, but it’s a nation to most people – which qualifies it to rightfully do some nation branding. And as it turns out by this story on the Financial Times, they’ve just started to create a brand-new Palestinian Institute for Public Diplomacy, which will be charged with Palestine’s nation branding…

Survey on Brand Japan published

Following the March 11 disaster, Interbrand conducted a survey to understand changes in the way “Brand Japan” is perceived overseas. The survey looked at changes in perceptions about Japan before and after the disaster among consumers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and China. The survey covered five industries: automotive, consumer electronics, cosmetics and…

It’s up to corporates to build Brand India

Most successful brands have something in common. They come from a country, which has a brand image of its own and the products are strongly linked to the image of the country. Italian cars are associated with qualities of style speed, innovation and design, French perfume is sold on chicness, classiness and style, and Japanese…

South Africa is Africa’s most valuable country brand, study says

South Africa was named Africa’s most valuable nation brand last Wednesday (May 25th, 2011) at the announcement of the fourth BrandFinance Global Nation Brands League. The BrandFinance Global Nation Brands League’s valuation is conducted every year by Brand Finance, an independent brand valuation consultancy. Now in their fourth year, the league covers a global sample…

Japan’s involuntary re-branding

Japan’s reputation as a safe and efficiently-governed country has been negatively altered since the multiple disasters of March this year, but it would be a myopic mistake to think that things were fine before then. The truth is that Japan’s image has been taking a beating from well before that day when the Earth moved…

Branding conference to be held in Belgrade

The 7th International Brand Conference “Branding regions and cities – foreign direct investments, export growth and tourism development” is going to be held on 10 June 2011 in Belgrade, Serbia. This year’s edition is particularly interesting to Nation-Branding’s audience since the Fair has a particular focus on place branding. With the program of highest quality…