Simon Anholt on Turkey’s nation brand

Some weeks ago we reported about the Branding Bulgaria conference, where one of the main speakers was the reknown Simon Anholt. Now it’s the turn for neighbouring Turkey to ask the British expert for his opinion. An article by the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet follows. Successive Turkish governments have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to…

Latvia – State of the Nation Brand

Latvia has in the past devoted forces to manage its national image – its nation brand. The former director of the Latvian Institute Ojars Kalnins himself showed a great interest in nation branding, and just a few months ago we refered to one of his texts, where he imagined Latvia as a country providing fresh…

Korea’s urge to look better

As most of you known, South Korea is embarked on an ambitious nation-branding project. While the country is almost leading the way by incorporating many good tactics and strategies, it’s also true that the programe has a darker side – the country’s invention of a custom-made nation brands index, something we discussed here. This index…

Repackaging Brand Ukraine

We’ve written about Ukraine’s nation branding issues before, but all efforts to bolster nation’s poor international image risk being undermined by widening political credibility gap, writes Kateryna Zarembo. Ever since independence Ukraine has struggled with a poor international image. Despite being Europe’s largest country and one of the continent’s most strategically important nations, Ukraine has…

Estonia uses Skype to brand itself

Back in 2009, we used Estonia and Skype as an example of how a nation brand can be strengthened through the country’s commercial brands (for a longer disquisition check out our Nation branding and national brands: Making the most of them piece). Now it seems that Estonia is honouring these recommendations as the Estonian promotion…

China: Rebranding 101

Even if you’ve been living under a rock, chances are you have heard about China’s impressive economic growth and its continuing rise as an important global player. A few weeks ago, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released an informative report on the disparities between Chinese and American public diplomacy activities today. Most importantly, the report,…

Interview with a Nation Brands Index representative

The BrandingKorea.org website, which is an independent publication that monitors and discusses the strategies, activities and challenges related to the promotion of the Korean destination, has published a worth-reading interview with Xiaoyan Zhao, Senior Vice President and Director of the Nation Brand Index study at GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. In the interview, Mr….

Viva Polonia – Wally Olins on Poland’s re-branding

In the last weeks we’ve tracked Wally Olins (not Wolff Olins as some say) involvement with Poland. We published a video about Wally Olins on Brand Poland, and the following week we published the entire speech (Wally Olins’ keynote speech in Poland). Now here’s an article written by Wally Olins himself on Poland’s nation branding….

Redrawing Europe’s country map

This is an old story, yet an interesting one. According to the Economist, the European map is outdated and illogical. Here’s how it should look: And here’s the rationale: People who find their neighbours tiresome can move to another neighbourhood, whereas countries can’t. But suppose they could. Rejigging the map of Europe would make life…

What’s in a nation brand?

Countries like Canada and New Zealand would benefit from a global branding strategy, writes Daryl Copeland. Yesterday evening I was in Gore, a smallish town of about 10,000 way down near the bottom of the South Island of New Zealand. The motor camp in which I stayed did not yet have internet service – most…

Wally Olins’ keynote speech in Poland

Last week we published an interview with Wally Olins on his efforts to brand Poland (a project he worked for the Polish Brand Institute (www.imp.org.pl), as well as a short speech by Mr. Olins at a press room. Now it’s time to watch Wally Olins’ full-length keynote speech in Poland. As always, wonderful speech from…