Russia plans nation branding campaign

In the changed global order, Russia has decided to go for “nation branding” in a big way. Bracing a plethora of teething transition troubles – from communism to capitalism, it has learnt though belatedly the imperative of market forces.

Casting away its old cold war era coldness, Moscow has taken a slew of steps to improve its image abroad. Kicking of the pre-KGB stiffness, the media is slowly opening up.

Top government strategists are now planning to use what they call “media diplomacy” to promote its strategic and economic ties with the outside world as well with the unstated aim of countering negative “American and western propaganda.”

Alexander Georbenko, a close confidant of President Putin and director general of the powerful state owned newspaper – “Rossiiskaya Gazeta” (Moscow Gazette) told DNA “we have taken up a number of nation branding project to project the country in a positive and dynamic light. We are working on better ties with a number of countries including India. It is important to bring political and business elites together.”

In August, as part of nation branding the Russians have started international supplements titled Russia Beyond The Headlines in collaboration with prominent newspapers in UK, US, India and Bulgaria to start with. Plans are to extend it to Germany and Latin America.

A recent issue of the eight-page supplement distributed with The Daily Telegraph had a number of write-ups on the changing face of Russia after transition from communism to capitalism.

[Via]