Lebanon’s brand notoriety declines

Lebanon was ranked in 194th place among 200 countries and territories around the world and in 18th place among 20 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in the third quarter of 2010, according to the 2010 edition of the Nation Brand Perception Index (NBPI).

Lebanon also came in 41st place among 43 upper-middle income countries (UMICs) included in the survey.  Lebanon ranked in 178th place globally and in 14th place regionally in the second quarter of 2010.

The Nation Brand Perception Index analyzes international perceptions of a country’s brand. It covers the tone, whether positive or negative, and frequency of mentions in the international media. The number of times a country is mentioned reflects the strength of the brand, but not necessarily its quality.

The index, which is issued by consulting firm East West Communications, is based on a quarterly analysis of millions of mentions of countries in hundreds of thousands of news articles in 38 prominent global media sources. The index scores rely both on the overall quality of the media coverage and the prominence of the country, determined by the number of country references or mentions.

Globally, Lebanon ranked ahead of Russia, Iran and Pakistan and came behind Somalia, North Korea and Colombia. It also ranked ahead of Russia and Mexico, and behind Colombia and Poland among UMICs.

Lebanon received a score of 26.9 points, well below the global and UMICs averages of 50.1 points and 49.1 points respectively, the MENA average of 44.5 points and the Arab average of 46 points. Lebanon’s score decreased by 35.2 percent quarter-to-quarter and by 35.4 percent from the third quarter of 2009. Its score was 41.5 points in the second quarter of 2010, 39.6 in the first quarter of this year, as well as 41.6 points in the third quarter of 2009.

In parallel, Lebanon was the 36th most-mentioned country in the international media in the second quarter of 2010, the seventh-most-mentioned country from the MENA region and the seventh-most-mentioned among UMICs.

Globally, Lebanon was mentioned more than Hong Kong, Sweden and Belgium, and less than Egypt, Greece and North Korea. It was also mentioned more than Poland and Cuba and less than Turkey and Malaysia among UMICs. It was the 55th most-mentioned country in the previous quarter and the 63rd most mentioned in the first quarter of 2010.

Lebanon was mentioned 13,521 times in the international media, below the global average mentions of 20,328 times, the MENA average mentions of 18,717 times, but above the Arab average mentions of 10,706 times and the UMICs’ average mentions of 8,140 times. Lebanon’s number of mentions in the third quarter of 2010 was higher than its 7,603 mentions in the preceding quarter and its 7,041 mentions in the first quarter of 2010.

Article first published here