I’ve just returned from a vacation time in Cyprus. It had all the usual suspects in the typical holidays on a Mediterranean island: warm weather, persistent sun, uncountable layers of history in the shape of ruins and remnants, sunburnts, friendly locals and good, fresh food. But the apparently easy-going and relaxed island of Cyprus also…
Simon Anholt likes to speak hard. And that’s one of the reasons why as many people love him as hate him. Here are his 10 most striking quotes: “You wouldn’t believe the number of countries which come to me and say “We’ve got a rubbish image, can we fix it?” and my question is always…
Branding specialists like to refer to ‘brand touchpoints’ as the instances when consumers interact with a brand. It might be a technical support service, a website, a shop or an employee. When we speak of nation brands, what can be “nation brand touchpoints”? Here’s a list that may come in handy: Airline companies Exported goods People…
There are a handful of good nation branding indexes including the Nation Branding Perception Index, the Reputation Institute Soft Power Survey, the Nation Image Index, BrandFinance’s Global Nation Brands league and the always attractive Monocle’s Soft Power Survey, but two indexes usually steal the show: the Nation Brands Index (NBI) and the Country Brand Index (CBI). It’s easy to confuse them since…
Because of well-known reasons, by 1989 countries in the former Soviet Bloc in Eastern Europe had acquired a grim image in the West. The former Communist nations in the so-called ‘Eastern Europe’ were imagined as backward, grey, poor, uneducated – somewhat inferior to the West. It may have been the work of an efficient Cold…
The Economist newspaper has published an article about nation branding, coinciding with the scandal unleashed with Borat and Kazakhstan: For 15 years you have tried to make the world aware of your newly born country. It is huge—the size of western Europe—rich in natural resources, modernising fast. But progress is frustratingly slow. Then a pestilential…
Du bist Deutschland (German for “You are Germany”) was a famous campaign designed to enhance positive, optimistic thinking and a better national feeling in Germany, which since the re-unification had undergone a notable economic and social crisis. These are some of the images of the Du bist Deutschland campaign:
I am proud to say that Malaysia’s most famous branding magazine, BranDNA, has published one of my articles, “The Need of Branding Greece” in its last issue. It’s a real pride that they asked me to publish it considering the importance of the magazine in the Marketing and Branding fields in Malaysia, and the fact that…
A consortium of economic development and branding experts are to spend the coming six months developing a detailed brand strategy and implementation plan for the roll-out of Botswana’s national brand. Officials from Debswana form part of the multi-stakeholder team to guide the branding process. If developed and executed correctly, a national brand can provide a…
Stolen from www.whisperbrand.com: We found this country slogan analysis performed by the Wall Street Journal. From Incredible India to Uniquely Singapore, each of these place brands make the often repeated mistake in believing that cheerleading is branding. An approach of “let’s trump the competition by use of a chest thumping slogan” is a zero-sum game….
After Montenegro’s secession from Yugoslavia, it seems logical that both Serbia and Montenegro should embark in a branding process. At first sight it seems to me that Montenegro’s brand should communicate what is Montenegro and what does it stand for. On a second layer the brand could explain the great opportunities for investment – and…
I’ve just come from a week vacations in the tiny island of Malta. I was very excited to notice that Malta has also embarked in a country branding process, something to be sincere I was not aware of. The Malta Tourist Authority (MTA) is behind the effort, which has nonetheless saddened me because I immediately…
