In early July 2010, nation brands expert Simon Anholt was invited to the city of Visby, on the Swedish island of Gotland. He was invited by the Council for the Promotion of Sweden, which includes Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Ministry for Enterprise, Energy and Communications, the Visit Sweden office, the Swedish Trade Council,…
While the United Arab Emirates launched a popular, free-access, online-based contest to get a new logo, neighbouring Oman launched its new nation-logo about 18 months ago, the result of a consulting work with several agencies and individuals, among them Paul Temporal and branding agency Landor. Where did the new ‘Brand Oman’ logo come from? Here’s…
Six weeks ago we featured the brilliant work of Jian Jay Wang, associate professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism. As the lead researcher on the school’s nation branding at Shanghai Expo 2010 team, he analyzed how countries used the Shanghai World Expo for their nation branding efforts. Now we turn…
As we announced a few weeks days ago, a forum under the name “Image of the Republic of Belarus: positioning and promotion of cities and regions” was celebrated in Minsk on November 25-26, 2010. Over 100 people participated in the meeting, among them representatives of several Belarussian ministries and delegates from embassies in the former…
Last Saturday we reported on the release of the ‘Mission for Finland’ nation branding report. This 365 pages document compiles two years of hard work (the Finnish country-branding delegation was created in September 2008) by a taskforce chaired by former Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila and appointed to draft a nation branding strategy for Finland. The…
As we announced on this update on Finland’s nation branding project, the Brand Finland delegation published the results of their work last Thursday, November 25th. The delegation, set up in 2008 by Alexander Stubb, the Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs, was charged with the task to think and discuss ways to make Finland more visible,…
A noteworthy trend can be seen by looking at the rankings in the 2010 Country Brand Index. In Europe, nation branding value is moving from South to North. Without a doubt, the countries winning more nation-brand value this year at the Country Brand Index were the Scandinavian ones. They all have improved their ranks in…
As we reported in September this year, the Brand Africa forum was celebrated in Johannesburg, South Africa, as a summit with nation branding experts and country brand managers from a number of African nations. The forum’s objective was to explore ways so that Africa as a continent and African countries can improve their image and…
It’s November and it’s time for the annual Country Brand Index to be released, as we announced on our Early Results from the 2010 Country Brand Index post. This index is a yearly study made by FutureBrand, a global brand consulting firm, and is based upon a global quantitative research study with 3,400 international business…
As one could intuitively tell, Belarus has several image issues. But Belarusians have noted that the country’s image is sometimes more a liability than an asset, and want to turn the situation upside down. In order to discuss nation branding approaches to improve Belarus’ international image, a forum will be held on November 25-26 in…
Early results from the 2010 edition of the Country Brand Index have been announced today by FutureBrand, the authoring company behind the Country Brand Index. The brand rankings (produced in partnership with BBC World News this year) cover 102 countries and aim at measuring the “intangible asset” of how the country is perceived amongst international…
Lately we’ve had a handful of news coming from Africa. We’ve seen how some African countries have embarked in nation branding projects to prompt outer people to change their images of them. Among these countries you can count Kenya, Ghana, Botswana and South Africa. The following is a video interview with Mathias Akotia, the chief…
