Destination marketing via user-generated video contests

This is certainly not a nation branding specific blog post, but it is a relevant one as it shows countries are beginning to use the Web 2.0 potentials to market themselves as destinations. We had a recent example in Denmark’s nation branding viral video, and other countries and regions are following the trend. Eran Ketter, tourism marketing…

Canada’s nation brand more than a National Geographic country

Andrea Mandel-Campbell writes about Canada’s brand image, and how the country can learn off countries such as New Zealand and Australia. With its widely acclaimed performance in the current economic turmoil, Canada can build over this “safe haven” image strategically to attract business and talent into a stable and prosperous economic environment – becoming something…

Nation-Branding.info upgraded!

Some of you have reported some problems when navigating this website this weekend. The reason is that over this weekend we have been moving to a new, larger and faster web server. In the last months we have been constantly surpassing all data transfer limits, and it was time for a big hardware upgrade. The…

Country Brand Index 2009 released

FutureBrand and Weber Shandwick yesterday released the new edition of the well-known Country Brand Index, undisputedly the most respected country brands index together with the Nation Brands Index. This year’s report has been pretty special for me as I (Nation-Branding.info editor Andreas Markessinis) had the honour to be elected as one of the world’s 40 country branding…

Kosovo introduces “nation branding” ad video

About 9 months after announcing that Saatchi & Saatchi had been elected to “nation brand” Kosovo, the Kosovar government has just introduced the video made for its advertising campaign (let us not call it “nation branding” yet, please). The film focuses on the collective spirit of the youth of Kosovo in building their new country…

Nation branding and India

As we crib and complain about brain drain, we must realise that the Indian education system and consequently, the Indian workforce, are losing out to the western world’s superior capacity to attract talent. As much as it is due to the west’s advanced infrastructure, it also reflects their ability to promote itself as a top…

Brand Jamaica: copyrighted

Jamaica is a brand in itself. Its colors are very distinguishable, and the ideas that come to mind when you hear the world “Jamaica” are very clear, and very widely shared. As a popular brand, officials in the country fear its country image could be in the hands of others, and on the other side…

About Israel’s nation brand

In the last few days a couple of interesting features about Israel’s nation brand have appeared. First one is this article, in which the author explores the unfortunate reality of Israel’s nation brand (the country is one of the most abhorred country brands in the world, together with Iran), which is completely disproportioned given the…

Nation Brands Index 2009: an analysis

Last Wednesday October 7, 2009, we informed about the Nation Brands Index 2009. The clear news was the stunning rise of the US nation brand and Barack Obama’s effect on Brand America. As we focused mainly on this unprecedented phenomenon, we left aside a more indepth analysis of this year’s Index as a whole, and…

Nation Brands Index 2009

The long-awaited Nation Brands Index 2009, one of the cornerstones of nation branding and one of the most relevant tools to measure the nature and power of a nation brand, has just been released. The index, which surveys people from across 20 major developed and developing countries about their image of 50 countries, has revealed…

Government of Canada investing in Canadian-branded products

An official press release on September 17, 2009 announced that the Government of Canada will invest $32 million in the Canada Brand initiative to put the maple leaf brand on the top quality products Canadian farmers grow and increase sales around the world. “Canadian farmers want to make their living in the marketplace and buyers around…