Middle Eastern countries polishing their images

A recent story on The Media Line featured on how Middle Eastern countries have been tapping professionals to polish their public images in recent years. With its popular reputation as a hotbed of religious extremism, war, terror and political repression, the region naturally seems to be fertile soil for rabid image wizards. Because of the…

Is Tyler Brûlé a new nation branding evangelist?

The flamboyantly punctuated Tyler Brûlé, the known global style guru and editor in chief of Monocle magazine, has in recent weeks shown strong interest in nation branding and country brands. In ‘Fast Lane’, his weekly column at the Financial Post, the chieftain of “the Lufthansa audience”, as he calls Monocle’s reader base, has touched the…

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…

Do brands create nations?

Brands create nations, according to a study published by global branding consultancy Interbrand in collaboration with the Swiss business magazine Bilanz. An analysis of the rankings of the Best Global Brands over the past ten years shows that the USA is the uncontested world champion when it comes to creating leading brands, but when the…

Naming a nation: Southern Sudan

Country naming is as old as countries. Historically most countries have ‘accidentally’ obtained their name from the peoples or tribes living on them, from empires and kings ruling over them, from physical and geographical features found on them, or from a specific word in the indigenous language of the country’s natives. However, it hasn’t been…

Simon Anholt on Brand Sweden

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,…

Antigua & Barbuda plans nation branding for 2011

The concept of nation branding will be put into practice by the Ministry of Tourism from the start of 2011, according to Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation John Maginley. The tourism minister said the initiative will start by finding out how people view the twin island state. He said the ministry will be “going…

Overview of the nation branding concept

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…

Branding Indonesia as a challenger

According to Homer Simpson, jokes about national stereotypes are funny because they are true. That is, if we take perception to be reality, and in marketing we do. A country’s reputation is based on the perceptions of others, though these are often nothing more than cliches. People are often wilfully ignorant of what others think of…

‘Image Belarus’ forum celebrated

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…