Just finished reading a great post on Influx about geographic branding. They share a whole pile of posts about the topic. One in particular was very interesting because the author was very upset that somehow the notion of branding a country was unpatriotic and very commercial.
I guess that there is some merit to the concern. Branding has the implication that somehow a bunch of market research/branding types can sit down in a room and manipulate how people think about a particular country, province, state or city. And that is kind of scary.
However, branding isn't as simple as that. According to Douglas Holt, in What is an Iconic Brand, a brand is the sum total of the experiences that people have with that brand, and the stories that come from those experiences. All of the other stuff -- the logos, tag lines, advertising and the like are symbols that people use to identify that set of stories/experiences with the brand. It helps them boil down the essence of their choice. So, it's pretty much impossible for a bunch of marketing flacks in some back room to control a country's brand.
In the end, countries have a set of symbols, flags, official plants, animals and the like, they have eagles and beavers, flags and constitutions, bells and mounties. All of these institutions, symbols and documents are representative of the kind of society that its citizens want to experience. These symbols take on meaning to people both inside the country and outside the country when they have experience with the brand.
We measure brands by how positive our experience with them is, whether we are respected by a company's staff, whether they solve our problems, respect our needs, and whether the company's products and services live up to what they promised.
The world judges countries, cities and towns in exactly the same way. When a country's behaviour is judged inconsistent with the myths and symbols it has developed, then its prestige (or brand equity) will decline.
So, do I like the idea of "Branding" a country? I'm not sure if it's a good thing that commercialism has become such a large part of the socio-political spectrum. But, maybe it always has been, afterall, isn't it the desire for more power, more land and more money that has been the genesis of most world conflicts?
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