Diaspora Toolkit Booklet 6

8/6/2019 Diaspora Toolkit Booklet 6

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Diasporamatters

Saher Sidhom

Great Works

How Do You Builda Country Brand?

C o un

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B r an

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Introduction 1

A country brand should start with a coherent brand and attitude 2but allow for paradoxes

A country brand should have a framework in which its paradoxical 4values can thrive; this framework is ultimately its culture

1 Cultural content 4

2 Behaviour and experience 6

3 Reputation and cultural momentum 7

Don’t build country brands, use the country’s culture to 9‘contaminate’ other cultures

Contents

Written for the Global Diaspora Strategies Toolkit by

Saher Sidhom · Great WorksSaher Sidhom is Global Planning Director, Great Works, Stockholm and London.

First published 2011

Diaspora MattersGateway House, 133 Capel Street,Dublin 1, Irelandwww.diasporamatters.com

© 2011 Saher Sidhom

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How Do You Build a Country Brand?

Introduction

How do you build a country brand? You can’t really, but you have to startsomewhere.

Big global brands like Nike and IKEA have larger revenues than the GDPs of some small countries. However, their brands are managed better than mostcountries. This is a shame because powerful country brands that are carefully

managed tend to yield massive benets for tourism, industry, politics and culture.These benets are discussed and covered extensively elsewhere, e.g. by Wally Olinsin his book On Brand . In this paper I will only concern myself with what are new,innovative and interesting ways of building country brands beyond the usualstrategy of ‘Let’s have a logo, an end-line and a few celebrity endorsements.’

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How Do You Builda Country Brand?



Global Diaspora Strategies Toolkit2

A country brand should start with a coherent brandand attitude but allow for paradoxes

Only liars need to be consistent. This is not about achieving a design consistencyor a fanatic application of end-lines in every campaign. In the rst instance, anycountry brand that seeks to have a future-facing, growth-led and differentiatingposition must dene its essence, ethos and values, reecting the national identityand attitude of the people. This often means having to nd the interestingparadoxes in a country’s culture. The rst pitfall here is only choosing to focus ona ‘politically correct’ version of the national identity and highlighting some valuesat the expense of others. Having a few contradictions in a country’s brand ethosand values often makes the brand a lot more interesting.

I will take the country of Sweden as an example in this paper. Sweden has aninteresting but powerful paradox at its brand core. It is a progressive country

famed for its design and innovation, yet its people are socially and environmentallyconscious, with a deep respect for nature and a solid belief in preservation. Thisprogressive yet preservative attitude of the Swedish people is a fascinating paradoxthat could be used to display many sides of the country’s brand, which are richerthan clichéd pictures of a nice lake.

Another paradox of Swedish people that makes the culture equally fascinatingis the high regard for individual freedom which goes hand-in-hand with respect forthe greater good. This is a bizarre contradiction, which makes Swedish people andtheir society fascinating. I can only describe it as a curious but highly useful form

of what could only be described as ‘individual group-think’.Brands are like people, with multiple layers, interests, emotions, attributes and

desires. Trying to distil a brand or an individual into one word is more often an

progressive yet preservative

individual freedoms and greater good

socialist yet have royal head of state

cutting edge design yet inspired by nature

...and many more

Some Swedish cultural paradoxes




organisational goal than anything else. How could it ever be done, I wonder? Justhaving a couple of words to describe a country brand is a bit like applying make-up; it may accentuate the beauty of a place but, as the saying goes, beauty is onlyskin-deep. A brand onion may be convenient from a ‘management’ perspective, butit may disallow the opportunity to have multiple ideas expressing the differentfacets of a brand.

In 2007, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown published a green papercalled ‘The Governance of Britain’. In its nal section it said that there was a needto be clearer about what it meant to be British. In response, Prospect magazineasked 50 British writers and intellectuals to give their thoughts on the matter. I willcite writer Duncan Fallowell’s response:

You should hate liars and cheats and those who won’t play the game. Youshould be able to take a joke. You should dislike extremes. You should be bad at

dancing and sex and incapable of either without being drunk. You should resistinvasion of your personal or national space. You should ignore what you dislikebut give to charity. You should protect the countryside. You should respect thesovereign. You should say what you think. You should be classical on the outsideand romantic within. You should put religion in the back seat and make sure itstays there. You should acknowledge your good fortune.

Ink often ows freely when describing the British. But as the above exampleillustrates, British characteristics and attitudes are full of curious paradoxes. Andit is these very paradoxes which make the Brits or Swedes or any other peopleinteresting, intriguing and worth getting to know. They present a question mark,not an answer. An answer is what you get in most country or tourism advertising.An answer leaves no role for the audience or opportunity for them to be intrigued.

Given that a country brand seeks to embody a multitude of ideas about itspeople, the place, and what goes on there, it is perhaps folly to think that just oneword would do it. As well as identifying the core paradoxes at the heart of thenational identity, the attitudes and values of that society should be explored andembraced because in reality these are what the world will experience when they do

come to a country or choose to invest in it.

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A country brand should have a framework in whichits paradoxical values can thrive; this framework isultimately its culture

I will substitute the word brand with culture in the rest of this article, primarilybecause it is a more realistic approach and broad enough to facilitate theexploration of a country’s cultural hallmarks and the export of these internationally.Admittedly, brands offer a simplied short cut for people when making a decision,but a country’s culture offers a much deeper, richer and indeed more complex setof ideas that allow people to be fascinated and intrigued by a country’s culture.Culture is communicated in every conversation between a citizen and a foreigner.

It is one thing to identify a set of values associated with a brand, but quiteanother for them to be believed, lived and acted upon. A country is not a brand; itis an attitude and a set of paradoxes. Since this is a discussion of new andinnovative ways of building a country’s culture abroad (its biggest and best export),I will focus on three aspects of a cultural approach to exporting a country’s values,paradoxes and attitude.

1 Cultural contentThe trouble with country ‘brand’ building is that the generic, predictable and

clichéd depiction of a country in its advertising abroad hardly does the countrybrand any favours. Of course it can raise awareness and perhaps build some newbrand attributes but, realistically, something as complex as a country brand, not

progressive yet preservative

individual freedoms and greater good

socialist yet have royal head of state

cutting edge design yet inspired by nature

...and many more

Some Swedish cultural paradoxes

products, politics, actions,experiences, exports

Behaviour

entertainment, arts,music, lm, design, etc.

Content

stories, myths, debatesand headlines

Reputation




to mention its culture, is hard to encapsulate credibly and, more importantly,effectively in a poster. I believe there are more efcient alternatives.

A country’s values are implicit in acts (covered in the next section) and arts.Cultural content is an entertaining and fascinating way of exporting the culturalvalues of a country. The following are a couple of examples.

Spain is a modern-day ‘re-brand’ of a country, according to Olins. It used tobe somewhat backward and isolated, evoking images of Franco and Flamenco.However, events and achievements such as the Seville Expo, 1992; the BarcelonaOlympics; Gaudi architecture; the European City of Culture accolade forBarcelona; and a resurgent lm industry led by Pedro Almodóvar, were exploitedby various government and arts institutions on the basis that the country’s culturalexports, whether architecture, lm or attitudes, were the most important contentin the marketing of the country.

The core strategy is to think of ways to establish a country’s brand abroad.Think cultural products and opportunism instead of ads. Estonia and Kazakhstan– both new countries that emerged from the clutches of Soviet occupationrelatively recently – were desperate to establish their own identity and brandinternationally. The difference between the two is that the rst did somethingabout it and the second allowed somebody else to do it for them. Estonia won theEurovision song contest in 2001, which allowed it to host the 2002 competition inTallinn. For a small country that most people in the world had hardly heard of, allof a sudden it had a 166m worldwide TV audience – manna from heaven as far asbrand building opportunism was concerned. The country took advantage of theevent and used it as a platform to stimulate interest in the rest of Estonia; internally,by giving its citizens new cultural properties to own and be proud of and,externally, by inviting and exploiting positive attention.

Meanwhile in Kazakhstan … nothing. No serious attempts to brand thecountry, and people are left to believe the highly popular and negative perceptionsof one man, Borat. The case of these two countries is compelling at many levels.The challenge should not be how to advertise a country’s brand or build it, but

rather how to export positive cultural values and products to the rest of the world.If this is the starting point, then cultural exports become the backbone of tourismand other brand-building exercises for the country.

Film and TV are incredibly powerful tools in this context. These and othercultural products are prime targets when it comes to putting a country’s brand onthe travel agenda. What Sex in the City did for tourism in New York could hardlyhave been matched by the New York tourist ofce. A clever strategy employed byPrague city council, which promoted Prague as a cost-effective, beautiful andexotic lm location, resulted in the city becoming the location for a number of

lms such as The Bourne Identity and the James Bond Casino Royal . In the samevein, the relatively unknown town of Bruges, Belgium, had a starring role in thelm In Bruges . Country marketers should pursue an arts and lm strategy to

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partner with international lmmakers as well as indigenous talent to apply productplacement techniques to the country’s values and locations; it’s a places placement,as it were. This is an active strategy employed by the likes of Prague and Moroccowith great success. The beauty of this strategy is that it not only builds awarenessof the countries in question, it also delivers iconic images and cultural values, notto mention foreign lm investments.

2 Behaviour and experienceValues dictate behaviour. Behaviour is what a country does, makes andpopularises. The portrayal of a country’s culture internally and internationally cancreate a mutually benecial relationship between the country and its export brands.How about brand ecosystems and good old country-of-origin branding?

Let’s look at the ecosystem built by the Apple brand. Steve Jobs once gave a

sneak peek at how the Apple brand is organised internally around three businessfunctions: Macs, music and the iPhone. These are essentially three differentindustries and categories of products, yet they are united by the Apple brand andthe way it works with technology. Ecosystems are about building an environmentaround the brand, where each item reinforces and is compatible with the others.Once a consumer buys into one of the products, this becomes the entry ticket intothe entire system. First you buy an iPod, then you need music to go with it – iTunes– and to ensure the experience remains pleasantly connected, you buy a Mac. Withover 50 per cent of new Mac sales coming from ‘switchers’ and over 2 billion songssold on iTunes, this strategy is indeed valuable. A country culture that startsthinking of its ecosystem of brands and channels could benet greatly from acoherent exploration and exploitation of natural ecosystems around it.

Country-of-origin branding plays a huge role in how a number of exportedbrands benet or indeed suffer from the association. Everybody wants a Germancar; few would rush to buy a Kazakh one. Country cultures act as a protectiveumbrella, or a bad omen. The mutual exchange of values between a country’sculture and its export brands becomes a virtually reinforcing brand system.

There are a number of benets from this happy exchange. Country culturesprovide instant credibility and identity to new or unknown brands in new markets.If the ‘value’ system is coherent, as shown in the example below (albeit a simpli-cation of the German brand), then these products invariably live up to the valuesof the country of origin. Brands that are not even connected in any way can alsoreinforce each other. There can be similar expectations associated with buying aBosch power drill and a Porsche. The strength and coherence of a system becomesa mutually reinforcing brand equity.

Ecosystems can also pre-empt competitive strategies for the export brands in

question. For example, it is no surprise that both Audi and VW in the UK haveend-lines in German to emphasize the country of origin. The strength of thisstrategy was exemplied when Citroen, a French car maker, made ads that tried to




question the German dominance of quality by depicting its cars in Germancontexts but performing with French air: ‘Unmistakably German. Made inFrance.’ Imitation is indeed the sincerest form of attery.

The German strategy is perhaps an exception. I doubt it came out of a strategybrainstorm between the brand managers of AUDI, VW, BMW, Bosch and whoeveris in charge of the branding of Germany. It is, in the rst instance, a truth aboutGermany and the German people’s appreciation of, and attitudes to, technical andfunctional prowess. What country brands cannot do is manufacture stuff like thisfrom thin air. It has to be founded on truths and the values of the country which

is apparent in the DNA of its export brands.Getting back to Sweden; unsurprisingly, the country’s set of beliefs in thefabric of its society turns up in a host of Swedish super brands.

3 Reputation and cultural momentumWith roots in politics, nature and care for the many, Swedish society is pretty muchbuilt around the idea of providing a better life for everyone. The paradox of individual freedom and the belief in the greater good is a prime example. Thesework well because they support each other. The ‘social progress and the greater

good for the many’ can be seen in the core brand ideas of many Swedish brands.IKEA’s brand idea of democracy of design is actually a social idea in the rst place;and in a similar vein are H&M’s luxury for the masses, Volvo’s ‘Life is better lived

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Cars,applicances,

heavy industry,DIY tools

Germany

tangible productsand performance

reinforce theassociations of

the countrybrand

intangible associationsof precision and

perfectionreceived fromthe country

brand

inter-product category associations too, theexpectations of performance of a BOSCH power tool

is at the same level as that of a PORCHE

= technical/engineering prowess




together’, and ABSOLUT vodka’s use of new artists in its advertising. All of thesebrands and more are based on the idea of improving the quality of life of the manynot just the individual.

This approach can be leveraged by these brands and by Sweden in a numberof ways. The rst is at a corporate social responsibility (CSR) level. Swedish brandsin their various elds and endeavours have a pretty good grip on sustainabilityissues and in fact are world leaders. Joining forces on the CSR level can helpSweden be to the environment what Switzerland is to political neutrality.Collaborations between Swedish brands, governments and other internal andexternal entities can own the social progress idea in a way that makes the existingbut less well-known reality the perception.

Country brands can learn from fashion brands which create cultural halos andmomentum every season, four times a year. Selfridges, a store in the UK, has an

interesting strategy that it employs to promote the store. Every summer it has a bigtheme that it promotes within the store. A couple of years ago it did a Tokyotheme, complete with Japanese lift attendants, products, mad fashions and music.Yet the real genius was in creating a Japanese cultural halo out of the store inLondon. It collaborated with arts, culture, commerce and other Japanese represen-tatives in London. All highlighted and aligned their calendar of events withSelfridges, thus creating a halo effect in the city for which the epicentre wasSelfridges. They essentially promoted the idea of Japan and Tokyo, not Selfridgesitself per se. People in the fashion business know that most mainstream fashion iscreated, planned and coordinated. Fashion is not the surprise that most consumersare led to believe. From product placement in the movies to the pre-determinedpre-season selection of ‘colours’ and the quick turn around of promotions in stores,all are carefully managed and coordinated on the high street. There is no reasonwhy country brands (and their export partners) can’t learn a thing or two fromfashion brands. The coordination with both indigenous and international partnerscan enable a country’s culture to be well ‘in-fashion’ at key cultural moments.Learning from fashion marketing, it is wise for countries that want to export their

culture and build a vibrant and lively view of it abroad to consider the calendar of events in recipient cultures. Sweden could, for example, create and invigorate awhole season and sensibility in other countries if it had a single-minded focus onSwedish design. Owning and setting the design agenda from a Swedish perspectivein other countries allows it to introduce, reinforce and, most importantly, gatheracres of press coverage for events and stories about Swedish design ethos and edge.




Don’t build country brands, use the country’s cultureto ‘contaminate’ other culturesThe central idea of this paper is about taking a country’s spirit, culture and valuesand using them to ‘contaminate’ and inuence those abroad. This begins byidentifying the paradoxes and idiosyncratic hallmarks of a country and its culture,developing a set of themes based on these and then exporting them via the threetenets of content, behaviour and reputation.

As far as content is concerned, the key strategy here is that of ‘place andpeople’. Placing a country’s location, people and ideas in the story or in thecultural narrative of a lm or TV show can work wonders for raising awarenessof the country and its cultural currency and afnities. The case of Estonia showeda renewed belief in its people and a new-found condence in its ability to play

David in the Goliath of international tourism competition.Behaviour is about nding some core ideas that a country can use to brand its

products abroad, whether its export brands or its politics. The country of origin asa powerful umbrella for export brands is hard to escape and is perhaps thestrongest example of how to pull together the common DNA of these brands toachieve ownable leadership, even if it is as simple as Swiss ‘neutrality’. However,because traditional advertising is not going to be enough to build a brand,countries need to think laterally about what its retail and media brands abroadcould do for them in distributing cultural and communication content. They needto explore and exploit their international ecosystem.

Finally, at a reputation level, country branding can learn from how fashionbrands set the cultural agenda through dictating the themes or ‘colours’ of theseason, as it were. The natural networks between style journalists, fashiondesigners, store celebrities and movie stars collectively set the agenda for what towear. Country cultures should explore and nd the equivalent of that network inthe area of tourism, in each of the markets in which it seeks to promote itself. Oncethat is done, the network needs to be supplied with the most relevant, entertaining

and compelling ideas.

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Diaspora Toolkit Booklet 6

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