How do you measure a nation's brand?

How do you measure the strength of a country’s national brand? How can you compare one country’s brand to another’s in a quantitative manner? What elements are judged in comparing one country to another? A project run jointly by Simon Anholt and polling firm Global Market Insight set to answer these questions and create a National Brand Index.

The National Brand Index is “the only major source for numerical data on the relative strengths of national brands,”[1] and is considered “one of the most relevant tools to measure the nature and power of a nation brand.”[2] This project set to divide a nation’s brand into six fields for analysis: tourism, exports, governance, people, culture and heritage, and investment and immigration. The result of the project was to give an impression of the strength of international opinion on a specific country. The index was compiled through surveys given to people throughout 20 major developed and developing countries.

The following is the 2008 and 2009 Overall Brand Ranking for the Top 10 nations:

It is important to note that the United States moved from ranking 7^th to 1^st with in one year. What do you think happened in this time period to cause such a high jump?

Also, note that Australia has stayed constant, ranking 9^th.  What is Australia doing to keep the strength of their brand strong throughout the years? The following is a video featuring Australia’s national brand:

What are your reactions? Do you think this is a strong brand image?

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[1] http://www.cfr.org/publication/14776/nation_branding_explained.html

[2] http://nation-branding.info/2009/10/07/nation-brands-index-2009/

Nation Branding Defined

Before we get into any discussion of nation branding, we'd like to first start out with an explanation of exactly what we mean by the term. Drawing from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) article cited in our first post: "Very simply, [nation branding] means applying corporate branding techniques to countries." For example: To what extent does an internationally popular president help attract foreign investment? What about a nationally-owned radio station?

For those of you familiar with public diplomacy, you may be asking yourself how nation branding differs from this traditional practice undertaken by nations to market themselves. According to CFR, they are compliments to each other. "...nations have become far more cognizant of the value of their brand as an asset. Understanding valuation helps countries better understand the investments they make in their image." They also note that nation branding brings "a focus on the behavioral aspects of managing a nation’s image. ...officials from government, nonprofits, and the business world can better collaborate to make sure the messages a country is putting out represent what they view as “the fundamental common purpose” of their country."

In short, the focus of public diplomacy has historically been on selling foreign policies abroad with little thought given to the quantitative effects that might come from these actions. Nation branding fills this gap, providing the data on these effects and assessing the contributions made by governments as well as nonprofits and private partners to a national brand.

For a real world example of nation branding, check out the commercial for Lithuania below!

What do you think America's brand image is? Who has contributed to the creation of this image?

We want this blog to be interactive and a useful extension of class discussions and the topics covered there. So we're asking for your input to ensure that you get the most of it. Would it be easier for you to participate if we have a few smaller posts every week or one larger one? Thanks for helping us make this blog work for you.

“It’s nothing new for nations to care about image, but the past ten years represent a turning point in the methods states use to manage their reputations. In many cases, governments now hire public relations firms and apply brand management theory—formerly the domain of corporate communications departments and business-school seminars. New metrics attempt to quantify the strength of national brands, and the field has seen a veritable explosion of literature on which branding techniques work and which don’t. Meanwhile, branding efforts have branched out well beyond simple efforts at attracting tourism. Countries now hire firms to help them launch sophisticated branding campaigns aimed at luring foreign investment, facilitating trade, improving private-sector competitiveness, or even securing geopolitical influence[1].”

For our International Marketing blog, we will attempt to analyze this concept of nation branding mentioned in the Council of Foreign Relations article quoted above.  Relevant articles and videos posted here will serve as a starting point for discussion of concepts and ideas of branding nations.  For example, what is the US brand?  Is nation branding valuable?  How has the US built its brand in the past?  Has it been successful?  How do people in other countries perceive the US?  What would you do to make the US brand more successful? We will provide the tools necessary for the discussion including an international perspective on these key topics. We hope you will join us in tackling this relevant issue of marketing the US image abroad.

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[1] http://www.cfr.org/publication/14776/nation_branding_explained.html