Nation Branding in the 21st Century (2)

     Last time, I have partially written about ?Nation Branding in the 21st Century? which was a topic I spoke at International Conference on marketing or IBA-ICM2012 hosted by Institute of Business Administration in Karachi, Pakistan. This week, I will explain more about the topic.

 
Sources : http://www.lithium.com/conference/linc2011/images/linc11_brand_nation_knowledge_wall.jpg

     Branding a Nation in 21st century will be different from the present. Apart from the increasing objectives, broader limits and various kinds of tools, there are a number of things which have been changed.

     More partnerships: More stakeholders will participate in nation branding 

      In the past, state agencies such as the tourism agency or Board of Investment were accountable for nation branding. However, in the 21st century; nation branding will not be only a responsibility of state agencies, people both in the country and from other countries will also be able to proactively participate in nation branding. In addition, private sectors will become more engaged in the process via Public Private Partnership (PPP).

     This will happen because the democracy ideology has become widespread. It has created political value. Every country must be democratic like the western countries. This causes people to become more aware of political participation which in turn causes increased democracy in the country. There are more expressions of opinion via the telephone or internet. People are eager to participate in shaping the direction of the country. They want to be a part of the policy decision making process. They are more willing to organize a political movement concerning public policies that relate to them. 

     To illustrate this point, in Slovenia, the government hired a private company to help organize a market research-study-based campaign that would survey members of the public and obtain their input and feedback.

     In Mexico City, the Tourism branch of Mexico City announced a contest to design the brand identity of the city. The contest was open to the general public and offered 1 million Pesos (approximately $75,000 U.S. Dollars) as the grand prize. The contest received generous media coverage and publicity because it was not limited to residents of Mexico City, citizens of other states and other countries were encouraged to participate.

     In the USA, ?Brand USA?, a non-profit organization, public-private partnership (PPP), was set up to launch a global advertising campaign  as part of the country?s concerted effort in marketing tourism to the world. The core mission of the organization, created in 2010, is to ?encourage and inspire travelers to explore America?s boundless possibilities?.

     More global responsibility: A successful nation branding program must incorporate goodness into nation brands

     I have proposed a concept of 7 waves of social revolution. The 0th wave is a nomadic society. The 1st wave is an agricultural society. The 2nd wave is an industrial society. The 3rd wave is an information society. The 4th wave is a knowledge ? based society. The 5th wave is a wisdom society. The 6th wave is a virtue society. The world in the 21st century will be a virtue society where people are interested in goodness. This is consistent with the concept of marketing 3.0 of Kotler (2010) who said that consumers in the 21st century would change. In the past, marketing experts once looked at the target as normal consumers; they emphasized products and services that only satisfied emotional needs. But the marketing experts in the next era must look at the consumers as perfect humans consisting of minds, hearts and spirits. Thus, consumers will seem to start looking for things that make the world more pleasant. So, the consumers will look for a company that has the vision, mission and the value that can satisfy their highest economic, social and environmental needs.  Consumers will want a product not only because of its function, but also because it is able to fulfill their spiritual needs. 

     We can see in the business sector that companies have engaged more in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and the number of social entrepreneurs has increased significantly. At the same time, we can see investors, tourists and skilled labors are seeking the place that has the vision, the mission and the value that are able to fulfill their spiritual needs.

     For this reason, in the 21st century, nation branding has to give priority to the virtue aspect. A country has to engage in the national global responsibility (NGR) activity which is similar to a company engaging in the CSR activity. Therefore, a country that is interested in the environment, society or the global community will be more attractive.  

     For example, Bhutan positions itself clearly and uniquely by giving high priority to goodness, the spiritual aspect and responsibility to the global community. Bhutan has used natural resources without exploitation of the earth and has measured its development using Gross National Happiness (GNH), instead of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is an emphasis on spiritual development more so than materialistic development.

     More Effectiveness: The effectiveness of a nation branding program has to be measured

     Because nation branding has become more important and it is a part of public policy, it has to be measured. In the 21st century, politics will be more transparent because there will be increased participation by the people in the check and balance process. Additionally, marketing is going to be the ?Return on Investment (ROI) Marketing Era? as Kotler (2010) mentioned in the concept of marketing 3.0. Every business organization and every country has to spend their budget economically. The return on investment will be the main topic that the executives in every organization and every country give priority.

     Therefore, in the 21st century, the effectiveness of the nation branding campaign/program has to be measured more clearly.

Nowadays, there are many indicators relating to nation branding such as the Nation Brands Index (NBI) which surveys 20,000 consumers from twenty countries to rank 50 countries or the East West Global Index 200 that follows the national news from the international media and indicates the proportion of positive and negative news reported about these countries. Nevertheless, both indicators which are popular in nation branding are perception surveys. They do not measure the efficiency or the effectiveness of the nation branding program. How to measure the effectiveness of nation branding in achieving its stated goals is still a question for further and ongoing research.

     More refined focus: It will be more difficult to establish brand identity in nation branding

     In the future, to brand a nation will be very difficult. This is because there are about 238 countries around the world. One region might consist of many countries, geographies, and histories that are similar. Also, in the 21st century, there will be a cultural globalization and hybridization that will cause many countries to have similar uniqueness and there might be competition in using some identities. Therefore, a country that comes later in building their brand will find it very difficult to position itself in the global stage.

To illustrate, there are many countries on the African continent that try to claim that their country is the ?Heart of Africa?. However, the first country which used this concept as its position is Malawi. Then, Nigeria also tried to create their new nation brand with the idea of the ?Heart of Africa?.  However, that attempt by Nigeria was not successful because that positioning had already been used.  

     For this reason, to brand a nation in the 21st century, a country must emphasize its uniqueness and position itself differently from other countries.

     To conclude, nation branding will be more important in the future and there will be many  changes in objectives, scopes, tools used in branding a nation, partnerships with  who is involved in  the process, how to measure the efficiency and effectiveness, finding the identity of the nation or even the increasing dimensions about the accountability of the global society. So, the state that is interested in nation branding should understand these changes for the benefit of their own countries in the future.