The Guardian, UK
Nov 11 2006

Problem with your country’s image? Mr Anholt can help

Got a problem with your national image?

Oliver Burkeman at the nation branding masterclass in London
Saturday November 11, 2006
The Guardian

Nobody from the government of Kazakhstan was present at the Langham
hotel in London yesterday for the world’s first masterclass in nation
branding. This wasn’t for want of trying: the Kazakhs had appealed
for help in combating the Borat Problem, but Simon Anholt, the expert
in the field of image makeovers for nation-states, had refused on
ethical grounds. Still, representatives from 65 countries did attend
– including a man from the Saudi tourist board, full of ambitious
plans for oil-refinery tours, and an Armenian woman named Armine
Yeghiazaryan.

"We recently completed a survey to find out what people think about
Armenia," Ms Yeghiazaryan explained.
And what do people think about Armenia? "Lots of people don’t really
think anything about Armenia," she conceded. Then she brightened.
"But quite a few of them had heard of it."

Mr Anholt, who works as a consultant to numerous governments,
including Britain’s, frequently gets hostile responses to the term
"nation branding".

"At first there was outrage," he recalled. "People said: ‘You’re
treating nations like nothing more than products in the global
supermarket!’ Which I actually thought was a great metaphor."

In fact, most big countries already have brands, Mr Anholt points out
– gut associations that people make when they hear a country’s name.
"Nigeria? It’s those scam emails. Japan? Technology, expensive …
Britain? Posh, boring, old fashioned. Switzerland? Clean and
hygienic. Sweden? Switzerland with sex appeal." His job is making
sure those associations are a help, not a hindrance.

"This is fundamentally not a marketing trick," he insisted. "It’s
national identity in the service of enhanced competitiveness."

Carol Hunter, from the Isle of Man government, listened intently. If
your gut reaction to hearing Isle of Man is "birching", she’d like
you to abandon it; if it’s "TT races", she’d like you to broaden it.
If it’s "tax haven", you may not be too far off, but these days the
preferred slogan for the Man brand is "freedom to flourish".

Striding the stage beneath the chandeliers in the Langham’s ballroom,
Mr Anholt told delegates that the image being promoted to sell a
country to tourists is usually exactly the wrong one to sell it to
investors.

"For years, the Scottish tourist board marketed Scotland as a country
stuck about 100 years in the past, a place of emptiness, wildness and
no buildings," he said. "Actually, there was one building: a thatched
pub and some yokels inside drinking whisky." That might be appealing
to holidaymakers. "But it’s no good if you’re trying to persuade
Samsung to build their next factory there."

It was a tension acutely felt by the man from Madrid, who glumly
noted that a reputation for siestas and all-night parties was not
exactly helping promote the Spanish technology sector.

And what of Jamaica? "You think sun, sea and sand, don’t you?" asked
Nicole Maraj-Pandohie, from Invest Jamaica. "You don’t think strong
business infrastructure." You also think violent crime. "Yes. I deal
with this every day. Every day," she said, with great forbearance.

Not that nation branding can’t go embarrassingly wrong. "The trouble
with Cool Britannia," Mr Anholt sighed, "was not the basic idea. The
problem was that the government forgot it was trying to promote
Britain, and started promoting the campaign to promote Britain."
(These days, the representative from Visit Britain explained, the
UK’s brand values are depth, heart, and vitality.)

Mr Anholt makes moral judgments on who to work with. The Kazakhs did
not make the cut, but if they had, he would have advised them to play
along with Borat, the fictional Kazakh reporter. "At least they have
a reputation now. It may be a bad one, but it’s much easier to turn a
negative into a positive than nothing into something." Which was not
what the Armenians wanted to hear.

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress