Country Brand Research Articles

Branding a country as a tourist destination: Case study: Serbia

One of the main characteristics of modern business environment is the complexity that arises from the increasingly competitive struggle in the market. Under such conditions, competitive struggle takes place both at the company level and at the level of specific countries. Countries are trying to attract more tourists and foreign investors, stimulate export, develop strong international partnerships, etc. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to focus on building a nation brand. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the importance of branding Serbia as a tourist destination and to measure its position i.e. ranking in terms of country branding. Serbian national brand has bad rating, which points to the inability of our country to handle global competition. The aim of this research is to determine the position of Serbia as a brand, pointing to the need for adequate approach and intensive brand management, which in return would contribute not only to Serbian companies, but the whole country as well.

(Creative Industries' Export and Internationalization Strategies of Selected Countries and Their Policy Implications)

Korean Abstract: 최근 노동, 자본, 토지와 같은 전통적인 생산요소 외에 지식이나 창의성과 같은 비가시적 생산요소의 중요성이 높아지고, 탈제조업화로 대표되는 경제구조의 변화가 진행되고 있다. 이에 따라 본 연구에서 검토한 영국, 핀란드, 독일, 일본을 비롯한 많은 국가들이 새로운 성장동력과, 일자리 창출원으로서 창조산업에 주목하고 있다. 창조산업은 중소기업이 밀집된 분야로 고용증대에 미치는 영향이 크며, 혁신적인 제품을 개발함으로써 새로운 소비자와 시장을 개척하는 첨병 역할을 한다. 또한 창조산업의 해외진출 확대는 국가간의 문화적 거리감을 완화하고 여타 분야의 수출 확대와 국가 브랜드 제고에 기여하는 효과가 있다. 본 연구는 상기 국가들의 정책 사례를 검토하였다. English Abstract: Along with the emergence of knowledge-based economy, importance of nonvisible production factors, such as knowledge and creativity is widely recognized. With the spread of such recognition, the concept of creative industries has been diffused over the world. Identifying creative industries as an individual industrial sector, countries have come to find that creative industries are new sources of job creation and have the potential to lead cross-industry innovation. As creative industries play a role of pioneering new markets by developing innovative goods and services, internationalization strategy takes a core position in the relevant policies. In this sense, it is necessary to develop a unique Korean concept of creative industries which expands the current category of cultural content industries by including design, architecture, and some ICT and R&D services. As creative industries have high concentration of SMEs and micro firms, it is necessary to exert efforts on supporting competent SMEs. It is also important to reinforce competitiveness of creative services, such as architecture, R&D, and design. Architecture and R&D service markets, which account for the largest share of creative services trade, expand rapidly in emerging countries. Creative firms give positive effects on identification of new consumer demands, provision of new solutions and concepts, creation of new approaches to known problems, joint development of innovative ideas, etc. The government needs to select competitive creative firms and help them link with domestic/foreign firms in various sectors, and give incentives for such activities. Compared to industrial sectors such as manufacturing, creative firms (especially SMEs) face bigger difficulties in exporting. Accordingly, the government needs to provide export funding and foreign market information specialized for creative industries, support creative firms' participation in international trade shows and formation of networks, and include competitive creative firms in business delegations. An important feature of strategies for creative industries’ internationalization is to expand the number of target countries. Such feature includes not only expansion of trade among developed countries but also diversification of target countries into emerging countries. Countries studied in this report select strategic target countries among emerging countries based on various factors, such as market size, growth potential, maturity of bilateral economic relationship, cultural intimacy, etc. MOU is an effective means of helping creative industries enter emerging counties in that it can contain various interests through inter-discipline and inter-department cooperation. Cooperative relationship through MOU can also contribute to building a basis for emerging countries' creative industries. As intellectual property right is a core of creative industries, it is needed to increase the level of intellectual property right protection of emerging countries through bilateral dialogue channels including FTA negotiations. As creative industries are important components of a country's soft power, they require utilization and attention on the government level. Especially, it is required to establish a comprehensive country brand marketing strategy that utilizes Korea's core assets including creative industries.

The Morocco brand from the Moroccan emigrants’ perspective

The aim of this work is twofold: on the one hand, it consists of determining the main elements of the Morocco brand constructed and transmitted by Moroccan emigrants, and on the other it explores whether this brand is convergent and coherent or, on the contrary, diverges depending on the socio-demographic profile of Moroccan emigrants. To achieve these objectives, data from 131 Moroccan emigrants living in Spain were collected through a questionnaire. The findings sum up the most relevant factors of the Morocco brand transmitted by emigrants to the local population in Spain. These elements are: environment, infrastructures and activities, culture and innovation, as functional attributes of the country brand; and the contrast of old and new life, including hospitality, religion, traditions but also modernity, cosmopolitism and multiculturalism, and lifestyle as emotional attributes. Moroccan emigrants highlight emotional attributes more than functional ones to characterise Morocco. Our data also show that Moroccan emigrants construct and transmit a convergent and coherent brand, despite their differences in age, gender and education. At a theoretical level, we conclude that this work contributes to a scarce literature on the analysis of destination branding from an internal point of view, and more specifically with regard to the role of migration on the brand construction. Moreover, from a practical point of view this study offers important insights to be considered by destination management organisations (DMO) in order to align all the multiple voices from different stakeholders of a destination brand into a coherent and non-contradictory message. In addition, this study entails implications for DMO regarding the appropriate use of emigrants as potential ambassadors of a destination brand.

Suitable Festival Activities for Taiwan's Tourism and Nation Branding with the Application of the PR AHP Program

Taiwan's tourism industry can be further developed to establish country branding from the perspective of tourism. Combining festival activities with tourism is a good approach. This study is aimed at identifying the festival activities that are suitable for Taiwan's tourism campaign. It has adopted the preference relation analytic hierarchy process (PR AHP) method which currently has no related program. This study has made two major contributions. It has determined suitable festival activities for Taiwan's tourism campaign and has constructed an easy-to-use PR AHP program for researchers.

Country Brand Identity: An Exploratory Study about the Brazil Brand with American Travel Agencies

A country's image, transmitted through its brand, can enhance a country's international performance or diminish its global prominence in various sectors and spheres. This study's aim is to transpose the concept of brand identity to a country's brand based on Aaker's (2007) model. The research was qualitative and exploratory, including in-depth interviews with Embratur (the Brazilian Federal Institute of Tourism) and 20 travel agencies in the USA. We concluded that Aaker's theory may be partially applied to a country's brand. The core identity of the Brazil brand partially corresponds to the image that Embratur desires (diversity). The expanded identity, however, did not provide additional integrity or texture to Brazil's brand. This study on country-brand identity, applied to a growing sector, contributes to the body of research on country-brand management in international marketing.

The nation brand molecule

Purpose – The paper's aim is to determine, by means of an extensive exploratory study and the metaphorical use of a molecule, the set of dimensions and facets that exist in people's minds in regards to a country brand, and at the same time to compare the results with the dimensions used by practitioner-led sources to measure the same construct. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 532 graduate students living in 20 different countries freely reported the concepts they associate with different country names. The construction of the nation brand molecule was carried out in three steps: generating the inventory of all the associations made by participants in relation to country names; classifying the inventory; and mapping the molecule. Findings – The nation brand molecule (NBM) which encompasses all the associated concepts that give shape to the overall molecule was developed. Seven dimensions, with their corresponding facets, were identified: economy, tourism, geography and nature, culture and heritage...

English

The momentum towards complete globalisation advocated by proponents of the benefits of one big business village as the answer to the suffering of third world countries, has now been slowed down by the uncertainty resultant from the hitherto unprecedented global meltdown. With the coughing of America, the whole world seems to be catapulting into one big mess due to the global economic quagmire. Consequently, there is a global scramble for the limited and constantly contracting financial and market resources. Third world countries, rich in natural resources but insignificant global players, have been relegated to perpetual recipients of aid, finished products and obsolete or second rate technology. Despite having 53 countries, Africa is painted en bloc as a “dark continent” dogged by civil wars, disease, poverty and famine. This “bad continent” image thus affects all African countries including those that are fairly stable such as South Africa, Botswana, and Egypt. This scenario necessitates country differentiation through individualised or regionalised country branding.   Key words: Brand, competitiveness, globalisation, nation branding.

Advertising in a Luxury Fashion Magazine: A Comparison between Italy and China

In the general framework of globalization and internationalization, the paper focuses on the advertising strategies adopted by top companies in the luxury sector. The article reports on the preliminary data of a study to determine the importance of local culture in advertising content by comparing Chinese and Italian ads. In particular, this research analyses the content of advertisements from Vogue, one of the most popular and influential fashion and beauty magazine, both in China and Italy: the focus is on three industries, namely clothing, cosmetics and jewellery. The selected ads of ‘product pairs’ allow to shed a light on the choices in terms of communications messages and conveyed image by top brands in both countries. The content analysis points out visual and textual elements contributing to the standardization-adaptation discussion: this research reveals that strategies are both affected by the country and the product category.

The influence of social class on the perceptions of country of origin

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe a study, conducted in Thailand, which examined the working class and middle class consumers’ evaluation and purchase intentions of high equity versus low equity Thai fashion labels of sophisticated and standard apparel, outsourced for production to three Asian countries of varying manufacturing competence. Design/methodology/approach – Data from a field survey was analysed through a 2×2×3 factorial design and the influence of a particular factor over the others in specific scenarios was observed. Findings – Consumers from both social classes are inclined to be partial to a specific quality dimension of their national brands made abroad. When considering purchase of reputed brands of standard products, working class consumers are particularly concerned about the item's country‐of‐origin (COO). On the other hand, middle class consumers’ apprehensions of multi‐featured products’ COO run across both high and low equity brands. Research limitations/implications – Common methods bias may have occurred in this study as a result of respondents in the self‐report survey wanting to avoid cognitive dissonance, trying to correlate their responses with their answers to previous questions. Practical implications – Consumers belonging to a particular social segment in the brands’ home country can be encouraged to buy their national brands produced abroad on the promise that these products will deliver their favoured quality features. Originality/value – The research results are presented in the form of a consumer typology based on the dimensions of perceived quality, and explain the effect of the interaction of country's competence, brand equity and product purchase involvement on middle class and working class consumers’ evaluation and purchase intention of brands outsourced for production abroad.

Impact of Country of Origin Dimensions on Purchase Intention of Eco Car

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of the dimensions of country of origin on product quality assessments, perceptions of product value, and purchase intentions. The samples were people in Bangkok and Metropolitan Area (BMA), who intended to purchase eco cars within the next six months. Survey research with structured questionnaire was a method used for data collection. Multiple regressions were applied to test the research hypotheses, and the sample size required 500 respondents. The findings revealed that country of corporate ownership (COC), country of manufacture (COM), country of parts (COP), and Country of Brand (COB) had the effects on product quality assessment of eco cars while product quality assessment also had an effect on purchase intention. Moreover, COP and COM had the effects on perception of product value of eco cars whereas the perception of value also had an effect on purchase intention of eco cars. In addition, COP and COM had the effects on purchase intention. Product quality assessment and perception of product value had the effects on purchase intention. Nevertheless, country of assembly (COA) and country of design (COD) did not have the effects on product quality assessment, perception of product value, and purchase intention of eco cars. The contributions are expected to the practice arena to help the automobile industry or car manufacturing companies, whose country of origin dimensions are foreign countries, in choosing their country of origin to be appropriate for their marketing and to create incentives for consumers to buy.

Study on Technological Competitiveness of China-Owned Brand Enterprises

With the rapid development of our economy, our country market by seller's market to a buyer's market, entered the era of relative surplus of material production. Market structure is undergoing profound changes, the brand competition has become an important means of competition, it is enterprise management plays a more and more important role. However, at present our country brand present situation is not optimistic, overall brand competitiveness is weak. Therefore, the brand competitiveness evaluation not only has theoretical significance, but also has the important practical significance. In this paper, we investigate the problems for evaluating the technological competitiveness of China-owned brand enterprises with 2-tuple linguistic information. We utilize the 2-tuple weighted average (TWA) operator to aggregate the linguistic information corresponding to each alternative and get the overall value of technological competitiveness of China-owned brand enterprises, then rank the alternatives and select the most desirable one (s) by using the overall value. Finally, an illustrative example is given to verify the developed approach and to demonstrate its practicality and effectiveness.

From Nation State to Brand State. The Role of Public Diplomacy and Country Branding in the New Stage of the International Relations

The establishment of relationships between countries in a global era seems to require new strategies that, in some cases, transcend traditional state diplomacy. In this sense, public diplomacy has become a renewed strategy of transnational representativeness in which the country brand exerts an important role as mechanism for agglutinating and transmitting national identities. Thus, the new soft power of geographical representation seems to take place within the weakening of the state-nation and clearly benefits a new way of communicating the identity of a country which is closer to the intervention of different social agents than to the signing of international treaties, a competence traditionally reserved for governments. Based on a review of existing literature, this article presents the state of the art related to the new strategies of international representativeness that have been executed by countries and nations.

The Use of Football as a Country Branding Strategy. Case Study

The main objective of this article is to analyse the sport place branding strategy of Qatar, a Persian Gulf country that is using the income from the commercialisation of its gas to create an economy, which can be successful in the future without depending on this natural source. Sport, above all football, has been a key sector in which the Qatari government believes in order to promote the image of its country worldwide. One of the most interesting examples used in this article is the relationship between the Qatar Foundation and FC Barcelona. Using a qualitative methodology, this article aims to understand the key pillars of this strategy and why sport mega-events have been so important when governments want to increase their reputation in the international sphere.

The Brand Creation Process in the Information Technology Sector: The Case of Brasil IT+

Sector brands are an alternative to the impossibility or inadequacy of developing national country brands. However, studies examining the subject are scarce. This article examines the development process of the Brazilian information technology sector brand and contributes to the understanding of sector brands. The empirical study is a case study of the Brasil IT+ brand, which was created to strengthen Brazilian information technology sector exports. The study concludes that the process of creating the Brasil IT+ sector brand was suitable according to the literature on brands, although certain aspects of the process could have been improved. For example, the brand could be adapted to each type of target audience and should control exports and the quality of the enterprises that conduct business under the brand. It was also possible to determine that the brand is investing in the construction of a competitive differentiator for the Brazilian sector, which will generate increasingly more competitive advantages for the enterprises that use the sector brand as a form of marketing in the international market.

Mexico country brand: a logo with aesthetic

Existen cientos de marcas, unas reconocidas y otras que contienden por ocupar una buena posicion dentro del mercado. Pero ?cuantas de estas marcas proyectan lo que la empresa o compania busca?, pueden ser marcas creativas, llenas de color y formas, pero si no transmiten el mensaje deseado, no son eficaces. Cada dia se suman mas productos o servicios que buscan tener una marca1 que les identifique y diferencie de las demas; hoy, los paises se suman a esta mision, buscan una imagen con la que puedan lanzar una estrategia al mercado, a fin de distinguirse y vender lo que su territorio ofrece, a esto se le conoce como marca pais.

Anti-counterfeit system for agricultural product origin labeling based on GPS data and encrypted Chinese-sensible Code

With the increased attention given to geographical labeling and the increased awareness of enterprise brands in many countries, anti-counterfeit systems for identifying the origin of agricultural products are important for limiting the production of fake goods and improving the competitiveness of agricultural products. An anti-counterfeit system for identifying the origin of agricultural products based on GPS and encrypted Chinese-sensible Code was designed. The anti-counterfeit system used the LPC1768 microprocessor of the Coretex-M3 series as its core controller, and the system was programmed with the C language. The system could collect and process the weight and location of the agricultural products, encrypt and encode the Chinese-sensible Code based on an AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) algorithm with a different cipher each time, and then print the anti-counterfeit label. The application results showed that the system runs reliably and stably, 98% anti-counterfeit labels were correctly identified and used to trace the origin of the products. Additionally, the system accomplished the task of providing precise positioning and location accuracy is about 10m scope and unique identification information about the origin of agricultural products and achieved the aim of developing an anti-counterfeiting system.

Factors Influencing Importance of Country of Brand and Country of Manufacturing in Consumer Product Evaluation

Bangladesh, a developing country, has significant import dependence since its inception. This study attempted toidentify the factors influencing significance of country of brand and country of manufacturing in consumerproduct evaluation. Two models, one for country of brand and another for country of manufacturing tested in thisstudy. Regression models for country of brand and country of manufacturing demonstrate statistical significancewith R2 value of .970 and .935 respectively. The determinants posed statistically significant influence for countryof brand are technological superiority, price level, reliability, performance, and durability; while significantvariables influencing country of brand are price level, value for money, and aesthetical design.

Nation Branding: Beautiful Bangladesh

Recently a word ‘Nation Branding’ or ‘Branding Bangladesh’ is practiced a lot. A nation brand is the total sum of all perceptions of a nation in the mind of international stakeholders which may contain some of the following elements: people, place, culture, language, history, food, fashion, famous faces (celebrities), global brands, etc. The way for a nation to gain a better reputation is to communicate to the international audience that how good you are, is called nation branding. There is a misconception among most of the people that it is required to develop tourism sector of any country in case of nation branding. But nation branding focuses on the nation as a whole – its people, culture and heritage, investment and immigration, governance, exports and tourism. The objective of this paper is to clarify this misconception about nation branding, help our citizens to know about the branding Bangladesh and reveal the possibilities of branding Bangladesh. Process of nation branding –Nation Brand Index and Country Brand Index are discussed in this paper. This research is based on secondary sources and the researcher comes up with the Nation Branding Hexagon for Bangladesh. Hopefully this paper will be helpful for awaking our consumers and making responsible to come forward for unbeaten nation branding for Bangladesh.  

Branding of countries and nations

A growing number of countries are beginning to understand the importance and the necessity for country branding and taking care of their global image and reputation. Having realized that a good name and a positive image affect not only the number of tourist arrivals but also the investments, products, award of various sports and cultural events etc, as of lately countries have started addressing these issues more seriously. Special agencies and institutes have been established which use the latest marketing methods and integrated marketing channels for promotion. Governments which strive to rebrand their countries, remodel the image or build a new positive identity of their nation must have a clear vision of what they want to achieve, where the country stands now, where they want it to stand, and must try to integrate all efforts, policies and communications towards the rest of the world. It is with considerable delay that Serbia has understood the real impact of lobbying and engaging lobbyist firms in preparing and passing decisions of significance to the international political scene, and partially due to the delay, it has suffered great economic and political damage over the last decade and a half of its history.

Developing and Applying a Place Brand Identity Model: The Case of Slovenia

This paper reviews the concept of place brand identity within the supply side aspect of place branding. With no widely accepted model of place brand identity, the paper proposes a new model, which has its roots in marketing, tourism and sociological theory. The model focuses on the country brand of Slovenia, representing the first systematic branding process in Slovenia’s short history. The development of a research program followed a holistic approach involving key influencers and enactment stakeholders. This novel approach has several advantages over the previously uncoordinated country branding attempts.