Books written by Anholt.S, discuss a lot about branding strategies, planning and promotion on how to promote the places/cities and countires. There are two different ways as Anholt (Brand New Justice) propose, one is through product and one is through places. I’m now in the process of understanding what is it all about this place branding. Is it about people, is it about brand, it about the culture and tradition or perhaps is it about the goverment? Let’s first see what brand is….
Lots of things are called brands these days. Department stores are brands, companies and universities are brands, singers and politicians are brands. Even political parties, religions, cities and nation sometimes get described as brands. Most people use the term quite loosely, but waht they usually mean, is that these places, people and organizations have found that their reputation is important to them. They suffer when its negative, and they make profit when its positive, and so they make some attempt to control it. Just like products in a supermarket, the ones with the famous and trusted names are the one that peopl choose first, often going to quite a bit of troble and expense to get hold of them.
And the defination of brand is nothing much than the example that i gave. Brands is just purely, nothing more and nothing less than a name of something that’s on offer to the public. The brand name acts as our short cut to an informed buying decision. The more often we are proved right about our choice, and the more often the product or services lives up to the good name of the company that makes it, the more valuable that name becomes in our eyes and mind.
The same principles apply to places. Whether we’re thinking about going somewhere on holidays, buying a product that’s made in a certain country, applying for job overseas, moving to a new town or play a CDs made by artists from different countries, we rely on our perception of those to make the decision-making process a bit easier, a bit faster, a bit more efficient.
Made in London or Made in Paris. People have known for centuries that a ‘Made in…’ label just as powerful and just as valuable as a ‘Made by…’ label. German engineering, French cuisine, Swedish design and British Class – these are brand values that rub off onto all the products that come from those countris, and they count for a lot.
So when we talk about branding the country or branding the nation, what do we actually mean? Does it mean the product or perhaps building (that made by one of the global brand) that represent the countries, the company that represent the countries or the origin effects y the countries it self? Can it possible to brand the country without the product? What do we actually mean?!!