Traditional brand management relates to the creating of an identifiable image for products and / or services. Companies like Mercedes and Coca-Cola have a strong and identifiable brand that lets potential consumers know what is on offer tangibly and intangibly. In a highly competitive globalised market place, companies have been working on brand building efforts for a long time so as to improve their competitive advantage. In the last few years, governments have caught onto the fact that strategic brand building is important to the advancement of their countries, towns or even neighbourhoods.
The Need for Place Branding
According to Phillip C. Zerrillo and Gregory Metz Thomas, Developing brands and emerging markets: An empirical application in 2008 Place Branding and Public Diplomacy Vol. 4, the four key reasons to employ place branding are: “attracting visitors, attracting business, attracting residents / employees, and enhancing the attractiveness of exports.”
South Africa, Spain and Ireland have arguably had successful country branding campaigns that have resulted in improved investment and tourist figures for their respective countries. Rwanda is another success story with the government redefining its image beyond the 1994 genocide. Brand Rwanda promises profits as well as opportunity for change. The result has been improved foreign direct investment and serious infrastructure development.
However, as pointed by Simon Anholt in his editorial ‘Place branding; Is it marketing or isn’t it?’ that appeared in the Place Branding and Public Diplomacy journal, quantifying the successes of nation brand campaigns is not as simple as it is to quantify traditional brands. According to Anholt between 2005 and the last quarter of 2007 “there has been no detectable correlation between changes in national brand value and expenditure on the so-called ‘nation branding campaigns.' Several countries that have done no marketing during this period have shown noticeable improvements in their overall images, while others have spent extremely large sums on advertising and PR campaigns and their brand value has remained stable or even declined.” Although Anholt would agree that index is not the most appropriate method to measure the impact such campaigns.
Even though it is a new discipline, place branding does have serious impact potential for governments. However it must be kept in mind that wholesale adoption of traditional branding techniques is not suitable as there are various sectors to appeal to as well as investors, tourists and skilled migrants. The coordination and corporation that is needed for a successful place branding programme is also unique.
For better understanding of place branding and its principles please read S Anholt’s Brand New Justice and P Kotler, DH Haider & I Rein's Marketing Places.
