ITMA 322 APRIL 2005

ITMA BUSINESS
and Mrs Ramage gave a talk on behalf of the Institute.
The event was very well attended with around 120
people present.
Continuing Professional Development
CPD Accreditation: The Committee had agreed that it
should be made quite clear to bodies who asked for
ITMA CPD accreditation that they could only state in
their literature that the event was ‘accredited by ITMA’,
rather than sponsored or supported by ITMA.
ITMA Review Committee
It was reported that there had been a problem with the
quality of the photos featured in the July/August edition
of the ITMA Review and this was due to a change
in the resolution of the images. A reassurance was
given by the printer that this would not happen again.
Redesign of the ITMA Review: The Committee were considering
a re-design of the ITMA Review in conjunction
with the re-design of the ITMA website and it was
hoped this might include more colour.
Programme Committee
Autumn Conference 2005: The conference had taken
place on 29 and 30 September in Barcelona and had
Nation as Brand – the ultimate IP Challenge?
Seminar Review
On 31 October, there was a lunchtime seminar at the
Intellectual Property Research Institute at Queen Mary,
University of London. The speaker was Simon Anholt,
the author of a number of books on the branding of a
nation (for further information, see www.earthspeak.com).
He considered what is not a brand first. It is not one
of the tools of marketing such as advertising, or a logo.
It is more than externally visible factors. It is not just a
sense of common purpose. It is a complex concept. It
could be described as “the perception in the minds of
people in the market place”.
Simon gave numerous examples of good and bad
brands and why efforts by those brands to improve
their market perception may have failed. These examples
reinforced his view that brand is not the message
but the context in which it is received. It is “the fertile
soil or the stony ground”, is how he put it, and is
formed by an uncountable number of factors. That is
what makes it so complex.
Imagine that instead of creating a brand for a tin of
beans, these factors are applied to create a brand for a
nation? Can all of the factors apply or are only some
aspects scalable?
Why brand a country in the first place? By giving
numerous anecdotal examples, Simon filled in his talk
like a painting, applying texture and colour as he went.
Starting with the little village of Scratbury in Norfolk
and its unique identity and where this comes from,
Simon developed the ideas which could equally apply
to Ethiopia, Nigeria, Turkey and Mongolia, to name a
few of the destinations mentioned.
Whilst is it possible to see the direction of this particular
“supertanker” (the subject is vast and its implications
and effects of such scale that I could sense the
been a great success. The Committee had received very
positive feedback on the event which had made a small
profit.
OHIM Seminar: The Committee were liasing with
OHIM over holding a day-long seminar later on in
2006. This was thought to be great news as OHIM were
becoming more approachable.
Registry Seminars
Four half-day seminars would take place in January
2006 which would see Mike Knight of the Registry discussing
respective opposition systems. The seminars
would travel to four locations round the country.
Christmas Lunch: Flyers had gone out advertising the
London and Northern Christmas Lunches.
Formalities Committee
Everything was running smoothly in terms of the
preparation for the courses in Jersey and London in
2006. A new course would be run in Birmingham.
Internet Committee
Council would consider registering ‘www.itma.eu’ as a
domain name.
supertanker analogy bubbling to my own linguistic
surface), it is also easy to see how it must take hours to
slow down or turn. So too must a nation have a longterm
outlook; difficult in this fickle world.
Another interesting thread, worthy of far more discussion
than the time allowed, revealed itself as the
conflict which arises between different entities within
the nation wanting the new brand. For example, the
tourist board, which often has great marketing purchasing
power, would like a view of the nation which
lends itself to tourism. This frequently conflicts with
the nation view the business community would like.
Simon gave Scotland as an example of this. The tourist
board spends a large sum of money enhancing the
view people have of Scotland as 150 years behind the
times: few roads, rural and relaxing; whereas it is a
modern country and the B2B contingent want to get
over an image of modernity and economic success so
as to attract investors.
Full of realism, it is hard to disagree too strongly
with the view that perceptions of countries and the
people in them are often justified. It is for the nation
itself and the people in it to work with their good qualities
to create the brand for their nation and
people which they know is true and which they can
sustain at an international level. Only then will the
branding nation have something to shout about.
How does all this interact with pure IP in terms of
protection and exploitation — well there was not
enough time to cover that. Perhaps a Branding Nations
2 is in order? I would highly recommend it.
The seminar programme for the IPI at Queen Mary
can be seen at http://www.ccls.edu/events/
Amanda Maclachlan, Allen & Overy LLP
December 2005 ITMA Review 7