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THE BRANDING OF A NATION
‘For a rich country,
it can help update
people’s perceptions,
to communicate
technological expertise,
creativity and
dynamism, alongside
the images of heritage
and tradition.’
Nation branding is a phrase we hear
very often today, and it isn’t surprising
that places are trying to compete
on the global market by building their
brands. It’s the natural consequence
of a crowded marketplace where competing
‘products’ need to attract the
attention of the ‘consumer’.
I define nation branding as the
process of aligning
the policies,
investments,
innovations, behaviours
and communications
of a
country around a
clear strategy for
achieving enhanced
competitive
identity.
The process
can add value
to countries in
many different
ways. For a poor
country, surviving on handouts and
labouring under a negative ‘brand
image’ of war, poverty, disease and
corruption, nation branding can be
a way of eliciting more than pity, of
communicating that the country also
offers attractive prospects for investment,
export, tourism and cultural
relations.
For a rich country, it can help update
people’s perceptions, to communicate
technological expertise, creativity
and dynamism, alongside the images
of heritage and tradition.
Whoever is doing it, true nation
branding has little to do with slogans,
logos or advertising.
Most places ultimately
get the reputation they
deserve, and the only
way to change it is by
doing different things.
This means creating
a culture where every
player in every sector,
from policy-making to
industry, from tourism
to exports, strives to
achieve constant innovation,
implemented
to impeccable international
standards, but
always in line with the national brand
strategy. All these innovations have
to prove the point about the way the
country wishes to be perceived.
When a country starts to practise
innovation clearly guided by a common
strategy, the media take notice:
promotion becomes simpler and cheaper
when there is always something
new to say, when it is all part of the
same compelling new story.
The only way to acquire a reputation
is by earning it, and brand strategy
provides a good way of planning
and aligning the change in national
behaviour which ultimately leads to a
better national reputation: one which
is more fair, more true, and more useful
to the country’s economic, social
and political goals.
© 2005 Simon Anholt
Simon Anholt is one of the world’s leading specialists
in creating brand strategies for countries,
cities and regions. He is the British Government’s
advisor on Public Diplomacy.
Breast milk speeds up healing
A refinement of an innovation at Sahlgrenska
University Hospital has proved
effective in speeding up wound healing
and scarring. This innovation may
even provide a solution to an unsolved
problem that occurs in connection with
operations on the abdomen. There is a
risk after such operations of the intestines
growing together with the healing
surface. This restricts mobility in the
abdomen and causes ileus, which is
very painful. Breast milk may provide
a solution to the problem. It contains
lactoferrin, a protein that regulates and
strengthens the immunological defence
mechanisms of babies. A peptide (a
string of amino acids) that helps operation
wounds to heal has been identified
and isolated. A group of entrepreneurs
have refined this patented innovation
and established a company called PharmaSurgics.
A material with extreme properties
A fantastic new material – MAX – can be
used instead of gold in the manufacture of
electrical components. MAX has low friction,
low resistance, high heat resistance
and high abrasive resistance, which makes
it suitable as an alloy. Apart from that, it
is cheap: gold costs 12,500 euro per kg,
while MAX costs 36 euro per kg.
Thin film made from MAX has been
produced by the Impact Coatings company
in Linköping in cooperation with ABB,
Sandvik Kanthal, Uppsala University and
Linköping University. The role of Impact
Coatings was to scale up laboratory experiments
and develop a mass production
process.
The object of the project was to industrialize
a completely new nanomaterial
consisting of three elements (titanium,
silicon and carbon). In no time at all this
work has made Sweden a leader in this
field. The whole value chain is here, from
basic materials science to know-how
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