the role of film in brand, branding, rebranding, and international ...

Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review (OMAN Chapter) Vol. 2, No.3; Oct. 2012
marketplace via film, thus eliciting a positive response from stakeholders in the market, whose
patronage and respect is attracted to a brand. Film therefore enhances the viability of a brand.
Hitherto, the dominance, power, and respect ascribed to a state rests on its economic, political,
and military might, as well as its ability to overtly or covertly threaten or coerce other nations to
bow to its supremacy, but currently, the story has changed, as globalisation and the shift
towards a market economy, where marketing strategies rather than military might is defining
and redefining the international socio-political landscape, has prompted wretched and remote
countries (some of which are referred to as “banana republics”) to unflappably mutate and
emerge from political oblivion and obscurity into international limelight and prominence, riding
on the wings of a positively developed image and branding, elevated and publicised on the
bedrock of the alluring, persuasive, and extensive character of films, which is employed to drive
to the international pinnacle, the positive and endearing reforms of such hitherto “banana
republics”. The role of a film like “Crocodile Dundee” (a 1986 film), in the branding and
launching of Australia into international eminence and fame, cannot be easily forgotten. Film
has therefore transformed itself into a source of political power that can be used to alter and
rearrange the socio-political dynamics in the international system, in favour of a state, and
film’s relevance in the creation of a renowned brand that occupies a prominent place in the
global theatre cannot be overemphasised.
Branding is concerned with communicating and publicising the enviable attributes of an image
or entity, while rebranding entails the launch of corrective and regenerative reforms at the
internal and external stratums of society’s life, directed primarily towards addressing and
redressing negative behavioural traits and labels, as well as the attendant injurious consequences
that these negative configurations attracts to the brand. When the corrective initiative is
launched, reversed, and corrected, it is capable of propagating, nurturing, embellishing, and
expanding the patronage enjoyed by a brand, facilitating its catapult thereafter to international
prominence and eminence, and the role of film in charting this course, is not in doubt.
Not only is branding directed towards attracting foreign patronage in the form of direct foreign
investment and tourism, it is also designed to initiate a positive reform in the policy and
behavioural facets of citizens’ life and their government’s operations, and in this respect, not
only is film used as a propaganda tool, employed in the rebuttal and correction of wrong labels
ascribed to a state by foreign spectators and their media, it is also used to spur and resurrect the
spirit of patriotism and nationalism in a population, and this is necessary to boost their level of
self-confidence, which is a key ingredients required for the creation of a successful brand in a
population (state) and the development of a brand that enjoys global patronage.
Positive brands can therefore not be successfully midwived in an atmosphere infested with
doubts, low morale, and a depleted sense of self-esteem, patriotism and nationalism among a
population, and films have proved a credible medium for boosting self-confidence, while lifting
the patriotic and nationalist spirit of the people. Films like “HitlerJunge Quex” (“Hitler’s Youth
Quex”, produced in 1933) and “Triumph des Willens” (“Triumph of the Will”, produced in
1933), were employed by Nazi Germany as propaganda materials, which also spurred patriotic
and nationalist sentiments among the populace, and this partly accounts for the somewhat
success enjoyed by Germany during their World War campaign.
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