Country branding
Aude Sellem Student ID – 42351332
06/04/201
MKTG811 Brand Management John Edwards and Chris Baumann
Introduction: Country branding: a new fashionable trend or a real new marketing strategy? Many people think a country as a brand but few countries are working on marketing strategies to embellish their brand images. However it begins to change. In fact country branding seems to be a new notion, a new trend in our society. Indeed, nowadays, destination branding is one of the hottest topics among place marketers. As underlined Piggot, “country branding is a burning topic from Switzerland and New Zealand to Hawaii and Costa Rica.” Moreover The World Tourism organization talks about country branding as tomorrow’s fashion items. That means the next century will show the emergence of tourism destination as a ” fashion accessory”. But what does mean country branding? And how does a country brand differ from a product or service brand? How to build a strong country brand? To answer to all theses questions we will see firstly the different definitions of country branding, then we will see the various challenges that country has to take up and finally we will see the tools to build a strong country brands. We will then apply all theses theories to the case of New Zealand. I) What is country branding? -DefinitionsThe practice of branding has been defined by Jobber & Fahy as the process by which companies distinguishing their product offerings from those of the competition. Branding is about differentiating yourself from competitors. Country branding as a differentiate tool Keith Dinnies states that in a globalized economy, the challenge of differentiating the product offerings from those of the competition has taken a critical importance for nations competing for both domestic and foreign consumers.
Simon Anholt highlights this idea by saying that with globalisation: “countries compete with each other for the attention, respect and trust of