One of the most prized assets of any nation state is its national brand image. It is even more critical in the global marketplace. How a country is perceived must not be left to the elements. It is a deliberate, strategic set of programmes to position the brand in the hearts and minds of the local and global citizens. It encourages the target to admire, even love the nation. It encourages inward investments, adding value to exports and attracting tourists and the best of skilled migrants.
As Nigeria approaches age 58, its citizens must be wondering ‘where did we derail? Where did we go so very wrong?’ Nigeria was supposed to be the country with so much promise back in the 1960s. Who broke those promises? Why have we fallen so short on our collective aspirations? How did our brand value plummet so forcefully to the abyss that anyone who saw our potential in 1960 would marvel at the miracle that stultified our growth while our peers, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and even China are presently sitting pretty among the top nation brands in the world using all available indices.
Part of the problem could be that Nigeria has never really been successfully packaged as a nation brand. All attempts to execute some campaigns have never really worked because they were perfunctory and were not the result of a clear and strategic plan to match imagery (perception) with expectations (reality). Nation branding is not just about a communications campaign. It is the embodiment of the totality of best offerings of the state presented in the best possible way and served in the best traditions of excellence.
The boldest and most effective place branding campaign executed in Nigeria to date is Cross River State with Donald Duke as Governor. He recreated the allure of Cross River State, revamped and built the state’s tourism assets, complemented with urban and infrastructural renewal and packaged and ‘sold’ Cross River State as Africa’s number 1 tourism destination. Nigeria needs to go through such a process.
According to Wikipedia, Nation branding aims to measure, build and manage the reputation of countries (closely related to place branding). In the book Diplomacy in a Globalizing World: Theories and Practices, the authors define nation branding as “the application of corporate marketing concepts and techniques to countries, in the interests of enhancing their reputation in international relations Many nations try to make brands in order to build relationships between different actors that are not restricted to nations. It extends to public and private sectors in a nation and helps with nationalism. States also want to participate in multilateral projects. Some approaches applied, such as an increasing importance on the symbolic value of products, have led countries to emphasise their distinctive characteristics. The branding and image of a nation-state “and the successful transference of this image to its exports – is just as important as what they actually produce and sell. This is also referred to as country-of-origin effect.
Nation branding appears to be practiced by many countries, including the United States, Canada, France, United Kingdom (where it is officially referred to as public diplomacy), Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Israel and most Western European countries. An early example of this was the Cool Britannia approach of the early days of the New Labour government (following the Britain (TM) pamphlet by Demos’s Mark Leonard), though this has since been replaced by a more credible Public Diplomacy Board. Cool Japan is a newer initiative aimed at promoting Japan’s creative industries. There is increasing interest in the concept from poorer states on the grounds that an enhanced image might create more favorable conditions for foreign direct investment, tourism, trade and even political relations with other states.
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Developing nations such as Tanzania and Colombia are creating smaller nation branding programs aimed at increased overall image and with the case of Colombia, changing international perception. Nation branding is seen as a part of Sweden’s public diplomacy, especially with Brand Sweden. Sweden uses two main institutions, called the Utrikes departementet and the Swedish Institute, to study their nation branding. They wanted to present a good image through the press and also collect different reports on Sweden’s representations abroad. Different events and campaigns were also made to promote Brand Sweden, one example being the House of Sweden which was an embassy in the US. Another campaign was the Second House of Sweden which used the internet to introduce Sweden’s embassy virtually. Researchers in Sweden also studied the Nation Brand Index (NBI) results to collect data. [5]
There exists several ranking methodologies among which are the Good Country Index and the Future Brand Index. The Good Country Index was developed by Simon Anholt and built by Dr. Robert Govers in order to “start a global discussion about how countries can balance their duty to their citizens with their responsibility to the wider world.” It measures how much a country contributes to the planet and to the human race.
The Good Country Index is based on 7 categories, each of them including different aspects:
- Science and Technology: international students, journal exports, international publications, Nobel Prizes and patents.
- Culture: creative good exports, creative services exports, UNESCO, freedom of movement and press freedom.
- International Peace and Security: peacekeeping troops, dues in arrears to UN peace keeping budgets, international violent conflict, arms exports and internet security.
- World Order: charity giving, refugees hosted, refugees generated, population growth and UN Treaties signed.
- Planet and Climate: biocapacity reserve, hazardous waste exports, organic water pollutant emissions, CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gas emissions.
- Prosperity and Equality: open trading, UN volunteers abroad, fairtrade market size, FDI outflows, development.
- Health and wellbeing: food aid, pharmaceutical, voluntary excess, humanitarian aid and drug seizures.
The methodology of FutureBrand uses proprietary Hierarchical Decision Model (HDM) to determine how key audiences (including residents, investors, tourists and foreign governments) relate to a country brand, from mere awareness to full advocacy.
This model offers insights that help FutureBrand assess how well-developed a brand is, as well as key challenges that need to be addressed. The HDM allows for measurements of a country’s relative performance and progress year-to-year. The particular steps are presented below:
- Awareness: Do key audiences know that the country exists? How top-of-mind is it?
- Familiarity: How well do people know the country and its offerings?
- Associations: What qualities come to mind when people think of the country? Here, we look at five association dimensions: Value System, Quality of Life, Good for Business, Heritage and Culture and Tourism.
- Preference: How highly do audiences esteem the country? Does it resonate?
- Consideration: Is the country considered for a visit? What about for investment or to acquire or consume its products?
- Decision / Visitation: To what extent do people follow through and visit the country or establish a commercial relation?
- Advocacy: Do visitors recommend the country to family, friends and colleagues?
We need to know what Nigeria – our country as an experience – truly represents and stay true to it regardless of who is in government. We must thereafter invest consistently and continually in brand-building. We must be focused on ‘selling the ‘magic of Nigeria’ that we offer at all times but firstly we must create that ‘magic’. Ultimately, we must be prepared to review our performance honestly and earnestly and review strategies to overcome the various challenges that are sure to come up in the course of building the brand.
As the 2019 elections approach, Nigerians must use the opportunity to vote in candidates whose vision aligns with those of leaders of progressive and developed nations. Leaders must be bold enough to determine that the future of Nigeria is bright by doing the right things today. Restructuring Nigeria has been on the table for so long. Many agree that we cannot continue with the current arrangement and expect to see any meaningful change towards progress. At 58, the time may just be right to begin to reposition Nigeria from the inside out in order to ensure we have a Nation Brand we can be proud of.
