Measuring Nation/Place Branding: Country Brand Ranking

As you might already know, the question of measurement is yet to be answered in the field of nation/place branding. There are a couple of commercial measurement scales such as The Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index, and FutureBrand’s Country Brand Index. There are also several academic studies (examples can be found here and here) that work on conceptualizing place brand measurement scales. I have a long-term research project I still work on entitled “Define-Measure-Visualize“.

Your place has six ounces of brand.

Recently, I was introduced to the Country Brand Ranking created by Bloom Consulting. Unlike the other commercial products, CBR focuses on facts and figures through international agencies, and look at the branding messages to rank countries.

Theory and Practice in Public Diplomacy: Diplomatic dish-washing

For the last couple of months, I have been working on the latest project of Turkayfe.org – our online coffeehouse project. The website, which started out as an online “social diplomacy” / place branding project is going offline, and meeting people on the street with “Mobile Turkish Coffee House” project.

Mobile Turkish Coffee House in front of the Turkish Embassy in Washington, DC

Turkayfe.orgstarted out as an idea in May 2009, and the website went live in May 2010. From our very early days, we did our best to learn from our mistakes, and to improve our project. As a doctoral candidate studying public diplomacy, and a dilettante practitioner; I tried to use my practical experience in my academic studies and vice-versa.

Nation Brands Index 2011, U-S-A!

Today, I went to the press conference organized by the Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index (NBI) to unveil their latest survey, NBI 2011. With the United States being at the top of the list third year in a row, NBI listed a total of 50 countries’ brands. In the table below, you can see the top 10 countries from 2008 to 2011.

As I have mentioned earlier, I have several doubts about NBI as a robust measurement scale. Below, I’ll try to organize my ideas under three headings:

- What is NBI good for? When should NBI be used?

- Why doesn’t NBI measure ‘nation brands’?

- Why is NBI’s understanding of nation brands incomplete (if not entirely wrong)?

New publication – Thinking about place branding: Ethics of concept

As you might already know, Journal of Place Branding and Public Diplomacy is publishing a special issue on Ethics of Place Making . My article, entitled “Thinking about place branding: Ethics of concept” will be published in this upcoming issue.

Here is the abstract:

This article introduces a critical theory-induced approach to the concept of place branding to expose the ethical drawbacks within the field. The author argues that the dominant approaches and definitions of place branding limit the thinking of scholars to market-driven subjects, such as measurement, effectiveness and strategies. It is difficult even to discuss ethical issues at a conceptual level within these approaches. With an attempt to further investigate these widely ignored issues, place branding is redefi ned through a communicative action framework, and a two-step model of place branding is devised – composed of domestic communicative action (Step 1) and international communicative action (Step 2). Step 1 highlights (i) legitimacy and (ii) inclusion as ethical concerns, whereas Step 2 brings in the question of (iii) consistency between the messages in the domestic and international arena. Critical theory makes it possible to take an analytical look at the mainstream approaches and present ethical issues at the conceptual level. Future studies should aim to integrate this theoretical approach to the practice of place branding.

I will share the link to the publication as soon as it becomes available online.

 

Here is the article: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/pb/journal/v7/n3/abs/pb201115a.html

Blog Updated: Dissertation Time

As you might have realized, I haven’t been writing any blog posts lately. It is mostly because I started writing subject-based posts on Place Management & Branding blog and didn’t want to cross-post. I decided to keep writing about more current practical events on the PMB blog and save this blog for more theoretical, methodological, and method discussions. In other words, I will be using this blog as a ‘draft’ for my dissertation – which will be hopefully about the use of soft power in international relations.

The subject is not solely ‘branding’. However, my focus will be on branding. I will try to assess whether the recent changes in international relations are, well, changes or not. Did all these discussions on place branding, public diplomacy, soft power, etc. change the way we conceptualize international relations? Or is social media practically the communication version of an ICBM?

Long story short,
- Interesting place branding posts: Place Management & Branding blog
- Public diplomacy, politics, Turkey related posts: Reaching the Public
- Technical / methods-oriented posts: Again, Reaching the Public

Practice-Focused Theoretical Approach in Place Branding

As a doctoral student, I spend most of my time in the world of theory. In conjunction with my last post, I want to discuss what a practice-focused theoretical approach can do in place branding. And yes, I made up the term ‘practice-focused theoretical approach’.

Let me try to explain what I mean by the term. Again, as a disclaimer – I am in my third year of my graduate studies. Therefore, it is very difficult for me to talk about anything without referring to a theory. Why?

A theory describes your ontological and epistemological stance. In ‘smaller’ words, when I use a theory, I actually tell my audience what I think about reality and how I can make sense of that reality.

So, what is a place brand? Is it something objective that can be reach? Do we have a list of ‘must-have’s for an attractive place brand? Or is it case-specific? Does it depend on what people think about a place?
Similarly, what is place-branding? Is it trying to complete a list of ‘to-do’s? Is it communicating with foreign publics?

How do we measure the brand of a place? Based on what we understand from place brand and branding, we should be able to come up with measurement criteria. If our understanding of a place brand is based on substance, our measurement cannot be based on perception. (And we also should not claim nation branding does not exists when our measurement scale is inherently flawed.) (And by we, I mean Simon Anholt.)

A theory, then, tells us how to approach a subject. Our conception of reality guides us when we are in the field. If we don’t know what place branding is, we cannot engage in the practice. Even if we do so, our practice will be based on our prior experience. This is why several marketing and public relations firm try to come up with branding projects that are solely based on logos and slogans.

What should I look at when I am in the field?
What should I do to improve the ‘brand’?

I try to introduce a critical-theory influenced approach to place branding and define the term as “a communicative action process in which legitimate actors engage in speech acts to reach a common understanding of a place”. This definition has its roots in Habermas and even to an extent Weber. I discuss how actors claim legitimacy, structure communicative action, make claims, and engage in ‘constative, regulative, and expressive’ acts. Yet, my ultimate goal in these discussions is to reflect on practice.

Here are some of my ‘academic’ conclusions:
- A place brand is created with an intersubjective relationship between a speaker and the audience.
- Creation of a brand and its communication are interactive.
- Place branding takes places in a political environment where power and legitimacy are fundamental concepts.
- Legitimacy is a sociologically relative term, and should be negotiated in every step of the social action.

One of my projects is based on this understanding of communicative action. We believe that a brand is an intangible and social constructed phenomenon, therefore a branding project should aim to intervene in the construction of the place image by the audience. Communicative action is based on a cooperative deliberation process. Therefore, the audience should be able to negotiate the meaning of the place with the speaker with the ultimate aim of reaching a common rational understanding of the place.

And the end product is….a website – Turkayfe.org. Long story short, theory does not necessarily complicate the social life for us. On the contrary, theoretical approaches simplify the reality to be analyzed more easily. Big theoretical studies are not confined to academic journals. If we can have a ‘practice-focused theoretical approach’, in other words use theory to come up with better practices; (a) we will have more robust projects, (b) we will have be able to craft better strategies.

PS: If you are interested, here is an article I wrote with Gizem about Turkayfe:
Sevin, E., & White, G. S. (2011). Turkayfe.org: share your Türksperience. Journal of Place Management and Development, 4(1), 80-92. doi:10.1108/17538331111117188

Theory & Place Branding: Theorizing or Terrorizing?

Another important discussion we had during the 2nd Place Branding Conference was the lack of theoretical frameworks. There is no theory of place branding per se. Yet, should we aim to create a theory (or theories)? If so, how should we proceed? Here is my two cents.

 

“Image from http://antaryamin.wordpress.com/“

Scholars tend to use theories for analytical purposes, rather than practical ones. In other words, a theoretical framework will enable us to take a systematically critical look at a social phenomenon. Given the fact that place branding seems to be a practice-driven field for the time being, theoretical frameworks will provide the scholars with more opportunities to assail place branding projects. (For some reason, I believe scholars do not need more opportunities to criticize anything…. They are doing a great job right now anyways). If practitioners keep facing ‘theoretical’ criticism from scholars, they might be in a position where they do not feel the need to share their experiences and findings with the academic community. This situation will definitely hinder the development of the field.

 

Yet, theoretical discussions also have practical implications. Theory is fundamentally the way you approach an issue. If we explicitly acknowledge our theoretical assumptions, we might be able to strategize our place branding projects in a more effective and strategic way. Moreover, theoretical frameworks will ensure the compatibility of different aspects of our projects. As I tried to discuss in my earlier post, these different aspects come from various disciplines; therefore, there is a need for a foundation to unify them under one heading.

 

In short, yes, we do need a theory (or theories). However, we need to work on building up these theories without terrorizing the field, our colleagues, and more importantly the practitioners.

 

When we consider the fact that even well-established disciplines suffer from theoretical and methodological debates, such debates might ‘kill’ our emerging discipline. Undermining role of one or more disciplines in place branding might alienate some scholars. And lastly, as I discussed above, harsh criticism might cause practitioners to leave the discussion table.

 

Therefore, I believe, we should first of all ‘cut practitioners some slack’ for the time being. Through a wait-and-see approach, we will help our ‘data-set’ to grow. The higher number of place branding projects means a larger volume of data for us to start building up theories. Secondly, we should keep encouraging inter-disciplinary dialogue and make use of existing theoretical frameworks. I know that these recommendations are easier said than done. Not criticizing practice also means postponing the development of the study (and the practice) by years. Combination of inter-disciplinary theories might be nearly impossible due to different epistemological and ontological assumptions. However, I still argue that this is our best shot! If we want to theorize the study of place branding, we have to do so without terrorizing.

 

This post is also published at http://placebranding.ning.com/

Perils of Ambiguity: Interdisciplinary and Cultural

After another very long break, I’m back blogging. Last week, I was in Bogota, Colombia attending the 2nd International Place Branding Conference. The conference was an invaluable learning experience – and a great motivator. I decided to write down some of my ideas as blog posts to share my impressions as well as to build up some background information for future publication ideas.

First of all, I owe a big thank you to all the organizers. The conference was perfect! We were around 80 practitioners and scholars around the globe (and it took us around 5 minutes to divide the group into two camps –practitioners and scholars– with several people, including myself, stuck in between). Moreover, both practitioners and scholars were coming from different backgrounds: marketing, political science, communication, international relations, geography, history, architecture etc… We discussed individual presentations, as well as the development of (the need for?) place branding as a distinct discipline.

Right now, I am on my flight back to Washington, DC and have several ideas in my mind. Let me start with the first one. We (i) label place branding as interdisciplinary without really naming the ‘disciplines’ and (ii) claim that ‘one does not fit for all’ in place branding because of the role of culture without really explaining what that role is. In other words, we avoid some –very difficult to conclude– discussions via our safe words: ‘interdisciplinary’ and ‘cultural’. I have less to say about the latter, so I’ll start with that one.

It is not possible to replicate a successful place branding project out-of its cultural context. But what is that context? Are we talking about the variation in how audience(s) perceive messages? Do people from different cultures have different place understandings? Do different places have different properties? Is the relation between locals and audiences different in every place? – I know, the answer to most of these questions is just yes, but this doesn’t disprove my point. We can still identify, at least try to identify some of the dynamics that make up the culture difference in place branding campaigns and come up with ‘guidelines’ if not modifiable/flexible models.
Interdisciplinary…. During the closing panel, I tried to mention about the peril of this work. I, myself, have written about the interdisciplinary nature of the field formally and informally. I have also tried to name those disciplines: communication, marketing, political science, international relations, (and as I learned at the conference), history, place management, geography and more…. I do not know a scholar who has a working knowledge in all these areas. Alas, I even cannot think of a team of scholars from all these disciplines working together.

However, several of the questions we have been trying to answer in place branding/nation branding/and to an extent public diplomacy have already been answered by scholars… Our answers are out there in the literature. Though, it is difficult to pinpoint which literature we are talking about in this sense…

Therefore, how should we approach to the study of place branding? Should we send out scouts to the domains of unknown literatures and wait for their return with precious knowledge? Should we figure out what we can agree on in our limited experience of knowledge-creation in place branding and then focus on them? Or should we just accept that place branding is not and will never be a discipline? Should we build up theories on practice? on ideological stances? Or should we just not build up theories?

I, personally, think we should recruit brave knights from several different disciplines…

This post is also published at http://placebranding.ning.com/

Communication in Nation Branding

Currently, I am reading No Logo by Naomi Klein. As most of you might know, No Logo criticizes the mega/super brands; is also known as one of the most influential anti-globalization books. Well, I am learning a lot of new things about branding and how to create brand identities from a book that highly devalues branding. This week, I wanted to write about what I learned about branding from No Logo (I am sorry, Ms. Klein), and discuss Simon Anholt’s speech below based on communication and branding.

Anholt starts out by telling us to ‘forget about branding’. He claims when it comes to cities/places; promotion is not enough to change the perception. He says he has not been able to see one case study where a city/place/region has demonstrably and measurably increased its reputation through marketing communication…

I have three main ‘issues’ with and one methodological objection to his statement:

1) Promotion and marketing communication are two different terms. Communication in nation/place branding is, and should be, strategic communication. In the strategical conceptualization of the term, promotional activities will stay only as tactics and operations. The entire communication framework is broader than promotion. Therefore, Anholt fails to see the complete communication mechanism in the branding processes. I agree that promotion is not enough to increase reputation, however strategic communication is a prerequisite.

2) Anholt wants to see a measurable increase in a country’s reputation… Currently, I know two measurement scales in nation branding. One belongs to Anholt and GfK – Nation Brands Index (NBI), and the other one to East-West Communications. I am not really sure whether NBI is methodologically sound, as I have not had access to the documentation. East-West Communications bases its arguments on a simple content-analysis. Long story short, I do not know any place reputation measurement scale. Therefore, it might be very difficult to find a case where a city/place/region has measurably increased its reputation (It is important to note that Anholt distinguishes branding from promotion for tourism or economic development. Therefore those figures cannot be used to measure the success of a branding campaign. Otherwise, we could have easily used Polish Plumber to disprove his argument).

3) Several branding campaigns start ‘re-actively’. In some cases, there is a need for policy advisors to change their policies, to restructure their economies, etc. However, in several other cases, the need for branding/re-branding is sparked by misinformation and misperception. Therefore, in fact, the main of the reputation management (branding/rebranding) is to provide the facts and figures to target audiences. In other words, there are several branding cases where communication is the main component. A project I have been working on, RediscoveRosarito, is such a case study. The main aim of the project is to debunk the myths of danger created by mainstream media.

4) Well, I just want to tweak Anholt’s words. He has not seen any case where communication succeeded. Is there a story of success where communication had no role? If the answer is no, we cannot overlook the importance of communication in branding.

Shortly, what I want to say is, strategic communication is not the only component of a successful branding campaign. However, a campaign that does not appreciate the dominant role of communication in changing perceptions is not very likely to accomplish its objectives.

PS: Before I forget, as far as I can recall, Poland was working with Wally Olins for branding. Did Poland change its mind? And secondly, can any one name one of Anholt’s branding campaigns?

I didn’t say it – Lippmann said: Ethical Concerns in Nation Branding

Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion theory is one of my guiding theories in my thesis. While discussing the impacts of ‘the real world’ vs. ‘the pictures in our heads’ on nation branding, I felt the urge to differentiate rhetoric explicitly from deception. Shortly speaking, Lippmann claims that we are too lazy, the world is too big, and the couch is too comfortable, so we will not have the opportunity to contact a huge part of the real world. We will hear about events happening in the other parts of the world. We will read newspapers, watch TV, follow tweets (no, Lippmann was not talking about tweeting), and then interpret the information we get in a personal way to create a picture of the world in our heads.

It is called a fictional reality, reported reality, mediated reality, and several other names. In short, we don’t witness events, we witness how they are reported by some others. When we add up our own perceptive criteria on top of this manufactured reality, we end up with ‘our world’ (a.k.a. the picture in our heads). Putnam argues for the decreasing levels of social interaction. In daily parlance, it means the couch is more comfortable than ever. So, less real world, more perceived world through reported information.

Nation branding, in this sense, is providing a narrative to this reported world. Many people don’t know the reality about your nation (see the video below). Nation branding can try to:
- make a nation relevant to people (first step into the picture)
- help people know more about a nation (maintaining your spot)
- tell something else about a nation (repositioning)
- diversity the arguments (creating more spots in the picture)
- keep some issues off-the radar (shifting the discussions)

Persuasiveness, or rhetoric, is important in creating and restoring images in people’s minds. All these communication processes in nation branding take place not in the real world but in the perceived reality. Given the complexity of the real world, and the decreasing levels of social interaction , ideas are formed with the help of the mediated reality. Now after talking about the same issue in my thesis, I felt the urge to say “This research does not, in any way, argue for defamation, deception, or manipulation of the reality. Because of the fact that people’s views about a nation are created in this mediated reality, the author argues that nations should be actively involved in providing their narratives.” Even in keeping issues off-the-radar, the main aim is to avoid being associated with an issue which does not reflect the reality of a nation (i.e. Greece might want to keep discussions over current financial situation off-the-radar by promoting another issue. In long term, Greece and financial crisis should not be associated. Similarly, US tries to divert the attention away from domestic political discussions). The main aim is not to lie, to manipulate reality but to provide your narrative for your own image.

Rhetoric is all about persuasion. Yet, first rule of communication, if you cannot support what you say, don’t say. Communication takes place in several platforms, so nation branding messages should be present in all these with the aims of increasing the relevance of a nation and putting pictures in the perception, not of deceiving people. Branding campaigns do not (should not) censor other news sources, but should compete with them in terms of credibility, legitimacy, and efficiency.

Now I pretty much understand why Dr. Nancy Snow insists on saying ‘persuasion with principle’ and ‘truth is the best propaganda’.

Here are the books I talked about:
Lippmann, W. (1922). Public opinion (1st ed.). New York: Free Press Paperbacks.
Putnam, R. (2001). Bowling alone : the collapse and revival of American community (1st ed.). New York: Touchstone.

Here is the video: (WordPress, why are you so difficult to use? Please click on the link below if you want to watch the video)
Nation Of Andorra Not In Africa, Shocked U.S. State Dept. Reports

And my cross-posting announcement:

This blog post is also posted on http://cc608.blogspot.com/ and http://placebranding.ning.com/.