Page 102 - MYM 2016

Improving Economic Prosperity through Nation Branding
It cannot be overemphasized that a brand is a perception by others. Perception, however, is not always an accurate re ection of reality. In the realm of commercial products, a brand may be “misper- ceived”—that is, the view of the product rates lower than what an objective measure might indicate. is calls for the seller of the product to work to make sure the product is better understood. On
the other hand, if the perception of a commercial product is poor and the perception is relatively accurate, the best way to improve the product’s brand is by directly improving the product—and making sure that consumers actually perceive these improvements.
What is a “nation brand”?
Like perceptions of a company’s products or services, individuals’ perceptions of nations are based on their experiences as consumers, investors, tourists, and followers of global news and social media. eir perceptions are also based on experi- ences communicated to them by others, including family, friends, and colleagues—even casual acquaintances. Based on these experiences, people learn and develop generalizations about various nations of the world.
For example, people might develop general- izations that products from Italy are stylish, that
French wine is superior to all other wines, or that German cars are well engineered. ere are some nations that are perceived to have unique capabil- ities, such as Israel for its cyber security, or China and India for their low-cost manufacturing capa- bilities. e extent to which these generalizations correlate with objective facts may vary. What is crit- ical for the study of nation branding is perception. Positive perceptions of a nation lead to commerce in a variety of forms. Similarly, negative perceptions of a nation may reduce national commerce.
Some companies take explicit advantage of their nation’s positive brand image by promoting the country of origin along with their brands and products. For example, Swiss Army Knives take advantage of the perception that Swiss products
are superior in precision. Similarly, the subscrip- tion shaving-products company Harry’s promotes its razors as “German-engineered” to capitalize
on worldwide perception of German precision, whether or not German engineering makes any dif- ference in the smoothness of a shave.
If, however, a nation is not particularly known for being good in certain areas, or if the nation
is disliked for geopolitical reasons that may even be totally unrelated to a product, product-brand- ing e orts might seek to avoid those negative nation-brand associations. e personal tech- nology company Lenovo may have increased its
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German cars, Italian leather, French wine: perceptions (both positive and negative) about certain countries a ect their
brand image and consequently, their overall economy.