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2009 COUNTRY BRAND INDEX
/ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
FutureBrand Philosophy
True to our name, FutureBrand is about creating new standards o excellence. We build uturebrands that develop new businesses,reshape business models and rerame opportunities. They also help establish lasting value, orge an emotional bond and delivermeasureable results. As a company that thinks ahead to stay ahead, FutureBrand embraces the possibility and potentialtomorrow brings, ensuring that our clients’ brands are created and designed to stand the test o time. We have been pioneersin country branding or the past 10 years, working with Mexico, Singapore, Australia, St. Lucia and Qatar, to name a ew,as well as shaping a number o country branded export products and helping to brand several cities, regions and country icons.
OUR APPROACH: ARE YOU A FUTUREBRAND?
Creating a uturebrand requires global insight, marketplace expertise, best-in-breed disciplines and category superiority.Two tools we use to help us develop strong country brands are our Country Brand Framework and Hierarchical Decision Model.
COUNTRY BRAND METHODOLOGIES
Identiying important considerations rom essentials to essence andassessing a country’s perormance today gives us insight into its potentialor tomorrow. A country needs to capitalize on its mix o eatures to succeed,and our Country Brand Framework allows consideration o both a nation’stangible and intangible actors. We look at a range o assets, rom governanceand inrastructure to culture and ethos, as well as the shiting dynamicso the uture (e.g., population changes, spending patterns, macro- andmicroeconomic actors) to uncover underleveraged opportunities andoverleveraged liabilities. Being a uturebrand means promoting all yourstrengths and determining how to overcome and address key weaknesses.We use the Hierarchical Decision Model to identiy a country brand’smaturity; specically, to determine how key audiences (residents, investors,tourists, oreign governments) relate to the brand on a continuum romawareness to advocacy. The insights this model provides enable us toconsider how well developed the brand is and to identiy areas o need toensure that we address the right challenges. It is also an eective trackingtool to gauge progress and to measure how the country is perorming.Creating uturebrands requires understanding a situation well enoughto crat a strategic solution and having the tools to track its ecacyand progress.
DECISION MODELFRAMEwORk
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COUNTRY BRAND INDEX 2009
/ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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COUNTRY BRAND INDEX 2009
/ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Why Country Brands Matter
For the past ve years, FutureBrand has rallied around the idea that countries have the potential to become some o theworld’s strongest brands, rivaling Nike, Sony and IBM. We have documented how well-branded countries can better promoteeconomic value and export products; attract inbound investment, tourists and talent; redress stereotypes or clichés and buildcompetitive advantage. All this remains true. We also see new and innovative ways countries are promoting themselves:using global sports to showcase a nation, creating strong and groundbreaking environmental policies and approaches,electing powerul leaders who inspire global goodwill, and creating icons o culture and the arts.
There are some who say that marketing alone cannot build a country brandand that a strong country brand requires a solid oundation o inrastructure,a stable economy and a secure government. While this is true to someextent, we have certainly all witnessed the powerul role marketing can playin advancing a nation, rom its capacity to shit perceptions or introducea new country to the world to its ability to communicate a destination’socus or superior export. The UAE is a good example o a visionary nationthat was able to successully promote itsel while much o its inrastructureand attractions were nowhere near complete. By aggressively identiyingitsel as a country lled with icons o wonder, luxury accommodations andmodern conveniences amid a cosmopolitan Middle Eastern atmosphere,the UAE was eectively able to capture the attention o global touristsand investors. The brand and the nation were built concurrently. This isone small example o a nation we at FutureBrand are quite amiliar with,having worked extensively with the government to brand The Palm andThe World. It demonstrates how a powerul country brand, at its best,can stimulate interest, drive behavior and create advocates. We stronglyencourage all countries to careully consider how they market themselvesand to candidly assess i they are communicating eectively and with trueand relevant messages.
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