Nation Branding. Austria as a brand

Table of contents

1 Introduction

2 What is a brand?

3 Is it possible to brand a nation?

4 How to build a destination brand?

5 How to measure a good brand?
5.1 Measuring a corporate brand
5.2 Measuring a nation brand
5.2.1 The Anholt Nation Brands Index
5.2.2 SWOT-Analysis

6 Austria as a brand

7 Future trends and recommendations for the brand Austria

8 Glossary

9 Bibliograhy

1 Introduction

Branding products and services is a common and well-known marketing tool, but is it also possible to brand a country?

The following paper will discuss the question mentioned above in more detail. At first, general aspects of the branding-process are presented, followed by a detailed analysis of the possibility and the process of nation branding. In the last part, the current image of Austria is presented.

2 What is a brand?

A brand is “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”¹ A brand is an intellectual property that can also be combined of the above mentioned characteristics.

Milka, for example, is a corporate brand with product-based sub-brands like Milka Tender, Milka Naps or Milka Schoko Drink. Additionally, there are service brands like those of banks or insurances, eg. BA-CA or Uniqa.

Brands do not have to be expressed in words but can also be in the form of signs or logos (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Brands expressed in logos

Branding a product does not lead to sales, therefore a strategy or a model is needed to make the customer aware of the product or service offered. This is done by physical delivery to supermarkets but also by positioning the brand in the minds of customers.

“Brand architecture is the way in which companies organize, manage and go to market with their brands”. (Kerr, Greg 2006: 276) For a more detailed analysis of how to establish brand architecture, please refer to chapter 4, page 8.

Companies are trying to establish a certain image of their brand in the minds of people. An image is “the set of beliefs, ideas, and impressions a person holds regarding an object. People‟s attitudes and actions toward an object are highly conditioned by that object‟s image.” (Kotler 2000: 553)

“An image sticks in the public‟s mind for a long time” (Kotler and Gertner 2004: 51). Therefore an image of a nation does not change enormously in the long-run. According to Da Silva and Syed Alwi (2006: 293-305) an image has a cognitive aspect, that is learned from personal experiences and is expressed in knowledge and secondly an affective aspect, that contains the feelings and emotions. A brand in general proposes reliability, transparency and reliance to the customer. The customer can rely on the promise that the branded products meet certain quality standards that are connected with the brand.²

3 Is it possible to brand a nation?

Not only products and services can be brands but also a whole nation could be branded. Aveline (n.d.: 334-340) states that branding is a tool that can be legitimately applied outside the corporate world.

Kerr defines that “a geographic location”, e.g. a nation, “is a destination brand” (Kerr 2006: 276,277).

A nation or a country, as well as a corporate brand, has an image. According to Kotler and Gertner (2004: 50) an image of a place, e.g. a city or a nation is “the sum of beliefs, ideas and impressions that people have of that place.” People connect impressions and information, and also experience with that place, with their perceptions of it. But “people‟s perceptions do not necessarily reveal their attitudes towards that place”, i.e. two people may have the same image of Egypt‟s hot climate in summer, but one likes it and the other prefers a moderate climate, because the person has different attitude towards the climate. This example shows that even if people have the same image of a country, they can still have different attitudes towards it.

“Different demographic & psychographic factors of people make them see and experience things very differently...and connect to them different kinds of meanings” (Laaksonen et al 2006: 212). According to Antonides and Van Raaij (1998: 294) all people have a different perception of the reality depending on their personal situation, own life experience or life histories when they perceive other people or a brand. As a result of these differences, each individual has a subjective view of reality.

According to Perlet (n.d.), nation branding is a deliberately controlled process that is aimed to improve the image, the awareness, the popularity of a certain country and also the faith in it. A national identity has to be created.

Perlet (n.d) argues that there are five major reasons for branding a nation: promoting tourism, promoting exports, encouragement of foreign direct investments, improvement of governmental trade relations and supporting and encouraging the country‟s culture. Culture is the most important factor in promoting a country, because every country has a different culture that distinguishes it most from other nations and offers a kind of unique selling proposition.

Nation branding is more complex than corporate branding. According to Pike (2005: 258-259) there are six challenges that an authority, that is responsible for branding a nation has to challenge.

First, a nation is multidimensional, i.e. people value an image of a country and its population on the basis of several broadly spread attributes, like history, politics, culture and sports.

The heterogeneity of involved stakeholders, like tourist agencies or the government, is shown in the different market interests of these diverse groups.

The third challenge is the decision, who does what, how to brand the nation and of course who is responsible for the nation branding process.

Fourth, a balance between community consensus and brand theory is important. Moreover, “destination marketing organizations (DMO) lack any direct control over the actual delivery of the brand promise by the local tourism community. Fifth, “brand loyalty, one of the cornerstones of consumer-based brand equity models, can be operationalised to some extent by measuring repeat visitation through a DMO‟s visitor monitor programme, Staying in touch with previous visitors is a powerful but untapped means of enhancing the destination brand,..” (Pike 2005: 259)

The last, and one of the major challenge, is funding the nation branding process.

4 How to build a destination brand?

According to Morgan, Pritchard and Pride (2004: 59) there are several ways of creating a destination or nation brand. First, there is the classical advertising, for example TV spots, second, personal selling. Moreover, websites and public relations can be use to communicate a nation as a brand.

“Limited budgets, the lack of management control, and internal and external pressure pose unique challenges for destination marketers. Yet the creation of brand saliency - the development of an emotional relationship with the consumer - can hold the key to destination differentiation.” (Morgan, Pritchard and Pride 2004: 64)

A great marketing campaign for promoting a place was the „I love New York‟ campaign.

As Werner (2007: 3-4) points out that New York was branded with the slogan and logo “I[Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten]NY” in the 1970ies, when NYC was suffering from financial and social problems. The reason was to strengthen New York's own appearance against the capital Washington DC and to show that habitants of NYC are, regardless of the difficulties, proud of their state. The national colors red, white, and blue and national signs were not used, in order to reflect difference from the normally used symbols in the United States when branding a state. The brand “I[Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten]NY” was very successful, at first especially among the habitants of New York because it strengthened the community feeling. Additionally, the area recovered and the brand “I[Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten]NY” got international popularity.

Morgan, Pritchard and Pride (2007: 60) state that it is important for a country to stress their history, culture and their beautiful scenery in their marketing. Moreover, “it is critical to build a brand on something that uniquely connects a destination to consumer now or has the potential to do so in the future.” (Morgan, Pritchard and Pride 2004: 65)

Furthermore, Morgan, Pritchard and Pride (2004: 65) think that the marketing tools should be design for a long-term campaign. To be successful over a longer period it is necessary to achieve celebrity. This means that place marketers must create an image of a nation that exceeds the image of the key competitors.

There is one model according to Morgan, Pritchard and Pride (2007: 65-68) which helps place marketers to find out where all the nation brands are positioned. It is called „The destination brand positioning map‟ (Figure 2). Figure 3 shows how profitable the own nation brand is depending on the quarter in which it is situated. There are potential stars, celebrities (or brand winners), losers and problem places.

“Brand winners are those places that are rich in emotional meaning, have great conversation value and hold high anticipation for potential tourists. By comparison, brand losers have little meaning, even less status, virtually no conversation value and zero anticipation for tourists.” (Morgan, Pritchard and Pride 2004: 66)

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Figure 2: The destination brand positioning map. Source: Morgan, Pritchard and Pride (2004: 67)

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Figure 3: The destination celebrity matrix. Source: Morgan, Pritchard and Pride (2004: 66)

Morgan, Pritchard and Pride (2004: 68-70) explains five phases in destination brand building. In the first stage of building a destination brand it is essential to “establish the core values of the destination and its brand, these should be durable, relevant, communicable and hold saliency for potential tourists.” (2004: 68) During the next phase it is important to develop the brand identity. This means that all the nation brand‟s core values should be part of the brand identity, which includes colour, font, slogan, etc. Moreover, it is essential that the “brand values are cohesively communicated”. (2004: 69) In the third phase the nation brand will be launched into the market and the brand values are communicated, followed by the fourth phase were the brand is implemented, which means that at this stage the nation brand has a certain awareness and finally the destination brand must be monitored, evaluated and reviewed.

As mentioned above, during the second phase, the brand identity is of major interest. According to Morgan and Pritchard (2004: 70-71) the concepts of the benefit pyramid and of the brand architecture help to develop this brand identity. One part of the brand identity is the brand‟s personality which influences the relationship between the consumer and the brand. According to Morgan and Pritchard (2004:70-71) a brand‟s personality must have “both a head and a heart: its head refers to the logical brand features, while its heart refers to its emotional benefits and associations.“ (2004: 70) The destination brand benefit pyramid sums up the relationship between the nation brand and the consumers. Based on this pyramid, the essence of the nation brand can be found out. The other concept which is called the brand architecture “should reflect all the key components of a destination brand” and therefore it can be seen as the blueprint of the essence of the nation brand. Moreover, Dooley and Bowie (2005: 204) a brand architecture “is used to design and manage a portfolio of brands, providing each brand with purpose, relevance and clarity.

Morgan, Pritchard and Pride (2004: 67-69) states that after the nation brand was launched into the market, it is, as every other product or brand, subject to a product life cycle. The life cycle of nation brands is called „The destination brand fashion curve‟. In the first stage, the market is small and only a few people (trendsetters) know the brand. During this phase the nation brand is fashionable. The next stage is called the famous phase, as now more people are visiting the place due to the word-of-mouth advertising of the trendsetters. In this phase, the trendsetters have been moved to a new destination. However, the new consumers are loyal, as long as the destination stays contemporary and not everybody knows about the place. If the place loses its appeal and everybody knows about it, the nation brand moves into the familiar phase. In this phase it is hard to find a lucrative market segment, as the place does not have any special feature in the eyes of the consumers. The last stage will be the fatigues stage, where it is necessary to refresh the image of the nation brand.

5 How to measure a good brand?

Branding a product and position a particular image in the minds of customers might not be successful in the long-run, because images can and do change. Therefore, it is important to scrutinize the current brand image - whether it is a product brand, a service brand or a nation brand - and to compare the results with the brand image to-be. There are different possibilities to measure a successful brand and develop a good brand strategy.

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¹ http://www.marketingpower.com/mg-dictionary.php?SearchFor=brand&Searched=1, Accessed on 12.11.2007

² http://www.isu.unizh.ch/cms/marketing/marketingmanagement/forschung/execsumdiplarb/NationBrand ing.pdf, accessed on 13.11.2007