Month: March 2010

Yesterday evening evening I was in Gore, a smallish town of about 10,000 way down near the bottom of the South Island of New Zealand, about one third of the way between Invercargill and Dunedin.

The motor camp in which I stayed did not yet have internet service – most now do – but along the main street I had my choice of Thai, Indian or Vietnamese food.

I was also able to do an interview with radio New Zealand via an excellent connection using my cell phone. Along with the expanded choice of dining options, that’s a  big change since I lived in NZ in 1993-4.

Gore styles itself the brown trout fishing capital of the world, which it may well be, judging by the number of people I saw standing around in the Mataura River in hip waders, smiling and flipping flies into the glistening eddies and beckoning pools.

In the centre of town is a giant sculpture of a jumping brown trout.

That’s a place brand, and it helps to differentiate Gore from other towns, most all of which in New Zealand welcome visitors with some kind of slogan , such as Where the Forest Meets the Sea, or Dairying Capital of the West.

Branding a nation – which consists of a country and its people – is somewhat more complex and difficult.  That kind of brand is formed over time, and comes less from what you say than from how you act and what you do.

When pronouncements and behaviour do not align,  the perilous say-do gap opens like a yawning chasm.

Even the best communications content and practices can never compensate for fundamentally flawed policy. That, among others, was the legacy lesson of the Bush administration.

NZ has made some progress promoting its “clean and green” image, an endeavour which received a major boost through the world-wide attention lavished on the local settings chosen for Peter Jackson’s visually spectacular and wildly popular Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Some of the film locales have become tourist attractions in their own right.

This is a stunning land.  Nature and beautiful scenery, however, are only good to a point – mountains and forests tend to be somewhat widespread and generic.

A successful brand, on the other hand, is unique, conveying both emotional appeal and a value proposition. That’s where the connection to a concrete, and usually highly stylized visual image can play a key role.

When it comes to a  logo, however, not all Kiwis gravitate towards the  silver fern logo which is especially present in some government publications and sports paraphenalia, such as the All Blacks rugby jerseys. Throughout this visit I have been making a point of asking New Zealanders to identify the graphic that best captures their national image, and almost as many have answered the kiwi, the koru, or the flag as have volunteered the silver fern.

That ambiguity is not really a problen at the moment, but if  New Zealand decides to gets serious one day about consolidating its brand internationally, a clear focus on a single  logo will be important.

In my veiw, there  would be much to be gained by pursuing such a course, particularly if the government of NZ choses to niche market itself as the strategic bridge among and between key players on all sides of the Pacific. Power is shifting towards Asia-Pacific as the dynamic centre of the world political economy in the 21st century, and there is no time to lose in this era of heteropolarity. Complex balancing skills, and knowledge driven problem-solving will be the order of the day.

For better or for worse, and as I elaborate at some length in Guerrilla Diplomacy, most countries do have a brand of one kind or another. It may be weak or strong, good or bad, but it’s there.

Consider, for example, this joke, using some familiar European archtypes.

Heaven is a place where the cooks are French, the lovers are Italian, the engineers are German, the time keepers are Swiss and the police are British.

Hell is a place where the lovers are Swiss, the cooks are British, the timekeepers are Italian, the police are German, and the French engineers are on strike…

Sure, these are caricatures, but there is something very elemental and important associated with a country’s image and reputation, which is why many governments have concluded that the matter of their national brand requires active management and consistent attention.

For smaller and medium sized countries, such as Canada or New Zealand, a global branding strategy would play to the advantages of being generally well-regarded internationally, while helping to overcome capacity limitations and the absence of hard power options. If your posture is not threatening, if you carry little historical baggage, if you are not seeking to dominion over others, and if your name evokes a positive pre-disposition, a smile rather than a scowl, then in branding terms you are positioned to advantage.

For all sorts of reasons, to draw again on some European examples, places like Serbia, Latvia and Romania face major branding challenges. On the other hand, countries such as Spain and Ireland, recent economic problems notwithstanding, have done a very good job of turning around their international image and reputation.

Public diplomacy is fuelled by soft power. Foreign ministries in Canada and NZ have ample ability to deliver the former, and each country has substantial reserves of the latter.

It is perhaps time for the world to see more of the silver fern and, might I add,  the maple leaf…

After a pause to regroup and to deliver a graduate seminar on Science, Technology and International Policy at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies, the GD road show is rolling on.

First stop is the Land of the Long White Cloud, or Aotearoa, where I arrived 01 March.

For those who have not had the privilege of visiting New Zealand, this is a compact country of about four and a half million with amazing geographical diversity – a kind of palm at the end of the mind, if I may borrow from the title of an anthology of Wallace Stevens’ poetry. It is one of my favourite spots anywhere, a most extraordinary crucible of human enterprise and experience where, among many other achievements, they have done a better job than most in balancing the needs and interests of first peoples and later arrivals.

To offer a symbolic example of these continuing efforts, when you call the foreign ministry, you are greeted with the Maori kia ora, and MFAT business cards are written in English and Maori.

Some might consider this token. Yet while certainly not without problems, the aboriginal dimension of life here is generally more present, visible and culturally integrated than, for example, in Canada.

For the last few days I have been in Napier, a dream-like, exquisitely human-scale city situated on the shores of Hawkes Bay. It was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1931, and then rebuilt, largely in remarkably harmonious Art Deco style.

Today it stands as compelling testement to the virtues of architectural harmony, an impeccably preserved living monument which makes for a visual feast.

I once served in New Zealand, in 1993-94 as the Canadian Exchange Officer working for the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The exchange position was cut during Canada’s deficit-reducing Program Review exercise later in the nineties. Both countries have lost out on strategic opportunities for collaboration, and in my view have emerged diminished as a result of that myopic decision.

New Zealand is to Australia not unlike what Canada is to the USA – more modest and self-effacing; less assertive, back-slapping and boisterous. Canada and New Zealand have much in common in terms of history and culture. They could, and I think should be doing more together as naturally compatible diplomatic partners, especially in the Asia-Pacific.

For smaller or medium sized countries that enjoy the benefit of a positive international image and reputation and do not threaten anyone or carry the baggage of major powers, the public diplomacy approach to forging joint venture partnerships with the like-minded  should be second nature.

The fact that it is not speaks to the larger, and more universal problem of diplomatic dysfunction.

But back to the here and now… Last Tuesday in Wellington, I had an excellent exchange with a group of MFAT Directors, and met later with their new, and impressive CEO John Allen. He has read GD and is enthusiastic about its contents. As I have noted in my encounters with foreign ministry staff elsewhere, recognition of the need for radical reform in the way we conduct the business of governments at home and abroad appears to be near universal.

Preaching to the converted in foreign ministries is one thing; making the case for diplomacy as a cost-effective alternative to the use of armed force can be quite another.  So far, however, the response of those who have attended my presentations at NZIIA branches in Wellington, Palmerston North, Havelock North and Napier has been both engaged and supportive. Most agree that although the case can be made that diplomacy matters, as a non-violent formula for the management of international relations, it is seriously underperforming.

Why? Because diplomacy has not adapted well to the challenges of globalization, has been sidelined by the continuing militarization of international policy, and as a result suffers from grave problems of both image and substance.

That diagnosis resonates here.

But so do the arguments in favour engineering a more relevant foreign ministry, a transformed foreign service, and a more effective approach to the conduct of diplomatic business.

More on all of this in the coming weeks.