USC/CPD Blog
If branding is about selling dreams, public diplomacy is about sharing them.
Month: May 2012
Public Diplomacy and Branding, Part III: A Pair of Aces?
In a couple of recent postings I have tried to elaborate the notion of a nation brand, to identify some of the salient issues surrounding the relationship between public diplomacy and branding, and to illuminate the more subtle distinctions. In this entry, I would like to drill down further into each of these, and several related issues.
Branding guru Simon Anholt has developed a hexagonal model that sets out the principal elements of a nation’s brand, including tourism, exports, policies, investment and immigration, culture and heritage, and people. This has become the industry standard. While Simon and I concur on many points, we do not agree on everything covered in the continuing debate. For instance, as far back as 2006, he wrote me to say “I dispute… your contention that branding is fundamentally a monologue. The best brand theory – and the best brand practice – today sees brand as the common purpose or shared vision that unites businesses with their staff, suppliers and customers, and so is in every sense parallel to (e.g. the British Council’s insistence on) the mutuality of public and cultural diplomacy. A brand is also … as much an invitation to complain as it is a promise of quality, so even in that rather literal sense it must always be about two-way communication… Brand is very much more than ‘image’ and the communication, management or promotion of image. Brand strategy is almost synonymous with corporate strategy, and at least in theory, there is a parallel notion in nation branding. Most firms these days would describe their brand as their relationship with their market and their other stakeholders.”
My response? Let one hundred flowers bloom.
But when it comes time to pick the bouquet, it seems worth remembering that if branding is about selling dreams, public diplomacy is about sharing them.
Public Diplomacy, Branding and the Image of Nations, Part II: More of the Same, or Different?
USC/CPD Blog
PD and nation branding share many superficial attributes, but drilling down reveals that the differences outweigh the similarities.
Public Diplomacy, Branding and the Image of Nations, Part II: More of the Same, or Different?
One of the defining attributes of being in a centre of global commerce and culture is the feeling you get when walking down the sidewalks.
In London, I found the experience of strolling a few blocks from where I was staying to the downtown campus of UEA London, in large part along the fabled Brick Lane, to be a source of energy and inspiration.
Now back in Ottawa for a month, I find the contrast especially striking. Almost painful. The narrow, crumbling sidewalks along the anonymous streets in the Canadian capital’s exquisitely excrescent central business district seem to drain any joy or enthusiasm. With each step, you can feel the spirit ebbing.
Whereas London is a great place to be in the midst of, Ottawa is a great place to leave.
Fortunately, that is easily done, and its wonderful environs make the prospect irresistible.
As places, both London and Ottawa have brands. London is a world city and global network node, less an exemplar of things English or British than a vibrant cosmopolitan crossroads that just happens to be the capital of the UK.
Ottawa is a blandly pleasant frontier town and bureaucratic outpost on the fringe of the settled part of the North American continent.
All of which is to say that brands, not least because they exist mainly in the minds of the beholders, have personality and complexion. And on that note, I would like to return to, and weave further a few of the analytical threads comparing branding and public diplomacy (PD) first presented in Chapter 10 of Guerrilla Diplomacy.