I think we all were intrigued by Nadia’s research in class on Monday. I was especially interested because I was in Eastern Europe this summer and while I didn’t see the logos she showed us, I couldn’t help but think how damaging these are to the culture of a country. While traveling, I unexpectedly fell in love with Budapest because it struck me as a city that, despite its rough past were able to embrace and celebrate how far they’ve come since the Communist era. I didn’t once get the feeling the city was reinventing itself. Now, I realize I may not be the kind of tourist Hungary would most like to attract (my five days there were tightly budgeted) but my experience has to account for one approach to tourism.
I looked into the idea a little more and came across an article in The New York Times that talks about that handful of individuals profiting from nation branding. One of those people is Simon Anholt, a British branding expert whose agency Placebrands, works by one clear goal: “to help countries develop themselves as brands, with a carefully managed international identity, as recognizable as any consumer product.”
He adds that marketing is at the heart of what makes rich countries rich. Anholt said that he doesn’t recommend advertising for countries who want to improve tourism and development because this can take up to 20 years, instead he says schools should teach English, Spanish, and other core languages so that people working within the tourism industry will be able to greet and communicate easily with tourists. In my opinion, this is where the problems being. I agree that marketing campaigns are effective, but in the cases of shoes and hair products. Campaigns lack the complexity to communicate what an entire nation stands for and I think attempting to make compact versions of a country encourage stereotypes. To fit an entire country into a 30 second commercial or 2 inch logo discounts the people and what makes them unique.
I encourage you all to read the article it is really interesting and provides examples nation branding success and failures.
I have probably said enough on this issue, already, though I feel quite strongly about, so, of course there’s always more….
ReplyDeleteI was also in Eastern Europe this summer and never witnessed any of this branding. On top of that, I am pretty sure every person I met would not be enthused about their country being portrayed as a “Western Wonderland,” even if it did generate tourism revenue. Anaa put it best when she said so many of the ads were “reductionist.” It is my feeling that if Mr. Anholt was such a successful branding man he would be able to market these countries they way the countries citizens would most like to communicate their culture. I do understand the benefit of bringing in tourism revenue but this is, again, is a matter of making money king, while ignoring other potential backlashes like homogenization, misrepresentation, etc. I am also not at all a fan of treating nations like products. It reminds me of the Supreme Court ruling rejecting a corporate spending limit whereby it was argued that corporations should have the same rights (free speech) as citizens. Corporations – whose number one objective is revenue (understandably) – are individual, self-conscious or rational, emotional, and sapient, being (not understandable)! These cases are both apples and oranges. A nation is not a product and a corporation is not a citizen. People, and even more nations, are too complex and diverse (among other things) to be represented by a symbol, logo or tagline. I am pretty sure if any one of us was tasked with representing our selves with a symbol it would be a pretty difficult task and that’s just one person.
And has anyone considered what it might be like when people travel to Slovakia to find its not a “Western Wonderland” - if anything, are these branding agents not concerned with repeat business? It’s the most sustainable and lucrative kind isn’t it?