The first initiative I have taken since being appointed as Academic Editor of the Palgrave journal ‘Place Branding and Public Diplomacy’ is to appoint four Regional Editors to assist in the development of the journal. The Regional Editors are Dr Andrea Insch (Australia and New Zealand), Dr You-Kyung Kim (Asia), Dr Edgar Centeno (The Americas and the Caribbean), and Dr Joao Freire (Europe, Middle East and Africa). It is great to have these Regional Editors on board. Brief profiles of each editor can be seen by following this link: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/pb/index.html

Keith Dinnie
www.brandhorizons.com

At the invitation of the Korea Economic Institute, in mid-December last year I gave a presentation at their Washington DC office on the subject of repositioning Korea to a global audience. The timing of the event was very fortunate, given that a huge snowstorm hit DC just a few days later and paralysed transport systems for a short while. Attendees at the talk included people from the Department of State, Heritage Foundation, Korea Foundation, East-West Center Washington, Federal Reserve Board, and the National Unification Advisory Council of Korea, George Washington University, World Bank, US-ASEAN Business Council, Brookings Institution, Foreign Service Institute, Radio Free Asia, and the Embassy of the Republic of Korea.

The good thing about such a diverse audience is that you can never predict exactly what is going to get thrown at you in the post-talk Q&A, which makes it a stimulating experience. Nicole Feinemann and her team at KEI did a great job in organizing the event and ensuring that it was well publicised and ran smoothly on the day. The full paper on which my presentation was based can be viewed by following this link: http://www.brandhorizons.com/papers.html#korea

Keith Dinnie
www.brandhorizons.com

As there have now been a few reviews of my book Nation Branding - Concepts Issues Practice, I have summarised some of these reviews on the Brand Horizons website. You can read extracts from those book reviews by following this link: http://www.brandhorizons.com/

Keith Dinnie
www.brandhorizons.com

I have uploaded a few of my papers on nation branding onto the Brand Horizons website, where I have created a new ‘Online Papers’ page which can be accessed by following this link: http://www.brandhorizons.com/papers.html

Keith Dinnie
www.brandhorizons.com

I was recently interviewed by the ICP Forum, an Athens-based organisation who take a keen interest in nation branding. Their questions were interesting and ranged over a wide variety of nation branding-related issues. You can read the complete interview by following this link: http://icp-forum.gr/wp/?p=1048.

Just after that interview was published, I came across an unintentionally hilarious version of the same interview on Le Blogue du Quebec. The interview consists of pure gibberish (granted, some people might think that of the original version) which I can only assume was fed from a Greek translation into machine translation software that rendered it back into English and in doing so spewed out such surreal oddities as the following:

“The goals of polity branding are hellishly multiform and repayment for some of those goals the power of advertising is purposes choose measly.”

(Original version: “The goals of nation branding are extremely diverse and for some of those goals the power of advertising is probably quite limited”)

“Instead, they benefactress face-to-face meetings and fiction networking with what it takes investors into their boondocks.”

(Original version: “Instead, they advocate face-to-face meetings and continual networking with potential investors into their country.”

“As repayment for a fix award, my judge is that it is unattainable to encapsulate the aromatic multiformity of a predominantly polity in a fix award or battle-cry.”

(Original version: “As for a single message, my view is that it is impossible to encapsulate the rich diversity of a whole nation in a single message or slogan.”)

“Could you momentarily dilate on your overtures?”

(Original version: “Could you give us some concrete examples?”)

If you would like to read the complete text of this gibberish in its full glory, follow this link: http://greeceriots.quebecblogue.com/2009/07/04/forum

Much as I would like to dilate on my overtures, that will have to wait for another day. In the meantime, the gloriously surreal mistranslation of the interview has given me food for thought regarding possible titles for a future book on nation branding. Maybe, ‘Nation Branding - Achieving its Hellishly Multiform Goals’, or perhaps ‘Brand the Nation! Battle-cry for the aromatic multiformity of a predominantly polity’. I can hear publishers beating a path to my door already.

Two reviews of my book ‘Nation Branding - Concepts, Issues, Practice’ appear in the Journal of Marketing, May 2009, Volume 73, Number 3. One review is written by Marc Fetscherin and the other review is by Alan T. Wood.

Fetscherin states that “Keith Dinnie’s book is both timely and relevant… With plenty of information on the context and nature of nation branding, his book makes a valuable contribution to the emerging literature on nation branding”, whilst Wood in his review comments that “This book by Keith Dinnie is an excellent introduction to the wide contours of this subject… Dinnie sets ambitious goals for himself at the beginning but makes good on his promise. There are two specific strengths to this book: its global coverage and its interdisciplinary approach… Can present-day marketing experts contribute to this enterprise of both nation branding and Earth-branding? Keith Dinnie’s fine book, with its cosmopolitan outlook, is a great beginning.”

Both reviewers also make constructive suggestions regarding possible additions and modifications to the book. I am grateful to both reviewers for their thoughtful and thorough reviews. You can read the complete reviews by following this link:

http://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/AMA%20Publications/AMA%20Journals/Journal%20of%20Marketing/JournalofMarketingBookReviews.aspx

An interview with me about Korea’s nation branding appears in the Friday 8 May edition of The Korea Herald. You can read it in full by following this link:

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/05/08/200905080014.asp

Overall, the article is a very accurate account of what I said to the reporter during the interview. However, for the record, I would like to point out that the following sentence is not an accurate description of what I said: “Dinnie believes the lack of interest in nation branding by the preceding administrations were the key cause of Korea’s dismal visibility on the global stage”. That sentence is inaccurate in two ways. First, I did not and do not blame the preceding administrations for a lack of interest in nation branding. Second, I do not believe that Korea’s visibility on the global stage is ‘dismal’. Korea’s visibility on the global stage could certainly be better than it is, but it would be a gross exaggeration to label it ‘dismal’.

Apart from that, the article is well written and the reporter was an interesting person to talk to. And the photo is not as horrendous as I thought it might be.

At the invitation of the Korea Foundation I visited Seoul to give a talk April 29th at Underwood International College, Yonsei University. The event was to mark the publication of the Korean translation of my book, ‘Nation Branding - Concepts, Issues, Practice’.

The level of interest in nation branding within Korea is extremely high. The Korean media carries frequent articles on nation branding and there is ongoing debate about the country’s nation branding strategy amongst political, academic, and business figures. During my stay in Seoul I visited the offices of the newly established Korean Presidential Council on Nation Branding, where I made a brief presentation to members of the Presidential Council followed by an interesting roundtable discussion on the way forward for Korea’s nation branding strategy.

The very existence of the Presidential Council on Nation Branding is a tangible sign of the commitment of Korea to enhance its nation brand. It will be intriguing to see how Korea’s strategy for promoting its nation brand evolves over the coming years.

Back in February I had the pleasure of giving the keynote speech on the second day of the ‘Images of Nations: Strategic Communication, Soft Power and the Media’ conference in Athens, Greece. The conference was held at the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs in central Athens, with the opening address delivered by Dora Bakoyiannis, Greek Minister for Foreign Affairs. Photos from the conference can be viewed by following this link: http://www.gpsg.org.uk/aboutgallery.html

It was interesting to participate in a conference where the focus was more on foreign affairs rather than on marketing/branding. There were a lot of interesting presentations and the organisers of the conference - the Greek Politics Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association - did a great job in attracting a healthy mix of politicians, academics, media people, students, and other interested parties.

During the conference there was an understandable concern amongst the Greek officials present about the potential damage to Greece’s image due to the demonstrations and unrest that occurred in Athens and other parts of Greece in December 2008. However, I do not believe that Greece’s image will suffer through those events. Certainly, foreign tourists and business people who were due to visit Athens in December may have decided to postpone their trip till things had calmed down, but in the mid to long term I believe that the Greek nation brand (in terms of tourism) is strong enough to ride out such domestic turbulence. Provided of course that the unrest does not become a daily occurrence as it appears to have done in Thailand at the moment.

I lived in Athens for around 15 months in 1989-90. At that time, a titanic political struggle raged between PASOK’s Andreas Papandreou and New Democracy’s Konstantinos Mitsotakis. It was an exciting time, with gigantic political rallies held in Syntagma Square and passions riding high. Little did I think then that 20 years later I would be in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, just off Syntagma Square, giving a talk on Greece’s international image. As my favourite Greek saying goes, “Ta panta rei…”

Yesterday afternoon I gave a presentation in Tokyo at the Japanese Institute of Global Communications. My topic was ‘Japanese and Chinese nation branding: Key issues and contrasting strategies’. I looked at the contrasting strategies adopted by the two countries in terms of Japan following a nation branding approach focused mainly on innovation and design, whereas China appears to be placing more emphasis upon a public diplomacy approach focused for example on the promotion of Chinese culture through the establishment of the international network of Confucius Institutes. Although this perspective is obviously a simplification of each country’s strategy, I think it is intriguing to see how the two countries are reacting in quite different ways to the nation branding challenges they both face.

In the audience was a representative from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who pointed out that a programme for Japanese public diplomacy has just been initiated, so it will be interesting to see what direction Japan takes in its future public diplomacy strategy.

To show how countries can act in a positive way to the profile-raising opportunities that come their way, I included a couple of slides in my presentation on ‘Baruto’, an Estonian sumo wrestler who has been successful in Japan. Back in Estonia, the Enterprise Estonia organisation has been alive to the unique opportunity that Baruto’s fame has provided as a means to raise the profile of Estonia within Japan. Baruto has been enlisted as a goodwill ambassador for Estonia in Japan. There is no way that Estonia would have the budget to pay for an advertising campaign to match the levels of awareness for Estonia that this one sporting personality has created.

Other countries - particularly, but not only, those with severely limited budgets - should look around and see where in the world there are prominent sporting figures that could be similarly enlisted as goodwill ambassadors. Such initiatives will become increasingly common as countries become more entrepreneurial in their nation branding efforts.