Nation branding guest talk at Manchester Business School
Went down to Manchester Business School (MBS) Nov 20th to give a guest presentation on nation branding. Thankfully my publishers Butterworth-Heinemann managed to publish the book right on time, for which I am very grateful, so I was able to pass round a copy of it to some of the people at MBS. The audience for my presentation consisted mainly of Masters students, supplemented by a handful of PhD students and faculty. Professor Gary Davies kindly introduced my talk and wrapped things up at the end.
It was a very enjoyable visit to MBS – the audience seemed genuinely interested in the topic and there were some stimulating comments and questions in the Q&A session. One of the Chinese students in the audience raised the point that the western media may be producing a distorted picture of what is going on in China these days, and that judging another country by your own country’s values is a highly subjective thing to do. Another student, this time from Pakistan, observed that the media coverage of Pakistan highlights only the negative events without presenting the full reality of the country, much of which is more positive and inspiring than the image that currently predominates.
The points made by both these students illustrate what I believe is one of the most fundamental justifications for the practice of nation branding, namely, if you as a nation do not brand yourself then somebody else will. That ‘somebody else’ could be foreign media, politicians, Hollywood films, etc. And it’s unlikely that the externally imposed ‘brand’ will be either positive or realistic.
Many thanks to Professor Davies and to PhD student Shalini Vohra for arranging my visit to MBS and for the hospitality on the day.