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.  

On June 17 I was one of the invited speakers at a seminar on place branding that took place in the wonderful city of Lisbon. My presentation focused on how Spain has developed its nation branding through highlighting the successful performance of many Spanish export brands. The seminar was organised by Lisbon-based company Brandia Central, who did a great job in organising the seminar and attracting an enthusiastic audience keen to hear about the many different aspects of branding places.

It was a great pleasure for me not only to visit Lisbon again after an absence of 16 years, but also to meet and get to know the other invited speakers - David Gertner (Pace University,  Lubin School of Business); Joao Freire (Brandia Central); Bill Baker (Total Destination Management); Peggy Bendel (Development Counsellors International); and Miguel Otero (Leading Brands of Spain Forum). Each speaker had a different take on place branding and that made for a good, though-provoking set of presentations.

The seminar presentations have now been added to Brandia Central’s website, which you can find at http://brandiacentral.com/placebranding

The Euromed Academy of Business will be holding the 1st Annual EuroMed Conference on November 17-18 2008 in Marseille, France. The conference theme is ‘European and Mediterranean Trends and Challenges in the 21st Century’.

 I will be chairing the Nation Branding track at the EuroMed Conference. If you would like to submit a paper to this track, you can view details of the call for papers at the conference website: www.emrbi.com

The deadline for submissions is 20 July 2008. You can choose to submit either an abstract of no more than 750 words, or a full paper. Both abstracts and full papers will be published in the conference proceedings.

 Looking forward to seeing you in Marseille this November!

Last week I attended the Reputation Institute’s 12th annual conference, held this year in Beijing. My presentation focused on China’s public diplomacy strategy in Japan.

As everyone knows, China-Japan relations have hardly been smooth in the past and at the moment there appears to be a gap opening up between increasingly positive relations at the political/business level on the one hand, and media polls indicating rising levels of mutual animosity amongst the general publics in the two countries on the other hand. I would be extremely wary, however, of such media polls. Often they are driven by newspapers’ own political agenda; the timing of the surveys can create misleading results; the phrasing of the questions can produce biased responses; and the editorial/journalist analysis of the findings can be misleading. In other words, all the potential manipulation inherent in any type of survey research comes into play.

While waiting at the departure lounge of Beijing’s shiny new Terminal 3 for my flight back to Tokyo, I saw on one of the TV screens a great example of China’s internal nation branding. It has been widely reported in the western media that China’s ruling Communist Party has gained much respect from the Chinese people due to its rapid and determined response to the terrible earthquake disaster that recently occured. The army has been rapidly mobilised in the earthquake relief effort and prime minister Wen Jiabao has been praised for his personal dedication to the relief effort. But the coverage of the relief effort that I saw on the Chinese TV channel at the airport was different to the coverage in the western media. On the Chinese TV channel, film production techniques were used to dramatise the relief effort. Slow motion was used to show rescuers running to waiting ambulances and helicopters, carrying on stretchers victims rescued from the earthquake. The use of slow motion is a simple technique but very effective; it certainly heightens the emotional impact of the scenes being shown. Also, the editing of the pictures was very tight, cutting quickly from one rescue scene to another, emphasising the scale and skill of the coordinated relief effort. Watching those moving and inspiring pictures, it was not hard to understand why the wider Chinese population would feel great pride at their country’s response to this immense tragedy.

At the invitation of Editor Igor E. Klyukanov, I contributed a Comment to the recently founded Russian Journal of Communication’s Spring 2008 Forum on ‘Nation Branding and Russia: Prospects and Pitfalls’. The Spring 2008 edition of the journal should be published in June. I was sent the proofs to check for accuracy, and it is very interesting to read the different perspectives that the other contributers bring to the debate on Russia’s nation branding. One of the other contributors is Simon Anholt, who will be familiar to anyone with an interest in nation branding.

Other contributors come from backgrounds in Communication Studies and Theatre Arts; International Studies; Humanities; Russian Studies; Public Relations; and Economics. What struck me most forcefully was the completely different style of language that each contributor uses to express his or her perspective. All the contributions are in English but the linguistic styles employed by each contributor are enormously and vividly varied. Congratulations to the Editor for assembling such an eclectic array of contributors.

My first public talk on nation branding since relocating to Tokyo in January was a presentation to the Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies (ICJS). It was another diverse audience although with one difference from previous talks I have given – this time there were some economists in the audience. Their contributions to the Q&A session following my talk provided a clear demonstration that the dialogue between nation branding people and economists is in its early days and promises to be a fruitful one.  

The main focus of my talk was a comparison of the nation branding activities of China, Korea, and Japan. To prepare the talk, I held meetings with diplomats at the Chinese Embassy and the Korean Embassy in Tokyo and their insights and information were most helpful.Within the confines of one talk it was obviously not possible to go into great depth for the strategies of all three nations, but it was interesting (for me at least, and hopefully for the audience too) to look at the different approaches each country is taking in its nation branding. China is pursuing an active programme of public diplomacy; Korea has established a brand positioning based on the theme of ‘Dynamic Korea’, supported with extensive advertising on CNN, Asahi TV, and so on; whilst Japan has set up a ‘Japan Brand Working Group’ whose three key goals are to foster a rich food culture, establish diverse and reliable local brands, and establish Japanese fashion as a global brand.

At the end of the evening business cards were swapped with academics, a lawyer, an NHK News producer, a market research executive, and various other attendees. The ICJS events regularly attract this mix of people from different backgrounds and I thank ICJS Director Robert Dujarric for inviting me to give a talk at one of these nights.