Something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause...

a typhoon halfway around the world. - Chaos Theory

Chairman Prof. Jeff Bellantoni

Adviser Prof. Graham Hanson

A thesis submitted in partial fulillment of the requirementsfor

the degree of Master of Science in Communications Design.

Pratt Institute

Date Dec. 14. 2011

Title The Future of Nation Branding

Author Joohyung Jin

Intro. 8

Controversies 14

Necessity 18

Differences 22Case Studies 27Problems 34

BNB System 46Prerequisites 52BNB MAP 56

Applications 93The Future 100Bibriography 102

NATIONBRAND-ING IS

NATIONBRAND-ING IS a field of theory and practice which

aims to measure, build and manage the reputation of countries.

- Jacqui True

OVERVIEW

Nation branding is a newly emerged branding field that is aimed to establish and mange the reputation of nations. In her book Nation Branding: Concepts, Issues, Practice, Keith Dinnie defined nation brand as “the unique, multi-dimensional blend of elements that provide the nation with culturally grounded differentiation and relevance for all of its target audiences”(31). Jacqui True, in his book “Globalization and Identity,” defined nation branding as “a field of theory and practice which aims to measure, build and manage the reputation of countries” (74).

As the term nation brand articulated, the concept of nation brand has become a significant norm that allows people to understand a nation’s global position and influence. Because of the rapid globalization, which was triggered by network system, has raised cultural, political and economical competitions among nations, having a sound nation brand value has become the critical factor for a nation in order to succeed in political, economical, and cultural competitions.

In 1998, the term ‘nation brand’ was coined by Simon Anholt, a British policy adviser, which he describes the idea that nations can have comparable brand values to companies’ brand values. As the term introduced, nation branding has become a controversial phenomenon among countries. By the end of 2010, more than a hundred countries have participated in nationbranding, according to Future Brand Nation Index, and many countries are eager to take advantage from it.

Introduction

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As the concept of nation brand has been shifted from unmanageable to manageable, the field of nation branding is transformed into more a complicated and multi-layered subject by adopting brand strategy, brand management, marketing, psychological approach, and so on. As a result, nation branding is categorized into various fields of interests, and new approaches of nation branding have been introduced every year.

As a consequence, the visual communicators’ roles becomes important to nation branding, which are to visualize nations’ interests and to create effective visual communicational platforms. Communication designers have suggested communicational solutions for countries by adopting conventional branding strategies, and more than hundreds of logos, campaigns, and visual systems have been published in order to aid countries.

Many scholars, however, have argued that the effectiveness of nation branding is questionable and even have insisted that the whole concept of practicing nation branding is deceptive. According to the group of scholars, there is not a single country have successfully changed their global images through nation branding practices. They argue that nations are wasting time and money on gaining sound nation images.

“The idea of a nation as a brand- as Kellogg’s Corn Flakes is a brand- is a very big mistake.” - Wally Olins

As Nation branding becomes popular among countries, developing countries such as, South Africa, have spent tremen-dous money to reshape thier global reputations through nation branding.

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Abstract

Hypothesis

Is nation branding myth? If so, why are so many countries eager to practice it? Are the design solutions for countries the most appropriate forms of communications? Is there any problem in adopting and to applying conventional branding methods to countries, which is specifically designed for promoting consumption of products or services?

This paper will dive into defining problems of current nation branding practices and exploring and suggesting appropriate branding solutions in light of Chaos theory, which is widely known as butterfly effect.

The conventional branding methods approaches are not appropriate to brand nations because of the different characteristics and values between countries and corporates. If a proper branding platform for countries would be designed with right understanding of the characteristic of a nation, then countries, especially developing countries, can take great advantages from it.

OVERVIEW

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In 2010, South Africa spent millions of dollars on nation branding, while 38 millions of South Africans have faced starvation.

Isn’t it a joke?

11

It’s serious.12

It’s serious.With U.S. $120, one South African child can live without hunger for a year.

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Despite of the popularity of practicing nation branding, scholars, such as Craig Hayden, have debated on the effectiveness of nation branding. Critics argue that nation branding is both deceptive and demanding to manage reputations of nations in a way regarding a nation as a brand, a commercial product to be circulated to customers. Designers, such as Wally Olins wrote, “The Idea of a nation brand, as Kellogg’s Corn Flakes is a brand, is a very big mistake,” which will make a nation as no more than a product. Craig Hayden, an assistant professor at American University, also argued about nation branding’s broader political and moral implication.

The problem with branding in the conventional marketing sense is that it hails its audience in a way that does not invite participation in the politics of foreign policy. Public diplomacy is traditionally justified by how foreign publics can shape the for-eign policy attitudes of their leadership. Yet if messages are targeted to cultivate brand-loyalty - does that constitute the kind of dialogue implicit in previous conceptions of public diplomacy?... Or, does branding in fact cheapen the brand itself? Previous criticism of the branding idea argued th wwat it ran against the norms international dia-logue, while failing to do justice to the values implicit in the national “brand.” I would add a more immediate concern. Branding strategies that rely on proxies begin to conflate the cultural “message” of the Untied States with the contrived brand-image of the corporate proxy. If we invite audiences to view us as brand, we can be just as easily discarded as a consumer product.

As Hayden stressed out that the entity of a nation and of a company has lots of differences in their characteristics, goals, complexities, etc. Furthermore, treating a nation as a product or a company may cause severe problems to nations putting them into risks of harming their reputa tions, which might cost

Hayden writes:

Controversies about Nation Branding

Hayden’s definition of a country is the start point to determine whether the current nation branding practices are appropriate or not.

OVERVIEW

14

Below are what Communication designers have done for countries over 20 years...

no significant changes on the reputations of countries have been shown in any cases of practicing nation branding.

-Simon Anholt

Sadly,

17

tremendous amount of efforts andmoney that countries have to pay back. Simon Anholt also emphasizes the importance of political support by saying, “Public officials without a sophisticated understanding of private sector practice are rather easy victims for marketing firms that often charge exorbitant fees without an real concern for the country’s best interest” and goes even extreme insisting nation branding is an empty shell without the supports.

In defense of nation branding, some groups of scholars point out that those dilemmas that nation branding has is not because it is deceptive, but the concept of nation branding is misunderstood. Simon Anholt consistently insists that in order to successfully manage nation brand, a nation has to have clear focus and goal with its corresponding political supports. Therefore, the dilemmas that nations have are not because it is deceptive but practitioners have misunderstood about the concept of it.

If we invite audiences to view us as brand, we can be just as easily discarded as a consumer product.

(http://publicdiplomacy.wikia.com/wiki/Nation_Branding#cite_note-9),

Despite of the controversy, most of the scholars have agreed on the necessities of nation branding, especially for poorer and developing countries. For some countries, practicing nation branding could make positive impacts on the stereotypes of global society. Anholt writes that “even a relatively prosperous and well-governed nation like Botswana ends up sharing perceptions of violence Rwanda, of corruption with Nigeria, of poverty with Ethiopia and of famine from Sudan.” In other words, an effective nation branding approaches and techniques can solve serious problems that nations have.

For twenty years, the concept of nation brand have become controversal phenomenon among countries, especially for those who want to manage and to reshape their global reputation so that they could take economical, political, and cultural advantages from it. Despite of the popularity, many scholars have doubted about the effectiveness of nation branidng.

The Necessity of Nation Branding

Summary

OVERVIEW

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David Gertner says:

Products can be discontinued, modified, withdrawn from the market, re-launched and re-positioned or replaced by improved products. Places (nations) do not have most of these choices. Their image problems may be founded in structural problems that take years to fix.

In other words,

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Countriesare notproducts.

Why?

PROBLEMS

The Different Values between Nation Brand and Corpora-tion Brand

Understanding the differences between nation brand and company brand is the first stage to design effective nation branding structures and to find the most appropriate methods of nation branding. In order to distinguish the characteristics of nation brand and of company brand, close scrutiny on the differences with broad perspectives is required.

The value of nation brand and corporate brand is different in many aspects. Even though both nation brand and corporation brand can make very positive changes in gaining profits, the value of nation brand, however, cannot be limited to selling products or services. The value of nation brand has to be understood in a broader spectrum. The image of nation has been shaped throughout centuries by encountering various historical events and cultural interaction with global society. Nation brand is interwoven with a nation’s unique cultures, languages, lifestyles, natures, politics, economics, and so on. In other words, the value of nation brand cannot be treated as that of corporation brand. Nation brand cannot simply designed and force people to accept it.

The value of nation brand should not be understood in a single, unifying purpose. Unlike a company brand, which solely focuses on maximizing efficiency to gain profits, a nation brand has to understand the complex interactions among various fields within her, and the surrounding countries also affect the complexity. As a result, the value of nation brand cannot be determined

Understanding the Differences

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10 things nation branding ain’t

only by focusing on the country’s interests but has to be understood in a context. In other words, the value of company brand is determined by customers who use their product or services, but the value of nation brand is not just determined just with people’s experiences about her but with various social, cultural, political and economic factors.

Therefore, the value of nation brand requires more complex and flexible but interacting communication tools more than just a communication tool that designed to sell things.

In an article ‘10 things nation branding ain’t,’ posted at Nationbranding.org, categorizes people’s misconception about nation branding in ten sentences. The article says nation branding deals with many fields and could be defined in many different ways, but nation branding cert inly ain’t the following:

1. It ain’t just about tourism. Nation branding is about devel-oping an identity encompassing tourism but also FDI, public diplomacy, exports, culture, sports, migrants, international relationsa…

2. It ain’t just a logo. One colorful and sexy logo with no strategy behind is nonsense.

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3. It ain’t one TV spot on the CNN. One 60-seconds TV ad with wonderful scenery is a waste of the taxpayers’ money.

4. It ain’t just for foreigners. The biggest stakeholders in a nation branding project are natives; without their understanding, support and embodiment of the brand identity all nation branding efforts are damned.

5. It ain’t a short-term project. It needs effort, time, consistency and persistence. In most cases it takes years to see results.

6. It ain’t cosmetics. One of the basic pillars of nation branding is truth, honesty and a foothold on the real world. You can’t change a grim reality with slogans and logos.

7. It ain’t like corporate branding. Any country is far more complex and complicated than any company – most of the recipes that work for commercial brands won’t work for nation brands.

8. It ain’t easy. Many factors concur on how a nation is perceived; grasping the intrinsic of a nation brand requires expertise, time and depth of thought.

9. It ain’t new. Nation branding is as old as the concept of nation, it’s just that it has evolved much quicker in recent years.

10. It ain’t vaporware. If implemented rightly, nation branding can deliver real and tangible results.

PROBLEMS

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According to the article, nation branding is not the same with the conventional idea of branding. It clearly pointed out that the methods of corporate branding approaches are not appropriate to nations because nations have more complicated values than corporations have. Furthermore, the article also argues that a nation’s reputation cannot be altered in a short period of time through practicing branding, which means that reputations of nations cannot be created but be earned. Nation brand images that the nations have now are the result of the nations’ political, social, cultural communicational efforts with global society, which cannot be altered with a conventional branding and management techniques.

Furthermore, one of the most important differences is that nation branding is not solely aimed to sell products or services. In his article ‘Why Nation Branding Does not Exist, Anholt argues that countries are not for sale, and only with marketing communications campaigns of countries, nation branding is no more than promotion of empty propaganda saying ‘please change your mind about this country.’

In sum, the differences between nation brand and product brand are not two different types of brands are two different entities. Nation brand has more deeper and wider values than product brand and has to be understood in broad and multidimen-sional perspectives.

One of the most common problems on approaching nation branding is the ignorance of the differences between countries and corporates.

Summary

PROBLEMS

Nation Brand

Offer Nothing to offer

Difficult to define

Purely emotional

Complicated, various, vague

Secondary, numer-ous and diverse

To promote national image

Unclear, multiple stakeholders

Diverse, hard to define

Targeted segment

Sole owner

To help sales and develop relationships

Primary and second-ary, relatively fewer and more specific

A product or service

Well defined

Functional & emotional

Simple, clear

Attributes

Benefits

Images

Association

Purpose

Ownership

Audience

Product Brand

The distinctiveness and exclusivity of a nation brand is hard to protect, as the nation has no natural monopoly on the precise qualities it is seeking to promote.

Table from an article ‘Branding the Nation: What is being branded?’

The Differences of the Brands

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Even though there are distinctive differences between the characteristics of country and of product (or company), conventional nation branding approaches does not consider the differences almost every case. Following are case studies showing the problem in their nation branding practices.

To define the problems of current nation branding, close scrutiny on nation branding practices is necessary. There are more than hundreds of nations are participating in it and need to have a closer look what is being branded in what ways.

The “Cool Britannia” campaign of the 1990s, under the administration of Tony Blair, remains one of the most famous nation-branding campaigns in history. Intended to reinvent the U.K.’s image as an energized and liberalized nation, the campaign attempted to shed the traditionally formal image of Great Britain as well as reflect the shifting political model of the Blair administration. In addition, launched in the aftermath of the Mad Cow disease crisis, “Cool Britannia” targeted the tourism sector in an effort to improve the international image of the nation.

Despite the millions of dollars poured into the initiative, however, the campaign is largely considered a failure because of its

ConventionalNation BrandingPractices

Case #1 United Kingdom

UK recently launched a campaign to promote exports giving a brand value to her products.

Case Studies

27

PROBLEMS

Case #2Malaysia

Case #3Japan

limited focus, lackluster results, and the general perception, both within Britain and abroad, that the campaign’s gimmicky approach had actually hurt the nation’s international image.

Malaysia is currently in the early stages of developing a strong master brand, intended to help the country solidify a positive reputation and further its progress towards development. Malaysia focuses on building a strong brand that would convey to global and domestic investors where the country is heading, and will focus on creating a common image consistent across political, economic, and social sectors. Specifically, as globalization has intensified global competition, the Malaysian brand will attempt to shift its focus from agriculture towards manufacturing and services, utilizing assets such as its economic and political stability as a legitimizing force for the brand.

However, the global awareness of Malaysian manufaturing and services is still very low level, and building a strong Malaysian brand is not ideal goal for her yet.

In 2004, Japan Brand Working Group was organized by the Task Force on Contents in the intellectual Property Policy Headquarters in order to establish the directions and the key elements of branding Japan. The organization set a go al to improve ‘the image and reputation of Japan and turn it into a nation that is loved and respected by people throughout the world.’ Japan aims to create a new Japan brand by combining

A campaign is launched to promote tourism by Malaysia.

One of the strong point of Japanese nation branding is the govern-ment’s supports through policies.

Case #4South Africa

high-quality products and manufacturing with intellectual and cultural contents.

Despite of the political supports and her sound global images, Japanese great recession and clannish social structure make hard to promote its brand.

South Africa’s nation branding was launched by the International Marketing Council of South Africa (IMC) in August 2000 upon the realization that it was absolutely imperative to create a positive and compelling brand image for themselves. One of the challenges of South Africa was the gap between the global perception of the country and the reality of the country in global market place. As the need of rebranding its reputation, IMC launched several campaigns to promote tourism, trade and investment. Its aim is to establish a compelling brand image for South Africa, which correctly positions the country in terms of its investment potential, credit worthiness, export opportunities, tourism potential and international relations.

Despite of the countless efforts of South Africa, the brand still suffers from limited familiarity and weak associations for her weak economical foundation and lack of infrastructures.

IMC launched several branding campaigns to promote trade, invest-ment and tourism of South Africa.

PROBLEMS

What’s being Branded?

How are they Branded?

As the case studies show, the elements that are being branded in nation branding can categorized into six, which are tourism, export brands, foreign and domestic policy, investment and immigration, culture and heritage, and people.

The purpose of nation branding is largely categorized into three: 1. Using nation’s images to promote sales and exports, 2. Promoting countries as the destination for tourism or invest-ment, 3. Using nation’s images as a tool of political marketing.

As countries participate in nation branding practices, nation branding has become more categorized and systemized. However, methodologies of the practices are just a replica of coporation branding’s strategies. Countries have designed compelling logos, posters, TV ads, conferences and so on, but none of them successfully ever alter their global reputations.

One of the most active fields of nation branding is tourism. Almost every case, countries pro-mote it through visual representation such as logos, posters, TV ads, and so on. However, the effectiveness of them is questionable.

We need a new method to brand countries, because we have...

lots ofproblems

lots ofproblems

The reason why the nation branding practices have not make any significant changes is that there are serious prob-lems in current nation branding system.

PROBLEMS

Inconsistency

As previous chapters discussed about current nation branding practices, it has been found that there are common problems appeared in them. Because nation branding has to deal with an entire nation and its reputation, it is not easy to manage the brands, and several communicational problems such as consistency, ethical integrity, and communicational methods are found. This chapter will discuss the common problems in nation branding and discuss whether it is right or not to apply the conventional branding mathods to countreis.

One of the most serious problems in nation branding is inconsistency. Simon Anholt, an independent policy advisor, says, “A usual problem in country branding projects is consis-tency across all agencies involved in managing the image of a country.” Nicolas Papadopoulos, a professor of the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa, also believes the most important challenges that nation branding is currently facing are “lack of unity of purpose, difficulty in establishing actionable and measurable objectives, lack of authority over inputs and control over outputs, restricted flexibility, and relative lack of marketing know-how.”

Because of the unique characteristics of nation branding, maintaining consistency in a communicational perspective is extremely difficult. Furthermore, nation’s reputation of the various fields, such as economics, politics, cultures, and so on, is not fixed identity, and the promotions of those fields are easy to be regarded as temporary. As a consequence, the

The Problems of Conventional Nation Branding

34

promotions of nations become very fragmented and isolated from each other. For instance, Britain has promoted its culture under slogan with ‘Cool Britannia,’ but, as their cultural influences over the global society diminished, they launched a new campaign called ‘Made in Britain.’ People cannot find any communicational connections between the campaigns, and the disconnection might make Britain failed to persuade people forcing them to rethink about her with the designed perspectives.

Another problem of the inconsistensy is that it is almost impossible to manage brand values of a country across all of the different fields expecting the same result. As a result, countries brand themselves focusing on the strongest fields, which eventually causes the inconsistensy throughout their nation branding practices.

One of the power of branding is to provide the subject consistent communication platform. However, with current branding system, coun-tries cannot expect to have the consistensy.

Over 20 years, South Korea has launched several campaigns to promote Korea’s global brand values. However, the inconsistensy of visual messages weaken the communicational capacity.

Inconsistency in South Korea’s Nation branding

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A usual problem in nation branding projects is consistency across all agencies involved in managing the image of a country. - Simon Anholt

Furthermore, the inconsistency causes serious communicational problems and confusions. It ruins the credibility of the information being spoken. Many countries have initiated several campaigns in a short period of time, and each campaign is launched with different logos, slogans, and images. As a consequence, it is hard to find a consistent visual message in them. Most of the cases, the campaigns are temporary in usage, and it is easy to become contradictory to each other when new campaigns are launched especially when the level of importance of that field of a country is diminished. As a result, the messages that need to be communicated through the visual system become week, and the countries’ endeavors are decentralized. As a result, visual communication design becomes no more than a powerless communicating tool saying, “Would you please change your perception about me?” which is totally unpractical.

The word consistensy does not only limited to visuals but also overall communicational integrity.

PROBLEMS

The Capability of Changing Perception

Changing a person’s reputation is not an easy things to do. On the same token, alterling a nation’s reputation, especially from bad one to good one, is almost impossible only through visual practices, such as logos, posters, TV ads, and so on.

One of the most challenging parts of nation branding is to alter people’s perceptions about a country. People’s perception about a nation is not computer program that can be changed through editing a couple of lines of script. Shaping global images of a nation requires a long period of time, which means there are lots of complicated factors involved within it. People do not simply change their perception about a nation by watching compelling and well-designed TV ads, posters, logos, slogans, and so on because they do not feel the necessity. Most of people are not interested in other countries; especially the countries have no connection to their personal lives.

Another important thing about altering perceptions is that nation’s global images in certain fields, such as culture, nature and so on, are the sum of people’s relative preferences. It means that people’s perceptions about a country are not a matter of what is right or wrong but about personal preferences, and to attempt changing those personal preferences only through advertising a country’s natural beauty or cultural attraction is a totally waste of capital and time.

Moreover, most of the current nation branding practices attempt to change people’s perception through the same strateges of business marketing. Corporation branding and marketing aim for products or services to shape certain public perceptions in order to get the desired behavior and purchase patterns from customers. That branding practices focus on forcing people to buy products stimulating people’s feelings that the product will fulfill their satisfactions. In order to sustaining the public

Ethical issues

For more info, visitwww.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/climate/green-peace-activists-shut-down-bp-gas-station/blog/13004/

purchase patterns, companies must create certain values of themselves to stimulate people’s desires of possession, and those efforts often cause serious reality gap between reality and fantasy. One of the good examples of this gap is bp (British Petroleum, or Beyond Petrolem). Bp have tried to advocate its green effort to its negative anti-ecological images with eco friendly logos, colors slogans, etc., but customers have noticed the gap that bp is actually not put that much effort to reduce wastes that harms environment . The gap between reality and brand image did not only fail to change people’s perception but also did harm bp’s images. The gap between reality and fantasy creates communicational obstacles that leads the whole branding practices into failure.

Unfortunately, nation branding is also adopting the same branding and marketing techniques to promote their global images. That is, nation branding is also exposed the ethical gap between its reality and its brand image. Moreover, by practicing conventional nation branding, nations are also exposed to the possibilities that can critically harm a nation’s brand images.

The term ‘greenwashing’ has been a controversial term in graphic design industry that refers the exploitation of the graphic design ability to create a false indentity so that companies can effectively make a profit out of it. In 1986 New York environmentalist Jay Westervelt in his essay first address the greenwashing issues by analyzing green marketing of hotel industry.at that time hotel industry had participated green movement by promoting reuse

PROBLEMS

One of the weakness of current branding system is the lack of transparency. compa-nies can create images whatever they want to be through graphic design. But customers start to speak up for the unethical acts.

Customers take actions against greenwashing. Fore more info, visit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing

of towels to save the environment. Westerveld reported that in most case the hotels’ participations in green movement were solely for increasing their profit and also most of the hotels were, in fact, not putting their efforts to reducing energy waste.

Unfortunately, the greenwashing is still taken place in various industries and graphic design is exploitated on endowing false images to companies. Companies have using graphic design for their makeup to creating false but positive images in order to gain more profits. Promoting eco-friendly images, colors, logos, taglines, posters, TV ads, and so on, companies disguise themselves to socially responsible organizations gain sound brand reputation but not fully participate in the issues.

The same pitfall is waiting for nation branding if nation branding adopts the same strategies and managements skills from corporate branding. Nations will only attempt to advertise the most attractive and positive elements that they have. Without concerning the existing problem in corporate branding and having an answer, nation branding and communication designers cannot avoid to be blamed for its unethical design activities. In other word, the ethical problem in corporate branding is still threatening the graphic design industry that

Organisations and individuals are making attempts to reduce the impact of greenwashing by exposing it to the public. “Greenwashers”is a new (release in 2011) documentary aimed at challenging, exposing, and fighting the issues surrounding greenwash. In Australia offers a chance to report greenwash claims. The Greenwashing Index, created by the University of Oregon in partnership with EnviroMedia Social Marketing, allows examples of greenwashing to be uploaded and rated by the public.

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will cause the same problem and will damage the entire nation branding business.

As we discussed above, there are huge differences between nation branding and corporate branding. As a result, applying the same branding and management techniques and expecting the same result of corporations had achieved by practicing them is totally unreasonable. Understanding a nation as a brand or a product makes sound easy to manage her global reputation, but from the so-called branding and communication perspective, the effectiveness of it, promoting a nation’global image so that bring more foreign investments, is questionable.

Since nation branding has been practiced, there are many experts have warned the efficiency of it. Moreover, Anholt even goes further by insisting that nation branding is a myth. He wrote:

Nation branding does not exist; it is a myth, and rather a dangerous one. The idea that it is possible to ‘do branding’ to a country (or to a city or region) in the same way that companies ‘do branding’ to their products and services, is vain and foolish.

Anholt supports his idea with observations through the Anholt Nation Brands Index. As he has worked in nation branding, he observed that there is not a shred of evidence, a single properly researched case study, showing that nation branding altered international perception of nations (Places, 13). And he concluded his thought stating that the reason why nation branding does not work for countries is that marketing communications “don’t work so well for products and services…they aren’t

The Necessity of New Nation Brand-ing System

PROBLEMS

From an interview. http://kommunikations-maaling.dk/artikel/why-nation-branding-does-not-exist/

the reason why those brand are powerful: Brands become powerful when the product behind them earns trust.”

There are a couple of errors in his reasoning regarding com-munication design (Some companies take great advantages from the power of communication design), but one thing that nation branding has to consider in its practice is that powerful brand can not be created but only be earned through the company’s integrity in its communication, which includes branding, products, services, etc., with customers. The integrity cannot be limited only to a company’s product or services, but the communication design is also corresponded to that. Furthermore, that does not mean that current corporate branding in terms of graphic design is useless, but applying the same approachof corporate brandingto nations is not effective at all.

Branding has been developed and has become a very strong communication tool that maximizes the effectiveness of communication through visual tools. Graphic designers have designed and explored the most effective ways of conveying messages, attracting people’s interests, promoting social concerns, and so on, which means that communication design has the most powerful potential to suggest the most effective way to brand a nation.

The problem in nation branding is that the practitioners are just trying to apply the same methods, principles, and strategies of the conventional branding without thinking the possibilities that nation branding can take more appropriate approaches. Understanding nation as a brand is rational in many aspects. However, applying the same principles of building corporate

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brands to nation is irrational because nations have much deeper values that cannot be altered through designing logos, launching sound campaigns, or advertising their natural beauties.

Therefore, it is a right time for graphic designers to design and to suggest the most appropriate communicational platforms that help countries to speak up among global society, especially for developing countries. African countries have spent millions of dollars on practicing nation branding, but in every four minute, an African child dies for starvation. So many African people are dying for diseases like Malaria only because they do not have money to buy fresh water and medicines. Isn’t it a problem? Why does countries like South Africa have to spent hugh amount of money to achieve good nation brand reputation? Does nation branding have to be the same with the conventional branding practices? What if there is a better branding systemthat can help nations both inwardly and outwardly? This is the right time for designers to think about it.

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What if there is a branding system that can solve a country’s problems, such as poverty and that can promote her economical opportunity at the same time?

BNBPROJECT

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BNBPROJECT

It will change the whole concept of nation branding.

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PROJECT

Brief of BNB Proeject

Purpose of BNB Project

BNB stands for Butterfly Nation Branding. The project has been initiated with close scrutiny of the problems appeared in current nation branding practices across all ove the world. Countries have spent billons of dollars on promoting their global images through communications design, but no significant cases have been reported that the practices actually changed their global reputation. Especially, developing countries, such as South Africa, have faced more serious problems practicing it. Therefore, a new branding system need to be designed.

The purpose of BNB is for countries to provide appropriate communicational platforms that is designed understanding countries as living organisms in a holistic way, maximizing the effectiveness of communicational capability. BNB also pursues sustainability that the brand platform can continuously interacts with global society without spending tremendous amount of capitals, but the capitals can be used to solve internal problems, such as drug abuse, starvation, education, and so on, as it promotes specific fileds of countries so that countries, especially developing countries can take great benefits from it.

The name Butterfly Nation Branding is derived from the sci-entific study called Chaos Theory, which is also widely known as Butterfly Effect. Chaos theory is a field of study that studies the behavior of dynamical system highly sensitive to initial condition and pursues to measure and to predict the chaotic patterns of nature. The theory insists that in a certain condition, a small stimulus can cause diverging result within the condition, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general.

The BNB Project

48

Chaos theory has been applied in many scientific realms, such as mathematics, programming, microbiology, biology, computer science, economics, engineering, finance, philosophy, physics, politics, population dynamics, psychology, robotics, and meteorology, but yet discussed in communications design untill now.

The basic idea of BNB is to regard a brand structure of a country as a living organism, which allows elements that consist of the structure to interact sensitively with each other so that the branding system amplifies communicational effectiveness. When economy of a country is targeted, another element, such as politics, or tourism is can also be promoted. Furthermore, countries can solve the internal problems, such as poverty, in a sustainable way so that countries do not need addtional capitals to solve the problems.

The benefit of the system is its sensitivity to outside stimuli. When a single stimulus is given to the branding structure, its result can be seen throughout the entire brand structure. BNB also brings peoples directly into the process of shaping brand of a country so that it can creat a strong emotional bond between audiences and the country.

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Chaos The ory was devel oped by Edward Lorenz, who was an Amer i can math e mati cian and mete o rol o gist. He devised the the ory as a result of round ing errors as he was try ing to com pute weather pat terns. He found that these small changes in round ing of num bers could result in dra mat-i cally dif fer ent out comes. Thus he con cluded that minus cule changes in inputs can have enor mous con se quences on the ulti mate outcome.

The concept of Chaos theory was initiated from a curiosity to find systematic laws from chaotic natural phenomenon. Scientists focus on the organic unity of the nature, which allows vast amount of elements interact with each other, and tried to discover a system that can be mathematically defined.

The problems of the current nation branding practices can be solved through applying the concept of Chaos theory. The reputation of a country is shaped with complex and interconncected factors, and the understanding of the complexity of Chaos theory can position the nation branding into a new level in terms of commu-nicational effectiveness.

Another reason of adopting Chaos theory for nation branding is that unlike corporate branding, a brand value of a country has various kinds of fields that are interwoven under unique characteristics of the country and is sensitively affected by the surrounding countries, which cannot be managed with any conven-tional branding strategies that only focus on gaining more profits. However, Chaos theory suggests a new perspective to manage a subject that has complex structure in which every element is closely related to each other.

Chaos theory has been mentioned in numerous movies and works of liter-ature. For instance, it was mentioned extensively in Michael Chrichton’s novel Jurassic Park and more briefly in its sequel. Other examples include the film Chaos, The Butterfly Effect, the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia and the video game Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.

BNB is designed in understanding of the differences between country brand and corporate brand.

The concept of Chasos theory has influenced on every form of culture and life style.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

Why Chaos Theory?

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In order to practice BNB, it is mandatory for countries to support the following prerequisite stages, which are:

Integrity (informational credibility) Political supports

In order to practice BNB in its maxium capability, countries have to have integrity in sharing all the information needed. BNB is not designed to create and to endow false identities to nations but is to obtain people’s attention and using the attentions as a foundational engine to performing branding, so without the informational credibility the whole system will conflict with each other.

A country’s integrity will play an important role that keeps the nation’s credibility pure, which will end up with building a sound and credible communication path. Without the crystal clear informational foundation, BNB is ineffective in its communicational capability. That does not means the government need to open all the information, such as confidential issues, but it requires nations to be opened in economic, social, political, and cultural information that the global community can measure the current status of the country.

According to Anholt, one of the most important activities in nation branding is political support. He argues that without it, the whole graphic practices are nothing but wasting money. The only sure way countries can change their images is by changing the way they behave: they need to focus on the things they make

BNB is not suggesting for countries to be transparent in sharing informations about them in order to gain more credibility and to avoid possible identity challneges.

PROJECT

Two Prerequisite Stages

Integrity(Informational Credibility)

Political Supports

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and do, not the things they say. Simon Anholt’s approach of Competitive Identity, (which is also the title of one his books), suggests how countries, cities and regions can earn a better and stronger reputation in the following ways:

a. through courageous and enlightened social, economic, environmental and foreign policies;b. through the dynamic development of tourism, foreign investment and exports;c. through carefully chosen international cultural, sporting and political events;d. through improved cultural and academic relations with other countries;e. through a strategic commitment to international development and poverty reduction;c. through productive engagement with multilateral institutions, regional organisations and with NGOs at home and abroad;d. through effective coordination between government, industry and civil society;e. through enhanced public and private diplomacy overseas;f. through a visionary long-term approach to innovation, investment and education.

If nation branding is a vihicle to carry a certain message, political support is fuel that runs the vihicle. Without political support, any nation branding including BNB cannot expect to have po ssitive consiquences.

Without congregational supports, countries cannot expect posstive results from BNB.

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PROJECT

Your finger can make the world a better place.

Your finger can make the world a better place.

Introducing BNB System

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BNB is designed to provide commu-nicational platform called community jamming, which means connecting a country to various groups of inter-ests so that countries can not only find economic solutions but also can achieve effective communicational path for themselves.

This diagram shows the elements of BNB system and how the elements work together. BNB is designed to solve the problems that the current nation branding has, and helps countries, especially develop-ing countries to build a strong communica-tional bond with global society at the same time to solve their social problems, such as poverty, education, disease, and so on.

BNB requires supported communi-ties characterized by people’s special interests, such as Brazilian coffee, economics of United States, culture of Japan, and so on.

Open Branding is a term derived by Open System theory, which suggests a system that continuously interacts with its environment. Applying the theory into branding, when a brand understood as a living organism, sustainable circulations of building a brand could be carried out through environmental interactions with sur-rounding societies. With the interac-tions, a brand can be modified and strengthen the value of it.

BNB requires a stimulus that initiates the brand syste. The stimulus has to be a simple act of people, such as swiping smart phone screen, clicking a logo on a website, and so on.

Stimulus

Community Jamming

Supported Community

Open Branding

The BNB System

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BNB’s unique systme helps countries to shape their nation brands through diverse communicational wyas that interact with global sosieties.

Untargeted subject represents one of the community that is not aimed to be branded. This group can be a community that is closely related to the targeted subject but also can be totally different community.

BNB is designed for countries to solve the social problems that they have, such as starvation, education, poverty, disease, drinking water, drugabuse, and so on. BNB provides community based communication platforms keeping the nation communicating with global soci-ety, which not only solves the problems but also enable people all over the world to participate in solving them.

Instead of spending money on public ads, TV campaigns, making logos, etc., BNB suggests to use money to solve the internal problems keeping the countries to communicate with global society.

Shaping Nation Brands

Untargeted Subject

Problem Solving

Fulfill Needs

Stimulus

Supported Community

Problem Solving

Community Jamming

Connectivity

BNB systme has several elements that are aimed to make the whole system systainable and maximizing communicational effectiveness. Each element is sensitive to the others.

BNB requires a stimulus that initiates the brand system works. The Stimulus has to be a simple act of people, such as swiping smart phone screen, clicking a logo on a website, and so on.

BNB requires supported communities characterized by people’s special interests, such as Brazilian coffee, economics of United States, culture of Japan, and so on. By connecting a country with communities, BNB provides the most effective communication tools as well as opportunities for new business opportunities, political activities, cultural marketing, and so on.

BNB is designed to brand a nation in a sustainable way. When a stimulus is given to the brand system, the country can spend money to solve her problems, such as poverty, education, disease, and so on.

BNB is designed to provide countries economic opportunities by providing community jamming, which means connect a country to community based corporations, so that countries can not only find economic solutions but also can achieve effective communication tools for themselves.

BNB system has provides flexible communicational opportunities by connecting communities with diverse interests. Through

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PROJECT

The Elements of BNB System

The Characteristics of BNB System

Sustainability

Efficiency

Connectivity

community jammaing, BNB connects global communities with countreis.

BNB system is designed to be sensitive to small stimulus, single activity of an individual, such as swipe a smart phone screen, clicking an icon, etc. Simplicity of the stim ulus is the most important value so that BNB not only becomes easilly accessable for people, but also maximizes the communicational effectiveness.

BNB system pursues sustainability so that a country can does not have to spend millions of dollars launching campaigns or other forms of communicational practice. Furthermore, BNB is designed for countries to solve the social problems that they have, such as starvation, education, poverty, disease, drinking water, drugabuse, and so on. BNB provides community based communication platforms keeping the nation communicating with global society, which not only solves the problems but also enable people all over the world to participate in it.

Open Branding is a term derived by Open System theory, which suggests a system that continuously interacts with its environment. According to the theory, the interaction can be any form, such as information, energy, or material transfer into or out of the system boundary. Applying the theory into branding, when a brand understood as a living organism, sustainable circulationsof building a brand value can be carried out through environmental interactions with surrounding societies. With the interactions, a brand can be modified and strengthen the value of it.

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One of the characteristics of BNB is sustainability, which emphasizes on solving internal problems of a country as well as promoting her brand values. As a result, it will provide great opportunities for design firms to do pro bono work, which can help them to establish good reputation.

Branding through Pro Bono Organizations

Another suggestion is to work with non-profit organizations, such as Unicef, American Red Cross, and so on. Since BNB is designed to solve a coutnry’s social problems, such as poverty, workding with the organizations, countries, especially developing countries, can get financial supports.

The reason recommand pro bono agensies is that BNB is designed, espcially for developing countries, not to spent money on branding process but on solving internal problems. To work with pro bono organizations can apmplify the effectiveness of BNB’s sustainable system.

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PROJECT

BNB identifier connotates four key characteristics of the system, which are ef-ficiency, connectivity and sustainability.

Project Identifier

Furthermore, another advatage BNB system can take working with pro bono organizations is having financial clarity. If BNB is solely practiced by a country, the financial clarity is somewhat hard to archieve for structral complexity. But with nonprofit organization, BNB can be done on the crystal clear financial purity, which can endow more strong foundation to BNB.

BNB Stationary

6161

http://www.bnb.org/main

BNB Project

1/4

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PROJECT

BNB also has possibility to become a non-profit organization by itself. As a nonprofit organization, BNB can expect to govern-mental supports. If BNB becomes a non-profit organization, more developing countries can take advantages from it.

BNB as NonprofitOrganization

BNB Website

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BNB + Ethiopia

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PROJECT

Unique among African countries, the ancient Ethiopian monarchy maintained its freedom from colonial rule with the exception of a short-lived Italian occupation from 1936-41. In 1974, a military junta, the Derg, deposed Emperor Haile SELASSIE (who had ruled since 1930) and established a socialist state. Torn by bloody coups, uprisings, wide-scale drought, and massive refugee problems, the regime was finally toppled in 1991 by a coalition of rebel forces, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). A constitution was adopted in 1994, and Ethiopia’s first multiparty elections were held in 1995. A border war with Eritrea late in the 1990s ended with a peace treaty in December 2000. In November 2007, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Border Commission remotely demarcated the border by geographical coordinates, but final demarcation of the boundary on the ground is currently on hold because of Ethiopian objections toan international commission’s finding requiring it to surrender territory considered sensitive to Ethiopia.

GDP: $ 86.12 billion Industry: Argriculture (mostly coffee)

Ethiopia’s poverty-stricken economy is based on agriculture, accounting for almost 45% of GDP, and 85% of total employment. The agricultural sector suffers from frequent drought and poor cultivation practices. Coffee is critical to the Ethiopian economy with exports of some $350 million in 2006, but historically low prices have seen many farmers switching to qat to sup-plement income. While GDP growth has remained high, per capita income is among the lowest in the world.

Ethiopia

All information abou Ethiopia taken from CIA, World Fact Book.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/et.html.

Ethiopian Flag

Background

Economy

Ethiopia faces many historical, cultural, social and political obstacles that have restricted progress in education for many centuries. Children in rural areas are less likely to go to school than children in urban areas. Social awareness that education is important is something that Ethiopia lacks but has improved gradually. There is a need to change the importance of education in the country’s social structure, and children should be encouraged and required to attend school and become educated.

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Poverty

Education

Statistics on Ethiopian Poverty

Table from:

http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/01259/statis-tics_on_ethiopian_pov-erty.htm

ETHIOPIA

Children under 5 moderately to severely underweight

Population using improved water for drinking

GNI per Capita in $US

Under 5 Mortal-ity Rate

Phone Sets per 100 People

Infant Mortality Rate (under 1)

47%

22%

$90

169

1

112

$37,640

8

113

7

1%

100%

U.S.A.

PROJECT

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Like other African countreis, Ethiopia seeks opportunities to promote her economy, trade, and tourism. Many books and articles have suggested that on what points Ethiopia has to emphasize on the process of branding Ethiopia. However, with the conventional methodology of nation branding, nothing will be given to Ethiopians. Ethiopia needs new branding system.

One of the problems that Ethiopia will face is the lack of finan-cial support. As the nation branding practices does not show immediate results, scholars insist that nation branding has to be done in a long-term perspective. However, for developing countries, like Ethiopia, is impossible to sustain the long-term campaigns because they have limited budget compare to developed countries.

BNB provides sustainable branding platform to Ethiopia. Ethiopia does not have to spend money on designing logos, posters, TV ads and so on, but have to spend money to solve the internal issues, such as education, starvation, disease, and so on. BNB provides a communication platform that interconnects various fields of Ethiopia with global society through various kinds of communities. During the interactions, BNB suggest Ethiopia to donate money for the problem solving, which eventually create emotional bond between Ethiopia and global society giving people opportunities participating in the process of solving the problems. This system allows Ethiopia brand themselves at the same time solve the issues.

Ethiopia’s economical infrastructure is at a narrow level mostly focusing on argriculture. In other words, Ethiopia does not have

Branding Ethiopia through BNB

Financial Problems

BNB Solution

Economic Problems

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enough ways to economically interact with global society, and it is hard for Ethiopians to initiate new industries promoting her economical attraction. One of the most important Ethiopian export items is coffee. But as the coffee farms growth in number, Ethiopia has to lower its price to win the competitions.

BNB provides economical opportunities through community jamming connecting global communities with Ethiopian economic communities. This system not only provides Ethiopia economic opportunities but also to the global society. For instance, BNB provides communication platform for coffee company of United States and Ethiopian coffee trade council. Both the coffee company and Ethiopia can take advantages from each other with any kind of trade contracts. Ethiopia can solve the internal problem as well as can have economi-cal opportunities. The coffee company can import high quality Ethiopian coffee as well as shaping sound brand reputation by allowing Ethiopia using the company’s branding platform to solve problems, such as starvation, education, and so on.

Ethiopia has serious social issues that need to be addressed. According to CIA, for decades Ethiopia becomes one of the largest market places of drugs, such as cocaine. More than 100 children die every month for starvation. The rate of unem-ployeement is rocket soaring. Insact infected diseases, such as Malaria, is still the number one cause of death of Ethiopian children and elders.

BNB is designed to maintain branding practices in a sustainable way. Every interaction initiated by BNB system directly and

BNB Solution

Social Problems

BNB Solution

PROJECT

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indirectly provides resources for Ethiopia to solve the problems as well as to shape her brand values among the global society. Furthurmore, BNB allows global society to participate in the process of solving problems so that BNB endows emotional bond between Ethiopia and gobal society.

As previous chapter explained, conventional nation branding practices have many problems that eventually weaken the com-municational capability of the practices. Applying conventional branding methods will cause the same problems through out the branding process. It will cause inconsistent management and communication, ethical problems, and so on.

BNB does not require countries to follow conventional ways of branding, which are desiging logos, poster, TV ads, and so on. BNB only requires countries to follow the two prerequisite stages that the previous chapter explained.

Conventional Problems

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BNB withSmartphone

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BNB Smartphone Application

BNB provides Ethiopiaa communication platform through smartphone application, which offers Ethiopia oppotunities directly communicating with global society.

The usage of BNB appli-cation does not limited to smartphone, but it allows people to interact with Ethiopia in their daily living.

PROJECT

Starbucks

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Simple action canhelp Ethopia.

BNB’s stimulus is a simple activity of people, such as swipe on a touch screen. BNB uses people’s motiva-tion to help others as a method leading people to participate in Ethiopian branding process.

BNB ETHIOPIA

Bnb proj.Bnb proj.

BNB provides community jamming that can be branded with Ethiopia. Users can select communities that they are interested in,

In BNB smartphon application, a single swipe of the screen makes Ethiopia donate money for solving her social issues.

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Brand Ethiopians through Unicef

1. Community Jamming 2. Stimulus

BNB system allows Ethiopia work with non-profit organizations, like Unicef, by providing interactive communica-tiona platform.

Unicef can use the platform to promote campaigns. The subject has to be simple but attractive. This page have to draw people’s attention.

BNB provides Ethiopia various community jamming. Each com-bination can convey messages or can promote specific topics such as trade, policy, ect.

3. Messages 4. Problem Solving

Communication

One of the BNB’s strongness is its communicational flexibility. This communi-cation platform provides limitless opportunities as Ethiopia works with differ-ent communities.

This page have to provides interest-ing facts about Ethiopia. It also must be simple and direct messages so that users can understand the current issues of Ethiopia.

With a single swipe, a user will receive a quick feedbask showing how his or her action actually helped Ethiopians, which creates emotional connections between Ethiopia and the user.

Whenever users swipe the touchscreen, Ethiopia donate money for solving internal problems. and BNB also allows users to share it with his or her friends or co workers.

Problem Solving

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BNB reaches out new users through various medium. BNB also provides social community within the system so that users can share what they have done with their friends.

As a user participates in the process, BNB allow him or her to share what he or she has done for ethiopians through vairous mediums, such as email, BNB network, and other social medias.

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5. Sharing 6. Reach out

BNB also provides weekly reports how the users actions have helped Ethiopians solving various social issues that they have. These reports helps BNB keep the process transparent and make BNB more compelling communicational path to Ethiopia.

7. Weekly Report 8. Calling for DonationBNB can also be a community that supports Ethiopian children. Through BNB smartphone app, people can interact with the ones that they are supporting.

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BNB provides Ethiopia and Starbucks communicational path that can pro-mote the consumption of coffee. The messages can be about facts of Ethio-pian coffee, or some interesting stories or recipes that might attract people.

BNB provides economical opportunities to Ethiopia through community jamming. By doing so, Ethiopia can have a economical communicational platform.

Brand Ethiopians with Starbucks

One of the largest Ehti-opian exports is coffee. BNB provides Ethiopia and Starbucks to pro-mote their economical opportunities as well as solving Ethiopian socia problems.

1. Community Jamming 2. Stimulus

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In this platform, this stage does not just showing users helped Ethiopians but also can make possitive influences to the brand value of Starbucks.

The anser page have to be simple, direct and informational in order to make the process simple.

3. Messages 4. Problem Solving

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The promotion has to be paid by Star-bucks. However, Starbucks can take an eco-nomical benefits from Ethiopia importing Ethiopian Coffee through contracts.

Ethiopia and Starbucks can use this plat-form to advertise their products giving promotions. This will lead more custom-ers into BNB.

5. Promotion 6. Partnership

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Economical Opportunity

BNB promote economical opportunities for both Ethiopia and Starbucks at the same time.

CommunityManagement

BNB not only provides Ethiopia economical supports but also endows Starbucks a community that specipically interested in Coffee, which allow Starbucks to use this platform for feed-backs from customers.

BNB reaches out new users through various medium. Further-more, BNB also provides social community within the system so that userse can share what they have done with their friends.

Using the BNB Community, Starbucks can expect to seek more promotional opportunities within the community to reach out more customers.

7. BNB Community 8. Reaching out

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+

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Brand Ethiopians with Fidelity Investment

BNB provides Ethiopia an communicational platform that can at-tract investmentors joining with Investment groups Fidelity,

BNB provides Ethiopia and Fidelity a communicational path that can provide latest information about Ethiopian economy and industry.

BNB provides economical opportunities to Ethiopia through community jamming. By doing so, Ethiopia can have a economical communicational platform.

1. Investment 2. Latest Information

BNB also provides a platform to show the live stock market infor-mation about stocks of diverse Ethipoian industries.

BNB offers investors credible Investment information through providing recent news collected from major mass media.

3. Credibility 4.Stock Market

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As a user participates in the process, BNB allow him or her to share what he or she has done for ethiopians through vair-ous mediums, such as email, BNB network, and other social medias.

With a single swipe, a user will receive a quick feedbask showing how his or her action actually helped Ethiopians, which creates emotional connections between Ethiopia and the user.

5. Problem Solving 6. Sharing

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BNB also provides weekly reports how the users actions have helped Ethiopians solving various social issues that they have. These reports helps BNB keep the process transparent and make BNB more compelling communicational path to Ethiopia.

BNB reaches out new users through various medium. BNB also provides social community within the system so that users can share what they have done with their friends.

7. Reaching out 8.Weekly Report

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Political Brandingwith U.S.A.

BNB provides Ethiopia a communicational platform that can share her political concerns with global society.

This platform can express political relationship between Ethiopia and U.S.A. By doing so, the reputaion of U.S.A. can make possitive influences on the reputa-tion of Ethiopia.

BNB platform also can be used as a political communication method that can communicate with golobal society shaping public oppinions on certain issues.

1. Political Jamming 2. Political Advertisement

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BNB also helps both countries to address curent political issuesbetween them and bring people into the issues.

By providing political facts between Ethiopia and U.S.A., both countries can expect to build political relationship along with shaping public awareness.

3. Political Fact 4.Political Issues

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K

Communication Platform for Political Debate

BNB not only emphasizes on how Ethiopia can brand herself, but also provides a communi-cation platform that Ethiopia can ask global opinions about current political issues.

BNB allows people to express their thoughts and to discuss about the political isses through BNB community.

BNB provides for both countries a com-munity that can share people’s thoughts about the current political issues in an easy and simple way.

5. Sharing Thoughts 6. Shapig Opinions

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BNB reaches out new users through various medium. BNB also provides social community within the system so that users can share what they have done with their friends.

As a user participates in the process, BNB allow him or her to share what he or she has done for ethiopians through vairous mediums, such as email, BNB net-work, and other social medias.

7. Sharing 8. Reaching out

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88

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BNB into Daily Life

BNB into Daily Life

9292929292929292

Reacing outthrough BNB Application

BNB can also reach out people through vari-ous interactive devices combining with differ-ent communities.

Visit www.starbucks.com/ethiopiaBNB PROJECT

BNB ETHIOPIA

BNB stmartphone application can be used at diverse cir-cumstances, such as coffee shops, restaurants,airports, parks, hotels, and so on. By using those public spaces, BNB becomes more interactive and attract more people to the process of branding Ethiopia. This chapter will show how BNB smartphone application can interact with people’s daily life.

Smartphone with BNB application provides interactiove tech-nology that can transfer infomation between smartphone and other interactive devices, such as touchscreen, in order to bring BNB branding process out into people’s daily living and to reach out more people.

Ethiopia into Daily life

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CONCLUSION

Visit www.starbucks.com/ethiopiaBNB PROJECT

BNB ETHIOPIA

Interactive MediaDisplay

BNB provides Ethiopia an interactive communica-tional platfrom through interactive media display. Through the display, peaple can continuously partici-pate BNB process in their daily life.

Interactive Media Display

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BNB ETHIOPIA

Conncet with BNBSmartphone App.

Every interaction can connect to the BNB smart-phone application and can invite more people through the system.

With this system, both Ethiopia and Starbucks can expcet economical benefits by promoting products as well as solving Ethiopian social issues. By Branding Ethiopia, the brand value of Starbucks also can be possitively reshaped as offering Ethiopia sustainable economical helps.

The connection between Interactive media display and smart-phone wil maximize its communicational effectiveness. This connection will allow Ethiopia to reach out more people for participaing in the braning process.

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3

CONCLUSION

Interative Contents

Pop Quiz

The interactive contents can be various in subjects from simple game to Ethiopian social issues.

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Smartphone Games

Starbucks.com/ethiopia

BNB ETHIOPIA

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Over two decades, nation branding has been a controversy among countries striving to achieve better global reputations so that they might win in economical, political, and culural competitions. By practicing nation branding, countries have adopted conventional branding methods, which is specifically designed for coporations, products, or services. Moreover, communication designers have also suggested that countries’ reputations can be managed in the same way of the convention branding process.

As a consequence, the effectiveness of nation branding practices has been challenges by many scholars saying that they do not have any influnces on changing people’s perception about countries. According to Simon Anholt Nation Brand Index, there have been no cases reported showing that nation branding practices changed a country’s global reputation for a decade. Because of the data, many scholars have insisted that nation branding is deceptive and encoraged countries not to follow the concept of nation branding.

The reason, however, that nation barnding is ineffective is not because communications design is wrogn but because the current nation branding practices are based on a wrong understanding about the nature of a country. Every communication designer, who has practiced nation branding, believes that conventional branding methods and strategies can also be applied to countries so that countries can manage thier reputations through designing logos, posters, TV ads, campaigns, and so on. Unfortunately, those approaches are simply wrong because the nature of a country is totally different from the one of a country.

The Future of Nation Branding

CONCLUSION

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BNB Project has defined problems that the current nation branding practices have had and has suggested more appropriate ways of branding a country. BNB understands a country as a living organism, which each element, such as economy, policy, etc., has close realtionship with each other. Based on the understanding, BNB applied the concept of Chaos theory to nation branding and designed for countries communicational platforms that allows each part of branding fields interact with each other among global society.

BNB also suggests sustainable branding system, in mind of developing countries, that does not requires countreis a huge amount of capital to sustain long-term campaigns. BNB also introduces how a branding systmen can sustainably solve a country’s social issues, such as poverty, educatiuon, and so on, while it promotes her economy, tourism, exports, and politics.

Combining BNB system with interactive devices, such as smartphone, it provides countries the most effective communi-cational platforms that help them to consistently interact with global communities of various interests. Furthermore, it connects different fields of a country through personal relationships, which create limitless communicational connections.

In short, BNB project has explored and suggested a sustainable branding system designed specifically for countries, especially developing countries, challenging communications designers to rethink about the concept of nation branding and its methodologies. BNB porject opens a door for the future of nation branding.

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Bibliography

Books

Articles

Websites

Anholt, Simon Competitive Identity: The New Brand Management for Nations, Cities and Regions. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Anholt, Simon Places: Identity, Image and Rputation. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Dinnie, Keith Nation Branding: Concepts, Issues, Practice. Taylor & Francis: Elsevier, 2007.

Govers, Robert, Place Branding: Glocal Virtual Physical Identities, Constructed Imagined and Experienced. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

True, Jacqui. Governing Globalization: Power, Authority and Global Governance. Blackwell Publishing:Polity, 2002.

Fan, Ying. (2005) “Branding the Nation:What is beign branded?” Academic Journal, Issue 12-1.

Kahn, Jeremy. (2006) “A Brand-New Approach.” Place Branding, Vol. 2, No. 2, April.

www.en.wikipedia.org

www.futurebrand.com

www.landor.com

www.nation-branding.ingo

www.simonanholt.com

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