Nation-brands of the twenty-firstcentury Simon Anholt WorldWriters, 162-170 Wardour Address: Street,LondonWlV 3AT. Tel: +44 171 287 4877; Fax: +44 171 287 6159; E-mail:
[email protected]
Received(in revisedform):21st May, 1998
Simon Anholt read Modern Languages at Oxford, and worked as copywriter and international co-ordinator at McCann-Erickson and various other agencies around the world before founding World Writers in 1989. World Writers is the world's only global creative audit, brand naming, multicultural brand thinktank, foreign copywriting hnd creative consultancy service. lts many cfients include Microsoft, Nike, Coca-Cola, American Express, Sony, lBM, Adidas, Visa, Shell, Levi's, British Airways, Nestl6, HdagenDazs, Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, P&G, Unilever, Mercedes-Benz and Benetton.
marketssuch as Brazil, in preferenceto 'frstworld' nationslike USA. The paper arguesthat exporting brands, as distinctfrom commodities,is part of a packageof development which, together, ean signifcantly accelerate the processoJ emergence from the third world. It alsoproposesthat countrieslike Brazil hauea real ehanceto join the frst world 'club' of global brandproducersin the twenty-frst century.
THE IMPORTANCE OF PROVENANCE AS A BRANDATTRIBUTE
Few things in marketing are harder to define than the personality of a brand, and seldom Throughoutthe twentiethcentuq!,nrostof the reis this task more complex than when the ally successJul international brands haue come brand is sold in many different countries. A brandsin their brand is always a complex rnixture of attribfrom countriesthat are successJul ou,night, and substantialtransferof imageryand utes: packaging and visual identity form its brandequity can often be seento oecurbetween face, and advertising createsits voice: but its lhc two. actual personality really only exists in the This paperproposesthat a numberof 'amerg- mind of the consumer. ing' markets,and especiallyBrazil, hauethepoOne attribute which is often of fundatentialto produceglobal brands, the mental importance in the complex makeup for following reasoils: of international brands is the influence rvhich the brandt provenance- or its per- because thereis alreadyhigh recognitionof the ceived provenance - has on the consumer's brand-printof the countryitselJ uhich will perception of the brand. eonsequently sllpport the 'rightness'and acA quick poll of successfulinternational ceptabilityoJ relevantcommenialbrands consunrer brands revealsthat the vast majorfront thatcountry; ity of them come frorn countries rvhich - because the economicenuironmentis increas- have a strong and consistent international inglyJauouringan export rnentality 'brand image' of their orvn. In lnany cases, ; - because certaingrotrysoJ consumers in other the inragery used by the cornmercial brands enrergingmarketsntight eventually is closely linked rvith the attributes of therr fauour brands frim emergingor 'recently-enrerged' provenance.
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ThcJoumrl ofBrand IUanxgcmcnt Vol 5 No 6 1998, pp 395-406 O Hrnn Stervan Publicarions, 1350-231X
At i ts s i m p l e s t l e v e l , th i s associ ati onbetween commercial and national brand is rnerely a caseof positiueassocialions wit]t national produce:a country is famous for producing certain items, and brands in related product categoriesprofit by association.Italy is famous for producing pasta and pizza, so Italian pasta and pizza brands enjoy more irnnrediate and positive associations than n o n -l ta l i a n b ra n d s ; th e French are renowned for their skill in perfumery, so it is natural that French perfume brands play on their French heritage; the best whisky traditionally conles from Scotland, so stressing the Scottishnessof whisky brands is almost mandatory.
PLAYINGWITHPROVENANCE At a more sophisticated level, manufacturers of products that are not traditional national products can make highly positive and valuable associationswith perceived qualities in their national brand, in a precisely analogous way to the practice of brand extensions, where the owner of an establishedbrand can use that equity to leverage acceptance of a new product or sub-brand. For example, Japan is associatedin the minds of Europeans with high-stressurban existence, but also with ancient wisdom and mystic healing powers: so marketing K3, a soft drink associated with stressrelief, to ABC1 urbanites in Britain, is a highly intelligent 'brand extension', drawing on and extending existing perceptions of brand Japan. These associationsof qualiry or appropriatenessare powerful enough attributes to make it worthwhile for a manufacturer to claim a fictitious provenance if it appears to lend more credibility than their real provenance. It is, in effect, a shortcut to well-established brand values for emerging brands: by attaching the emerging brand to an area of establishedcultural reference within the consumert experience,it can quickly obtain a halo of recognition, maturity and respect.
These ' cuckoo brands' , as the aut hor of this paper calls them, which borrow brand equiry from more establishedcultural icons, are surprisingly common and have been around for many years, as Wally Olins observedin a recent seminar.l The Italian confectioner, Perfetti, for example, owns a successful chewing-gum brand cal l ed ' B rookl yn' , a product which bears an image of the Brooklyn Bridge on its packaging, and is manufactured in Tirrin. This bogus provenance no doubt made perfect sensewhen the brand was launched chewing-gum was an US import, and its novelty and glamour derived principally from its provenance. Even today, many Italians still refer to chewing-gurr' gomma ^s americanaor even in sorne dialects as gingomma, a corruption of the English word. In such a cultural climate. a domestic brand would clearly have taken many more years to attain any kind of recognition or brand share. Likewise, Dixon's, the UK white goods retailer, launched its own consumer electronics brand in 1982 under the mockJapanese name Saisho, because it rightly believed that a British electronics brand would carry little credibiliry. By a similar set of associations,it has been suggestedthat the US laser/fax supplies and photofinishing company, Nashua, has prospered abroad partly as a result of the mistaken belief that it is a Japanesecompany (Nashua is, in fact, the name of the New Hampshire town in which the company is located, and the word is, I guess,Algonquin, notJapanese). The provenance ofcertain brands can also switch with a change of brand owner: characters like Winnie-the-Pooh, Mary Poppins and Alice in Wonderland, once perceived as being quintessentiallyBritish, are now perceived by children around the world as being quintessentially American; likewise, through the power of Walt Disney's branding, Quasimodo, Anastasia, Snow White and Hercules are no longer French, Russian,
German or Greek, but all come from the same global-American culture stable as Mi ck ey M ous e an d D o n a l d D u c k . T h i s phenomenon is the converse of the cuckoo brand effect: here, the cuckoo steals eggs from other birds' nestsand hacchesthem in lts Own. Indeed, if a c ou n try b e g i n s to p ro d u c e and market enough powerful brands in a product category that was previously associated with another nation, the perceived provenance of the entire category is liable to switch: for example, outside Europe, pizza is now generally associated with the USA, simply because so nlany of the global pizza brands are known to be American, even though pizza was a national product of ltaly. Interestingly, this processhas not occurred wich pasta, perhaps because dry packaged goods have been in commerce, and hence branded for very much longer. Consequently, Italian brands had time to become establishedlong before the product became adopted as a 'world food'. Branded pizzahas really only existed for as long as people have had freezers, and most of the 'Iralian' pizza brands on the market are cuckoo brands. claiming phoney Italian provenance.
EXPECTATIONS OF PROVENANCE There are, in reality, two kinds of brands at work here: private domain brands and public domain brands. Private domain brands are owned by conrpanies; public domain brands are items of popular or traditional culture which, at least in the strict commercial sense,are nobody's property. They incl u d e c ount r ies , c i ti e s a n d re g i o n s , ra c e s , demographic groups, even individual people. It is a measure of the power and value of thesepublic brands that iheir 'owners' or guardians sometimes attempt to exert the samekind of restrictionson their use as the owners of commercial brands: the Italian regton of Tuscany,for example, after decades of unwittingly lending its visual identiry (cy-
presstrees, rvinding roads, red-ochre villas) to add glamour by associationto autolnobile rnanuFacturers, is now attempting to protect itself by copyright law againstunauthorised use.The trusteesof P ri ncessD i ana' s estate are attempting a similar exercise,in order to prevent the unwanted association of brand Diana with a whole host of newspapers,gift crockery and charities. Since association with a powerful brand effectively borrows equiry from that brand and thus enables the marketer to increase margin on the sale, it is indeed a kind of theft. Certain products tend to use provenance within their brand character rnore overtlx than others. Fashion labels and cars, for example, are very often provenance-linked; perhaps because the concept of nati onal dresshas all but disappeared,the provenance of one's clothes assurnes a significance which, at times, threatens to eclipse the power of the label itself. It is alrnost as important for a suit or a pair of shoes to corne from Italy as it is for them to be made by Arrnani or Ferragamo. Style is expected from Italian clothes, chic frorn French clothes, bold anti-fashion statements from British clothes, street credibiliry from American clothes, and the expectancy of weatherproofness from Gernran or Scandinavian clothes is so powerful that the ManchesterbasedBerghalrs colnpany saw fit to adopt an ersatzGennan name for their brand. Indeed, the link between certain brands and thei r country of ori gi n can become so powerful, through consistent and high-profile marketing, that it is difficult to decide rvhether the perception of a particular quality derives rnore from the brand or from its provenance: in other rvords, brands can create or enhance the perception of a country as much as the reverse. Arguably, the effect of technology-led international advertising carnpaignson the part of Mercedes, BMW Audi and Volkswagen over the decades is now a significant part of the reason rvhy people associateGerrnany with technologi-
TneLe 1 Txe TNFLUENcE oF rrALrANrNTHEcAR rNDUsrRy Manufacturer
Country of origin
Name
Italian rneaning
Datsun Nissan Nissan Mazda Mitsubishi Daihatsu Suzuki Suzuki Hyundai Daewoo Ford Chrysler Volkswagen Volkswagen Volkswagen Volkswagen Volkswagen Mercedes Porsche Porsche Opel Aston Martin Renault
Japan Japan Japan Japan Japan Japan Japan Japan Korea Korea USA USA Germany German Gerrnany Germany Germany Gennany Germany Germany Germany UK France
Stanza Serena Figaro Piazza Carisma Cuore Alto Baleno Sonata Leganza Mondeo Pronto Palio Vento Lupo Corrado Scirocco Vito Targa Carrera Corsa Volante Laguna
Room (in a house) Serene Opera title Square(in a torvn) Charisma Heart High Lightning Ringing (Eleganza)Elegance (Mondo)'World Ready (or Spanish:soon) Contest, Siennesefestival Wind Wolf Conrad (man'sname) Sirocco (wind) Man's name Plate (nameof motor race) Name of race-track Race Steering wheel Lagoon
cal excellence: the belief that Italians are stylish and romantic is perpetuated in the way that Italian cars and other products are marketed around the world (and not always by Italian companies): in effect, brand owners are helping to perpetuate or create global cultural myths in their own right. C o n s e q u e n tl y , c o n s umers around the w o rl d c o n ti n u e to e x p ect engi neeri ng excellence from German cars, safety and ecology from Swedish cars, chic design from French cars, wood and leather from British cars, economy and efficiency from Japanesecars: but the almost universal habit o f c o i n i n g Ita l i a n a n d Ital i anate names for cars, irrespective of their real provenance, i n d i c a te s th a t a me a s u re of sporty styl e or panache is considered an indispensablein-
gredi ent i n the brand mi x of any car ; t he habit appeared to take root in this country i n the 1960s and 1970s w i th the Aust in Maestro (master), Austin Allegro (merry), the Ford Capri and Ford Cortina, but has since become a truly global trend (see Table 1). It was recently reported that as many as 50 per cent of all new brands in Japan are now named after Italian towns and rivers, although this has probably more to do with the glamour of European-sounding names, the fact that Italian words are not too hard for Japaneseconsumers to pronounce (like Japanesewords, Italian words almost invariably end with vowels) and the musical sound ofthe language, rather than any strict association with Italian brand values.
I
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But, despite the evident attractivenessof Italian attributes, and, indeed, the disproportionately large number of global brands which come from Italy, it cannot begin to challenge the dominance of brand America.
BRANDSFROMAMERICA More than any other country, America appears to be blessed with a huge range of positive brand attributes: one only has to observe its more successfulexport brands to see the expressivepower of these attributes. America is associated with the definitive youth lifestyle (Coca-Cola, Pepsi, MTV Levi's, Wrangler); with sporting prowess (Nike, O'Neill, Rockport, Reebok, NBA, Timberland, Nautilus), with technological supremacy (lBM, Compaq, Dell, HewlettPackard,AT&T Motorola, Intel, Microsoft); America is well-travelled (BoeinB, Hertz, Marriott, Avis, NASA, Holiday Inn, Shera(CNN, ton); well-informed Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, NBC, Il.euters); and, naturally, wealthy and powerful (American Express, Forbes, Citibank, Diner's Club, Western lJnion). Coming from America even lends authoriry in areas that were once considered quintessentially European, such as fashion (Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, The Gap), beauty (Elizabeth Arden, Revlon, Max Factor) and even food, albeit of the convenience variety (McDonalds, PizzaHut, KFC, Thco Bell etc). These and many other attributes make America. without doubt. the worldt most powerful public domain brand. This may be merely one of the privileges of being a powerful and productive nation, but it is undoubtedly also the result of the fact that American has branded itself so conpetently as a country. Brand America enjoys the servtces of the rvorldt best advertising agency - Hollywood - rvhich for nearly a century has been pumping our two-and-a-halfhour cinema which commercials.
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consurners around the world have enthusiastically paid to watch. Brand America also employs such high-powered salespromotion agenciesas NASA, which periodically launches a rocket into space, in order to communicate the superiority of American technology and industry. Consequently, American brands can simply hitch themselves onto this powerful national brand. and a cultural and commercial trail is instantly blazed for then around the world. Little wonder that so many brands from other countries are keen to borrow American attributes. There are only a limited nurnber of other countries and regions in the world with clear, consistent, and universally understood brand prints, of which a large proportion are European (England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland). Naturally, they are best understood by their near neighbours, but just like successfulprivate-domain brands, the key attributes of these brands are known by consumers more or less throughout the world. Whether one asks the question in Australia, China or C hi l e, the sarne basi c associ ati onsexi st: Switzerland and wealth, Italy and style, Scandinavia and cleanliness, England and tradition. It is equally clear that other countries are not brands, and have decidedly few internationally-understood attributes beyond their immediate neighbourhood: ask a Mexican, an American or a Sri Lankan what qualities they associatewith Belgium, or Portugal, or Liberia, or Greenland, and their answer will be neither long nor fluent.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SWISSNESS Switzerland is in many respectsthe classic wel l -establ i shed E uropean brand, and i t seems that no matter rvhom one asks around the rvorld, the same set of Swiss attributes always comes up. These attributes can be expressed in many different ways,
Taele 2 Txe Swrss: AccoRDrNG To MYTH (1)
Srvitzerlandis boring. The Srvissare never lively or exuberant.
()\
The Swissare methodical. They are never in a hurry.
11\
Switzerland is rich. There is no poverry in Switzerland.
(4)
Switzerlandis efiicient. Everything in Srvitzerlandruns like clockwork.
(s)
The Swissare diplomatic. They play a key role in international affairsbecause they are alwaysneutral.
(6)
The Swissare secretive.Swissbanks are legendaryfor their discretion.
(7)
Switzerland is conservative.The Swissare verv attachedto traditional values.
(8)
The Swissare internationalists.They all speakmany languages.
(e)
The Swissare dependable.They are solid and trustworthy.
(10)
The Swissare arrogant.They think that all thesequalitiesmake them superior to other nations.
ranging from the insulting to the adulatory, but the basic ideas are always remarkably similar. As might be expected, they are neither particularly profound nor necessarily accurate, and are commonplaces or clich6s rather than observations based on understanding or familiarity. The principal Swiss myths, as expressed by small groups of mixed age and mixed inc o m e g ro u p re s p o n d e n tsi n vari ous countries, appear to be those listed in Thble 2. As is often the case in international relations, familiarity breeds contempt: the nearer people are, physically, to Switzerland, the more likely these myths are to be expressedin cynical or chauvinistic ways. People often argue with their neighbours over the garden fence. The French, Germans, Austrians and ltalians seem most likely to turn these 'brand attributes' into insults, but moving further
and further away, it is found that although they change remarkably litde in substance, they are expressed in more and more re' spectful ways. Once in North America Switzerland seemsto embody a very full sei of virtues; in Asia, the Swiss 'brand' appears to be fainter with distance. but the kev values are still there. It is most striking how central the image of the impenetrable Swiss bank is to most peoplet view of Swissness:it appearsto be as durable and widespread an icon as cuckoo clocks, yodelling and fondue, and is perceived as being the principal 'national produce'of Switzerland. Switzerland, of all the European countries, certainly enjoys one of the clearestimages in other parts of the world, and in the context of selling financial services, certainly the most appropriate, as the following informal survey suggestS.
cHARAcrERrslcs Tnele 3 AH rnronMAL suRvEy oF pERcErvEDNATToNAL 60 ABC1 respondents,aged25-39,10 each fror.nHong Kong, Colombo, London, Copenhagen, Sio Paulo andBoston rvere each e-mailed a list of 14 possiblenational characteristics*and asked to match two of them to each of a list of 12 countnes. Very mixed resultsor a preponderanceof 'Don't Knows' are marked as 'I.Jnclear'in the table; the listed are those which were selectedby at least30% of the total group, and are in characteristics order ofpreference:
"Ar.ogrn..,
France
(Unclear)
Germany
Arrogance,order
Sweden
Efficiency,moderniry
Britain
Arrogance, tradition
BraztI
Sryle,squalor
Italy
Style, laziness
Spain
Inefficiency, laziness
Switzeiland
Wealth, orilet
Belgium
(Unclear)
Netherlands**
Moderniry arrogance
Portugal
Poverry backwardness
Denmark
Cleanliness,moderniry
humiliry, efficiency, inefiiciency, er.rergy,laziness,wealth, povercy, cleanliness,squalor, order,
Inoderniry, tradition, sryle. t* Perhaps predictably, clear results were only obtainable for the Netherlands rvhen it was (incorrectly) referred to as 'Holland'.
It sbould be srressedthat Table 3 is a highly unscientific and informal survey, and it is debatablervherher rhere is any point in doing it more thoroughly, bur it does tend to confirm the feeling that if any one country has a clear head start rvhen it comes to
credentials for banking services,that country is Switzerland. Clearly, horvever, there is no great chalIenge in developing 'national produce' brands - such as Swiss financial services companies into international brands
since the correct brand associationsare already in place. Predictably, most of the international brands from Srvitzerland come under the category of national produce (chocolate,banking and rvatches),but there a re i n d i c a ti o n s th a t e xtensi ons to the national brand are beginning to develop through the activities of S'uvatch. Swatch, as a basic watch brand, is not really a country-brand exercise at all, just an update of the national-produce paradigm 'lvatches come frorn Switzerland': but the company does appear to be starting to blaze a trail for a genuine development of Swissness, through brand extensions such as pagers or the Swatch/Mercedes-Benz 'Smart Car' concept, as well as the global acceptance of Swatch as a credible youth brand con:ring from Switzerland. A vista of possible Swiss brand extensions opens up, ranging from Swatch-branded snowboarding equipment to Swiss Army-branded worldwide adventure holidays. The branding equation runs something like this: Switzerland : watches -Swatch : Swiss watch -Swatch : youth brand ->Switzerland = youth brand.
BRANDSFROMBRAZIL By contrast to Switzerland and its various successfulinternational brands, Brazil, one of the most 'strongly branded' countries in the world, produces no international commercial brands whatsoever. This is surprising, not least because the brand print of Brazil is unusually compact: it is associated with a fairly homogeneous and coherent set of values. Brand Brazil is strongly biased towards youth markets: samba, carnival, music, dancing, gaie\, ecology, sex, beaches, sport and adventure could be the brand print of almost any successfulyouth product on the market todav.
Certainly, these clich6s may be depressing, even insulting, to the averageBrazilian, but they are undeniably a fine platform on which to build a believable global brand. It is one of the tasksof advertising and marketing to manipulate these clich6s into something more creative, more substantial, more fair, nore true. The fact that there are negati ve associations - pollution, overpopulation, poverfy, drugs, lawlessness- rvithin the brand print of Brazil is not necessarilya causefor great concern, at least from the branding point of view. After all, a strong brand is a rich brand ,as the writer of this paper has observed in a previous issue of this journal.2, and richness implies a complex and satisfying rnix of many different elements. The brand equiry of the USA would appear to contain a significant proportion of negative elements. but this does little to diminish its attraction: especially when one is dealing with younger consumers, the suggestion of risk is highly attractive. These are consumers, after all, who wish to challenge and be challenged. Certainly, there are good reasons why so few Brazilian brands have 'u'entured onto the world marketplace. lJntil recently, economic problems have meant that merely surviving in the domestic market has been the main concern. Now, the environment is changing, and the Brazilian government is actively encouraging an export mentality in its industries. The global surge in interest in ecology also presents a major opportunity for Brazil at this moment. Brazil, becauseof its 'natural' image, and w-orldwide awarenessof the importance of the Amazon rainforest to global ecology, combined with the rvorld ecology summit being held in Rio de Janeiro, has begun to push Brazil into the ecological limelight. Brazil is u'idely perceived as being a natural ecological centre for planet earth: expressionslike 'the lungs of the planet' are commonly used around the world when speaking of the Amazon.
Combine this r'vith the fact that young consumers everywhere are ever more attracted by products with a 'green' story, and a picture begins to emerge of a growing opportunity for a wide range of Brazrlian brands - especially in the food, cosmetics, fashion, music. and even automotive and industrial fields. The growing acceptance of 'Brazilianstyle' attributes within establishedinternational brands appearsto confirm the point: guarani has all but replacedjojoba and ginseng as a 'must-have' ingredient in ecologyo ri e n t ed f ood and c o s m e ti c s , a n d o th e r Rrazllian themes and ingredients feature in the Body Shop's current range, in Ben & Jerry's ice creams,even in video games. It appears, however, that many younger consumers around the world are still unclear about the exact role of the Brazilian government and population when it comes to apportioning blame for the deforestation and pollution which goes on in their country: are they the perpetrators, or are they are simply the exploited victims of first-world greed? This uncertainry spells out an additional opportuniry for Brazil's international public irnage - perhaps the most urgent one of all. The global brand-owners club is an exclusive one, and membership is neither free nor automatic for any country. Quite aside from the major investment which individual companiesneed to make in creating, distributing and marketing international brands, the country itself needs to make an investment in its image as an acceptableproducer of ecologically-themed brands. There can be little doubt that Brazil norv L^ nasa hne opportuniry to buy iself a place in th e hear t s and m in d s o f th e rv o rl d ' s c o n sulners- and mosr especiallythe all-powerful younger consumers simply by taking a visible and effective srance on these pressingecological issues.Ifsuch a gesture was major, real, and lasting (young consumerscannot easily be fooled by dogma or
rhetoric), and properly managed in PR terms, it could pave the way for a real renaissanceof Brazil itself and Brazilian brands around the world. Currently, almost all of Brazilt export income derives frorn the sale of raw commodities (such as soya beans, tobacco, iron ore and coffee), semi-processedgoods (such as cellulose, steel, soya oil and sugar) and largely unbranded manufactured goods (such as shoes, orange juice, sheet steel and automobile tyres); and many of these exports contribute directly or indirectly to the depletion of the country's natural resources. There is no question that if these bulk exports were to be enhanced or, indeed, replaced by the sale ofbranded goods directly to overseasconsumers, profits would rise dramatically, and the level of profit generated by the successof these brands might soon overtake the income created by the export of commodities. After all, much of the real wealth of 'first-world' nations comes not from the sale of their natural resources (many first-world countries have precious few to export), but from the export of manufactured items developed into brands by the added value of intelligent marketing. An economy which depends on income generated by bulk export is caught in the classic third-world poverty trap, and learning to develop successful domestic brands into global brands is certainly one way out of it.
BRANDEXPORTAS A STRATEGY FOREMERGING ECONOMIES One of the great advantagesof brands over commodities is that they are an infinitely sustainableresource (as long as their equity is maintained through careful marketing), becausethey are made of air, and are thus, at Ieast in theory, the ultimate ecological export. Clearly, the notion of exporting brands rather than produce is a compelling one for manv countries other than Brazil. Almost
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any 'energing' nation could benefit from a movement torvards global brand export, and ultimately escape from the third-world poverry cycle in this rvay. Not all emerging countries have Brazil's natural advantages:a strong nation-brand, cornbined with an increasingly healthy economy, a government which actively encouragesthe export rnentaliry not to mention considerable domestic experience in brand-building. After all, even though it only emerged from military rule and hyperinflation a few short years ago, Brazil has a democratic tradition, and this has enabled the creation of many highly successful entrepreneurs, domestic conrpanies and domestic brands (not to mention one of the best advertising industries in the world). Even so, without stretching the imagination too far, one can see how the principle could apply in the case of other countries: Russia, China, India, and many African countries have the potential to build srrong brand associations,as they are richly embedded in global culture and history. David Tang, owner of the Hong Kong department store Shanghai Tang, has recently opened a branch in New York, and is quoted as saying, 'I've always wanted to create a Chinese brand. In Hong Kong our shopping malls are overrun with rnore and more 'Western brands, yet no-one else has applied their minds to evolve the Chinese style'. Perhaps some smaller countries could, with care. be built into valuable 'niche b ra n d s ' S ri L a n k a, P eru, V i etnam, Poland, Tibet - the list is a long one, and matching potential private-domain brands to these public-domain brands is a fascinating and thought-provoking exercise. The key is simply to be relevant yet imaginatiue, becausea too literal-minded approach to the problem will merely result in endlessvariations on the theme of national produce. In today's global village, where geography colrnts for so little, countries become like factories, competing for the same broad
groups of consumers. Naturally, each factory becomes associatedwith certain strengths and attributes: in the same way that consumers would probably not buy Toshiba shampoo or Mercedes soup, they are unIikely to rush out and buy Dutch perfunre or a Brazilian CD player. But Brazil might be the perfect provenance for surf gear or football boots or cocktails, and a stylish Russian raincoat, upmarket Chinese stationery or Indian accountancy software might one day seem as natural and appropriate as a Korean television or a Malaysian car do today and both of these seemed strange enough twenry years ago.
GLOBALBRANDSAND THE CHANGINGCONSUMEF During the long years of the American and European domination of global brands, consumers around the world have become rapidly more discerning, more sophisticated in their tastes, wealthier, better informed and generally exercise more power than ever before over manufactLrrers.By and large, these brands have not been marketed with any great degree of sensitivity to local cultural conditions - in the recent past, their superior qualiry and glarnorous provenance have been sufficient to ensure their instant acceptance over poor-quality domestic equivalents. But those domestic brands which have survived have done so by quickly learning to cornpete on price, qualiry and sophistication of marketing, packaging and presentation. Consequently, the playing-field is becoming gradually more and more level. It seemslikely then that consumers, especially in poorer countries, will begin to look for a more sophisticated combination of import-style quality and domestic-style relevance in their imported brands. In some of the emerging markets of Europe, for example, there is already evidence of a consumer backlash against the insufficiently sensitive
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marketing techniques practised by some foreign brand-owners: the sight of the Latvian Minister for Culture symbolically tearing up a package offoreign coffee on the national television news (because of the 'cultural vandalisri' performed on the Latvian language by the unhappy company's advertising carnpaign)is one of many such indicators. It may well turn out that Brazilian and other third world brands have a distinct advantage over American and European brands when it comes to making friends among consumers in some of the worldt key growth markets - Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and one day Central Asia and South Asia because of their humbler provenance and because of their status as non-imperialist, non-colonial power. These are 'colleague countries', which may well find that their provenance is not merely an important characteristic of their brand personality, but a fundamental preliminary to consumer acceptance.
BRANDBRITAIN:NO EXCEPTIONTO THERULE There is no question that the longer-established nation brands will need to modernise themselvesto match the new order, and it is no accident that the UK's new government often speaks of the need to 'rebrand Britain'. The associationsof Brand Britain are by no means entirely negative, but since they appear to be intimately and ahnost exclusively associatedrvith the country's past, they are decidedly limiting for British brands which wish to be perceived as nrould-breaking, forward-looking, technologically comperenr. This is at least part of the reason why both Brirish Ainvays and the British Tourist Authority (BTA) have recently replaced the national flag with logos of their to the disgust of many. However, the good intention must be married to actual knowledge and understanding of the cultures to which the nerv
face is to be presented: in branding terms, the consurner mllst be understood before considering how to rebrand. There is nothing wrong with the new logo chosen for the BTA - except, of course, that it is based on the word Britain, spelt out in Roman letters, which, of course, is a meaningless squiggle to the vast majoriry of visitors from countries who do not use the same writing system as ns. It would be precisely the same thing if the JapaneseTourist Authority decided to rebrand itselfas
E - hardly the action of a deterrnined multinationalist. The need to present B ri tai n as bei ng more European, more global, is certainly a primary need. There is undoubtedly a lingering acceptanceof the British as internationalists, but it can only derive from our l ong hi story of determi ned, i f not brutacolonisation of large portions of the globe. What is now necessaryis for that internationalness to be underpinned by a more modern value-set: wisdom, open-mindedness,cultural sensitivity, and willingness to listen and to learn from other coutrtries. Indeed, what appears to many to be a mere production detail - speaking other languages- may well prove to be a fundamental first stage in the rebranding of Britain. One of the aspectswhich best characterised our aggressiveinternationalism in past centuries was our refusalor inabiliry to
speak other people's languages, which is why Tony Blair's recent address to the French Chamber of Deputies in French was received with far more delight and surprise than his moderate A-level French would lead one to expect: he sau'the need to make the effort. The writer has commented elsewhereon the remarkable fact that 'ethnic' marketing has never been seriously practised in the uK, despite the evidence of decadesof experience in the USA and Australia to prove that it contributes significantly to brand loyalry and despite the fact that a good ten per cent of the UK population does not speak English as its first language: this is further evidence of the lack of importance which the British, as a nation, have tended to place on language as a culturally significant tool and behavioural motivator. The immense good fortune of having a global lingua franca as our native language can make the British dangerously indolent. Of course, many people around the world speak English, but when trying to interest them in products, the key issue is hardly whether they can understand what the British are saying or not. The more important question is: should they be making the effort to understand the British, or should the British making the effort to make themselvesunderstood by other nationalities? As with any brand print, the solution will never be simple or pure. Successfulbrands, especially successfulinternational brands, are often characterised by their richness and complexiry and provenance, just like any other brand characteristic, can exist in degrees, and can appear to be multiple. British
Airways noted that Britishness is a valuable attribute for certainaspects of an airline brand - those parts connected with seryice and reliability - but an airline needs many more attributes for which Britishness can never be adequate shorthand. Retaining the rvord British in the brand name is enough; for the rest, airlines need to be global travel brands rather than national carriers, so the graphic elements celebrate the company's multicultural rather than monocultural aspects.In other words, the brand becomes the best kind ofBritish: a Briton who has travelled. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the global brands of the twenry-first century need to acquire a new talent: sensitivity to culture. For decades,high product quality, competitive pricing, a glamorous provenance and effective distribution have been sufficient to ensure international marketing success- but this is export marketing, not global brand-building. More than ever before, brand management must be informed by deep understanding of the culture of the marketplace as much as by understanding of the culture of the brand itsele and success will be determined by the abiliry to exploit, skilfuIly and intelligently, such complex cultural mysteries as provenance in the service of brand imase.
RereneHces (1) (1997)D&AD CourseTutors' Seminar,London, September. (2) Anholt, Simon (1996)'Makinga Travel', TheJournaloJBrand Management, Volume 3, Number 6, pp. 357-364.
