News/article
PHL needs to move on from WOW branding
Business Mirror
Businessmirror.com.ph
Dennis D Estopace – Reporter
While the Tourism Department was pilloried for its tagline fiasco, a country branding expert said going back to the old “Wow! Philippines!” may not also be such a good idea.
“I don’t think [it] is a great tagline. It falls into the category of Amazing Thailand, Incredible India and former Uniquely Singapore, but has been given far less marketing spend to build meaning into the phrase,” FutureBrand Inc. Singapore chief executive Tim Riches told the Business Mirror in an electronic mail.
Riches, who is also FutureBrand’s chief growth officer in Asia Pacific, also bared details why the Philippines plunged from overall rank of 35 to 65 in his company’s 2010 Country Brand Index.
“The headline point for (the) Philippines from this year’s study is that it suffered the largest decline of any country relative to 2009,” he said.
Riches noted that the Philippines’s rank from 110 countries was very weak in terms of heritage and culture (#101 of 110); low to moderate in terms of being good for business (#73) and in tourism (#78); weak in terms of quality of life (#90); and, low in terms of value system (#82).
To note, previous news reports on the FutureBrands CBI failed to reveal these scores.
The 2010 CBI “is an in-depth study that explores the complexity, dynamics and benefits of how nations manifest as brands,” a press statement accompanying the report said.
“The strength of a country brand is determined in the same way as any other brand –it is measured on levels of awareness, familiarity, preference, consideration, advocacy and active decisions to visit. However, the most important factors that truly differentiate a nation(‘s) brand are its associations and attributes –the qualities that people think of when they hear a Country’s name, read or see images of a location, or plan a business or leisure trip.”
According to Riches, of the total 3,400 international business and leisure travellers from 13 countries polled for the report, the Philippines is not one of the countries in which we gather data. The countries included in the poll were Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
Riches explained that the drop in the country’s ranking “is partly because the data that underpin the study were gathered at the time of the Manila bus hijacking, contributing to Philippines being ranked 103 of the 110 countries studied for safety.”
“The net effect of all this is that Philippines ranking in terms of advocacy –the preparedness to recommend to family and friends- is 90 of 110, so there is a lot of work to do.”
However, he said that “beyond that specific issue, there is widespread weakness across most dimensions of the country’s brand reputation.”
“In fact, the only moderate highlight is Value for Money, Philippines highest ranked attribute, at #31.”
When asked about the recent re-branding attempt by the Department of Tourism, with the tagline “Pilipinas, Kay Ganda,” Riches said the Philippines “is not internationally well-recognized for natural beauty in which area it ranks #78 –even if potential tourists understood what [the tagline ‘Kay Ganda’] meant.”
“This highlights a classic branding challenge between internal expectations (who you’re trying to please) and credible external appeal (who you’re trying to attract). Along these lines, it’s also easy to fall into generic traps like ‘our greatest strength is our people,’ which always plays well domestically, but must translate into a relevant benefit that drives demand.”
However, Riches doesn’t see going back to the “Wow! Philippines!” as a solution to this.
“While it expresses something of the Filipino personality, I don’t think they say anything in particular, and I’d suggest that with advocacy ranking at 90, and user generated content –which is of course a form of advocacy– these days more credible to define whether a country has the ‘Wow’ factor, I think it’s time to move on from that tagline.”
Riches said that in the long term, the Philippines must nurture “an industry in which distinctive, appealing destinations can thrive, with product innovation and investment from local and international operators must be aligned to communications efforts.”
“While closing the negative perception and reality gap should be a priority, long term appeal for the country can only be based on a great product,” he added.
However, in his opinion, the “Philippines will only fall further behind regional up and comers like Vietnam and Indonesia, and more firmly established country marketers like Malaysia and Thailand” if the country remains lacking “a coordinated approach.”
“Country Brand Index shows that the region as a whole contains many emerging powerful country brands, so the competitive pressure will only get more intense in future.”
According to FutureBrands, it calculated the overall country brand score using its hierarchical decision model, which measures overall country brand performance in the following areas: awareness; familiarity; associations; preference; consideration; decision / visitation; and, advocacy.
It said the company also looked at the measured perceptions of five key association dimensions, namely: tourism; heritage and culture; good for business; quality of life; and, value system.
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