News/article
Country Brand, an ally to export
Gustavo Koniszczer, FutureBrand Southern Cone Managing Director, said the action helps to position a nation in the world.
Today, despite the shifting of borders it is not the same to talk about a Swiss watch or of one made in Singapore or Spain. The best watch maker in the world could be Spanish, but it should have at least a mailing address in Switzerland for greater selling power, memory and credibility. That simple and graphical example was the one that Gustavo Koniszczer stated when asked what is a “Country Brand”.
“This is what generates. It talks about what the positioning of a country is and helps to emphasize or reformulate it”, said the Managing Director for the Southern Cone of FutureBrand, the global consulting and branding strategy agency of Interpublic Group, which has among its most successful cases brands such as Telefónica, Ledesma, Banco Macro, LAN, Falabella, Conaprole, Avianca, Sony Entertainment Television and which by the end of the year will attend the launch of the brand country of Peru, having won an international tender of United Nations Program for Development to give it life.
What is the difference between a national brand and the “made in”?
They have common factors, which are the three legs that support and develop the Country Brand: tourism, exports and investments. The “made in” is the function for the promotion of exports of the Country Brand. The “made in Italy” expresses, through one of these functions –which is the export promotion– what are the features of that country brand
How much does it affect a company who wants to export, the fact that his nation has a strong and defined National Brand?
It influences a lot. If it’s a Country Brand project that is well done and seeks to generate a level of differentiation and coincidence with the country’s own proposal, it will achieve that in the minds of potential buyers, consumers or investors, it may produce positive associations in relation to the origin of the product.
How are the negative aspects of the countries managed, for example, the issue of default in the Argentine case? How does it reverse that image with investors?
First, understanding that these are realities, and not hiding them. In the development process of a country brand technical market research is involved, listening to different target markets, ideal audiences or markets to which you want to aim. In that case it is good to appeal to quantitative research in order to understand what the perception of our country is in the places we want to go.
Is it better to build a single and unique country brand or does it vary according to the market to which it aims taking into account the aspects that want to excel?
The identity proposal must be a singular one. To have different profiles for different audiences is unwieldy. What must change are certain issues of language or the protocol of behavior, but the core must be one because that’s what you’re trying to build over time to produce a differentiation.
The positioning must have four features:
- Credibility: it is measured as the distance between the current positioning and the desired one and thus the feasibility of the brand proposition.
- Relevance: it is measured by comparing the brand promise with the customer needs.
- Sustainability: it is measured taking into account future trends in the industry and checking that the brand positioning remains relevant despite the changes identified.
- Differentiation: it is measured by comparing the competitive map and being sure that the brand proposition is located in a space that is not being occupied by any other.
Does it work the same way to build a brand for a company than to give life to a Country Brand?
No, it’s not the same for several reasons. For a company – if it is a private equity firm, the one making the decisions is a manager who is talking about his own business and running his own risk. The latter, for the Country Brand, there are a series of ideas and ideals that are in the daily lives of the inhabitants of that country. You always have to be very careful, but at this point you must be careful in a special way, you have to have a much broader base with surveys and data.
What is the life of a Country Brand?
It has a lot to do with its use. It’s very expensive to change it. If there is a lot of exposure it is recommended that it is reviewed every 5 or 7 years in some cases updated.
by Florencia Carbone
LA NACION newspaper
Buenos Aires, Argentina
October 12th, 2010
