Sep 23, 2021

A Plan to Create a Brand Culture for Portugal

Aicep Portugal Global – Trade & Investment Agency (AICEP) organised a conference dedicated to Portugal as brand with two main topics on the agenda. One was to understand how Portugal can distinguish itself in the international stage. Basically, how to brand Portugal.

The other one was the presentation of a study developed in collaboration with a large number of business leaders, academics and specialists. They gathered ideas to how to make a Marca Portugal — a Portugal Brand. AICEP will include these ideas in the decade long strategy they propose to the government.

Brand Portugal

The challenge was to work out what differentiates the country. They gathered as many ideas as possible to build Marca Portugal. One of them came from a study that focused on how foreigners think about Portugal. The result was that it’s a country that is going through a positive transformation, but there is still a lack of brand culture. Actually, this is a topic that was transversal throughout the conference.

 

Differentiating Portugal

Firstly, one idea that arose is to transform the challenges into opportunities. For example, to differentiate Portugal from southern Europe, by reinforcing its touristic attraction power. Maybe even reinforcing its association wit innovation sectors. Also, the communication of the health cluster needs to be better.

Bear in mind that brands manifest as collective attitudes. They are feelings. Therefore, a good brand strikes the balance between the intrinsic quality and the perceived quality of the subject. Accordingly, it assigns a fair value to a product or service, or, in this case, a country.

 

Visions of Portugal

Secondly, Aicep has been developing a strategic plan for Marca Portugal based on listening and idea gathering. A bottom up plan that relies in eight main ideas.
  1. The foundations of a country brand are its values.
  2. A country’s actions are what distinguishes its identity.
  3. The need of a vision. A vision that sees Portugal as a living lab for sustainability, a hub for technology and digital innovation.
  4. “Small is smart” . Meaning that Portugal needs to focus on added value rather than scale.
  5. People need to believe in the Made and Created in Portugal brand. Because to disperse is to waste.
  6. The ambition to promote Portuguese corporative brands, with awareness of all the stakeholders.
  7. An alliance of efforts, with coordination and articulation between the country brand, sectorial brand and corporation brand.
  8. Clear communication, with coherence between message and image, all based upon the principle of less is more. Likewise, a more focused, well-coordinated, digital communication.

 

Finally, this plan will be presented to the Portuguese government until the end of the year with a roadmap for its implementation. The conference is available in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAU2YNVSyBs

Tags: aicep, brand Portugal, portugalglobal, PR, public relations, Public Relations Portugal, SayU Consulting
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