Nation Branding was the main topic of the conference organized by aicep Portugal Global.
Trade & Investment Agency (AICEP) was all about Portugal as brand. One of the key takeaways was that countries need a positive a powerful image, and governments are custodians of this image.
Nation Branding builds a country’s image. It is a mixture of marketing and communications to promote tourism, investment, and trade. The main driving forces behind a country’s change are: landscape/culture; technological advances; hard power (population, land, etc.) and contribution to the international community.
Understanding International Trends
This latter aspect is one of the defining trends of nation branding. Firstly, what is important is not what a country says, but what it does. Secondly, we should ask ourselves, what is the contribution of the country to the world, how it benefits other countries. The achieve any goals in this regard, efforts and communication has to be persistent and sustained.
Finally let us not forget many many challenges that define our age. We live in world where a single country cannot fix major issues alone. Portugal should ask itself as country what it wants to be and what the international community should be.
Never before have been so many challenges, and options. There is a need for harmonization of policies and projects, with competition, and collaboration, between countries at the same time. And underlaying is the fact that the gold standard for global government is a global one.
Patience is Key
Another decisive point is that doing the projects that are in tune with the strategy requires patient. In branding, there is no correlation between the money spent and the perception of a country. Portugal needs encourage and stimulate national brand promotion. In order to have corporations integrate a nation branding practices into their operations. They should be ambassadors of their home country.