New Government can further improve Sri Lanka’s brand: Brand Finance

Tuesday, 20 January 2015 00:56 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

In the Brand Finance Nations Brand report published in December 2014, it was concluded that whilst Sri Lanka has made major strides in going up the rankings, that good governance is at the very heart of building the base of a nations reputation, and unless the Sri Lankan Government can live by this, it is not something that should be embarked upon lightly. With the stunning election victory of President Maithripala Sirisena, on a platform of change for good governance, the potential for brand Sri Lanka to strengthen itself has grown exponentially.

Sri Lanka improved its ranking to 58th position on the Brand Finance Nation Brands Table from amongst 100 countries with a brand value of US $ 61 billion. The previous year, Sri Lanka was in the 65th position with a brand value of US $ 45 billion. The four parameters of Brand Finance’s Nation Branding matrix are Tourism, Investment, Products & Services and People (both internal and external). Governments need to analyse opportunities and set policy against these parameters in order to build its nation’s brand. To do so, nations need to quantitatively research the attitude of stakeholder groups in key international markets to understand the awareness, attitudes and preferences for doing business with the nation against these four parameters. Doing so requires nations to conduct desk research to understand market size, demand and growth trends in each sector in each key international market to create an opportunity matrix for the nation brand to define its targets. Nations then need to look internally at the strengths and weaknesses of their own sectors to prioritise which sectors should receive support against which foreign opportunities in the global opportunity matrix A clear strategy needs to be agreed across these four parameters, sectors and Government departments. And, there needs to be a review of available budgets to determine the optimal investment level and geographic/ audience/ sectoral deployment of the available budget. Finally, positioning, marketing and communication materials needs to be aligned to the opportunity matrix. According to Brand Finance Lanka’s Managing Director Ruchi Gunewardene “countries such as Sri Lanka, must embark on a marketing and brand strategy just like any big corporate brand or company to leverage itself in this globally competitive market we operate in. And what is important in the brand value measurement process is to understand the potential value uplift as opposed to the value per se. So, we need to strive towards maximising the potential we have in the various sectors of the economy” Brand Finance plc, the world’s leading brand valuation consultancy, advises strongly branded organisations on maximising their brand value through effective management of their brands and intangible assets. Founded in 1996, Brand Finance has performed thousands of branded business, brand and intangible asset valuations worth trillions of dollars. Its clients include international brand owners, tax authorities, Intellectual Property lawyers and investment banks. Brand Finance is headquartered in London and has a network of international offices in Cape Town, Amsterdam, Bangalore, and Colombo amongst others.