Rebuilding brand Sri Lanka

Tuesday, 8 April 2014 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Last Saturday’s papers reported that foreign selling of stocks had reached four billion dollars as at last week; the take out to me was that the brand Sri Lanka was losing its shine post the UN resolution on Sri Lanka. But the good news from a brand equity point of view was Sri Lanka winning the World Cup T20 on Sunday night that got Sri Lanka featured on all TV channels that included Aljazeera, BBC and NDTV, which was positive news given that we have been associated with not-so-positive data since 28 March 2014. Elections are opinion polls Whilst the country was recovering from the Geneva debacle, Sri Lanka staged the Provincial Council elections in the western and southern regions. Whilst some criticised the yearly elections held, in my view elections are opinion polls through which the Government checks the pulse of the people towards the administration. In this perspective the loss of 17 seats by the party in power are indications that the people are not of a very favourable mindset, especially in the backdrop of the investments made in the Western and Southern Provinces by way of greater accessibility with the launch of the Highways to the south and north of Colombo and the 300 million dollar beautification program of the city. I guess it’s worth researching as to why people are not satisfied and if not what needs to be done to get the approval ratings up. On the separate note if almost 50% of the people did not vote in marketing terminology we call this 50% had not been convinced in the purchasing process to go out there and buy the brand, which is a very serious issue that must be understood and corrective action taken

Rebuild brand Sri Lanka Hence we see that Sri Lanka has a reputation challenge internally and globally, which is very sad given that we have commanded 7% plus GDP growth and some of the best brands globally, be it TGIF, GM, Subway and Hard Rock Café are some of the top brands that have entered or are planning to enter the country. The logic that nation branding cannot be done is because research indicates that using marketing messages to build a country’s image has never been done anywhere in the world. In fact, experts in this area like Simon Anholt say that no country has ever succeeded in doing it and he himself never advocates it. Anholt advocates that if a country doesn’t like its image – and most countries don’t – then the only way to change that image is through the things the country does, not by the things it says. So, whilst it is commendable that we have won the World Cup T20 tournament that was flashed across every media on Sunday night, there must be consistency across all touch points that Sri Lanka makes across the world – be it the foreign missions, trade and commerce secretariats as well as power categories like Ceylon Tea, Ceylon Cinnamon and the apparel industry of Sri Lanka. Why is reputation important? Whilst we can continue to make statements about the poor performance in Geneva and the Provincial Council elections, we must understand that influencing a country’s reputation is primarily a matter of policy, strategy, innovation and investment over a very long period and it has nothing to do with logos, slogans, advertising or PR campaigns like what we are doing currently in the United States. The best way to build a brand is by way of living promises we made and this is where Sri Lanka is challenged consecutively. This is why the term ‘branding’ is highly misleading, says Simon Anholt, although reputation is critically important to a country. Branding means wrapping an image around an entity whilst reputation is more on what you earn by the way one behaves in the market place. The logic of why a strong reputation is required is that countries with a powerful and positive image can export more products, more culture, more people and more services and attract more tourists, more investors, more immigrants and the attention and respect of other governments, just like Croatia and Estonia did after a brutal world that caught global media attention. Countries with weak or damaged images find it much harder and more expensive to achieve all of these goals.

What must Sri Lanka do? In essence what Sri Lanka needs to do is think about substance rather than spin, about real improvements rather than marketing magic. A reputation cannot be constructed; it can only be earned, says Simon Anholt. The question should never be ‘what can we say to make Sri Lanka famous?’ or ‘what can we say to make them believe we have done the right thing?’ but ‘what can we do to make Sri Lanka relevant?’ Relevance is the only issue that matters: Sri Lanka simply isn’t an important place for most people in most other countries, and until that point of relevance can be established, all of these worries and fantasies about national reputation or ‘brand’ are utterly pointless, said Anholt, from an independent nation branding principle. Literature on nation brands We need to keep in mind that in an increasingly complex and tightly-linked world, not only companies but also countries are engaged in competition at every level. As Anhholt (2002, p. 234) states “globalisation is turning the world into a gigantic supermarket” where countries compete to stimulate exports, attract tourism, foreign direct investments and immigration. Governments are turning to branding techniques to differentiate their country on the global stage in order to establish a competitive edge over rival countries in the belief that a strong country brand can contribute to the country’s sustainable development (Jaffe and Nebenzahl, 2001; Kleppe and Mossberg, 2006). Dinnie (2008) has stated that country branding is an exciting and complex but controversial phenomenon; it is exciting because there is currently little theory but a significant amount of real world activity. It is complex because it encompasses multiple levels, dimensions and disciplines beyond conventional branding. And, as a highly politicised activity that generates conflicting viewpoints and opinions, it can be controversial. A country brand can also be influenced in the short or long term by major

events. China’s country brand, for example, was deeply affected by the 1989 Tiannanmen Square event, the SARS epidemic in 2003, the 2008 earthquake and, later that year, the Olympic Games and then the milk scandal. Some studies (for example, Papadopoulos and Heslop, 2002) have investigated the influence of major events on the country image. Starting point Gould and Skinner (2006) believe that this two-dimensional model serves as an original starting point for conceptualising the branding of places. However, there are many facets to the marketing of places, and the most recent models reflect a more holistic approach. Papadopoulos and Heslop (2002) have created a more developed, multidimensional model of place branding that includes marketing the place as a tourist destination, an inward investment location and for the purpose of creating a positive image of the place’s goods and services. Anholt (2003) has developed and copyrighted his ‘hexagon’ of six areas to represent a country brand. Tourism, export brand, governance, investment and immigration, culture and heritage and people were seen as six areas of national competence that sum up to people’s perceptions of a country brand. Figure 1 illustrates the Nation Brand Hexagon by Anholt (2003). Amine and Chao (2005) believe that there are five major goals that drive place branding strategy as adopted from Anholt (2003). They are promoting tourism, exporting brands, foreign policy, attracting investment and representing culture. All these five goals form the country brand model by Amine and Chao (2005). This model is illustrated in Figure 2. What Sri Lanka must do Experts like Simon Anholt ad

vocate that the first task is to create a broad coalition of Government, business and civil society and establish a unison strategy for the country accepting that brand Sri Lanka has taken a hit in the last two weeks and needs correction. We must understand some key questions like ‘Where is Sri Lanka going?’ ‘What is its role in the community of nations?’ ‘What does Sri Lanka for?’ Contd. on p18 [The thoughts are strictly personal views. The objective of the thought was to explain how a nation can be built as a brand globally and its implications to Sri Lanka. The author is an award winning marketer and alumnus of Harvard University (Boston) and Board Director on many private and public sector organisations whilst serving the global community.] Rebuilding brand Sri Lanka The second is to take a good, critical look at all the ways in which the country engages with the international community, whether it’s in trade, foreign policy, the diaspora, cultural or diplomatic relations; and to evaluate the quality and fitness for purpose of all the systems, structures, strategies and bodies the country has for carrying out these engagements: Are they truly appropriate for the age of globalised communications and global markets? Sri Lanka must bite the bullet on the issues we are challenged with like poor implementation of law and order and freedom to do business, which are never mentioned by top corporate leaders of Sri Lanka. The third task is Sri Lanka needs to start making itself a useful advocate. Research shows that countries that are admired more than anything else if they are perceived to contribute meaningfully to the issues that everyone, everywhere is concerned about such as climate change, pandemics, terrorism, economic turmoil, species loss, human trafficking, human rights and so on. If you want people to value your country, you have to make yourself valuable is the key advice by nation brand building specialist Simon Anholt. Conclusion In conclusion, what the latest developments with Sri Lanka and outside mean is that we as a nation must address the issues that have emerged in the last two weeks and then develop a way to arrest the decline. But a key point to note is that if a country doesn’t like its image – and most countries don’t – then the only way to change that image is through the things the country does, not by the things it says. This is the biggest challenge that Sri Lanka is up against in the last 30 years.