Identity and Country Branding

Our last class was about International Public relations and we also discussed country branding. After a couple of days thinking on this issue I came up reading a book written by Mark Rowden entitled “Identity”. I found it very interesting when the book came to analyse how important identity is in order to build up a positive reputation for a certain brand. In this case, the brand would be a country, and I’ve been thinking about my own country “Spain”, and I came up with the idea that without exposing our identity to the rest of the world, which is created through the cultural aspects we, as a country, would not be noticed by the rest of the world.

“Culture is always a form of pretence. It pretends to be itself, at times may even parody itself. Your culture is also the full gamunt of association you allow yourself to reside within – not necessarily what you say but how you say it – not necessarily what you wear but how you wear it” (Mark Rowden. Identity. P.133)

This quote illustrates what I mentioned in the above paragraph, and adds to the idea of how you transmit your identity.

I believe that another important aspect of country branding is consistency. It is important that their messages, their images and their music, in other words, everything that includes cultural aspects must be consistent in order to create a successful brand, in this certain case of a country.

“Your identity needs critical mass. An audience needs to be able to clearly recognise your sameness, but not necessarily because this sameness is a consistency also shared by your competitors, for that is merely conformity with others”. (Mark Rowden. Identity. P.149)

After reading the book, I analysed my own country branding and realized its all about public relations and about what each country want the rest of the world to perceive about them.

If some of the followers of my blog are interested on the Identity side of public relations I recommend this book, as it has been very interesting as well as helpful to understand how brands are generated.