Nation Branding

Branding Cities: a case study of collaborative methodologies in cultural, film, and marketing research

by Stephanie Hemelryk Donald

Innovations in public diplomacy and nation brands: Inside the House of Sweden

by James Pamment

Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, volume 7, issue 2, 2011, pp127–135

This article investigates innovations in public diplomacy and nation brands through the example of Sweden’s Embassy in... more This article investigates innovations in public diplomacy and nation brands through the example of Sweden’s Embassy in Washington, DC, the House of Sweden. The analysis explores the styles of communication and public outreach made possible by the interaction between its architectural design, brand values, and public diplomacy applications. Aimed at practitioners and scholars with an interest in public diplomacy and nation brands, this article assesses the activities, impact, and implications of the House as a platform for public diplomacy. Besides using the House of Sweden as a case study in its own right, the article discusses some of the unique events hosted there as well as related experiments such as the Second House designed for virtual world Second Life.

Do brands really add value to real estate developments? (II)

by Alvaro HIDALGO

Branded Residences, Branding Tourism facilities & Condominiums Branded Residences, Branding Tourism facilities & Condominiums

Do brands really add value to real estate developments and travel destinations? ( and III)

by Alvaro HIDALGO

Critical analysis of the Branded Residences concept Critical analysis of the Branded Residences concept

7 words and a logo: Does a brand shape a destination?

by Alvaro HIDALGO

Branding Tourism destinations Branding Tourism destinations

Nation Branding oder euphemisierte Propaganda? Public Diplomacy am Beispiel Israels

by Robert Friebe

Essay

Selling Celtic Cornwall: Changing markets and meanings

by Amy Hale

Creating a Cornish Brand: Discourses of Traditionality in Cornish Economic Regeneration Strategies

by Amy Hale

Rethinking Georgia

by Shota Khinchagashvili

Review: "Disenchantment: Five Essays on Contemporary Georgia" [in Georgian] by Gigi Tevzadze. Bakur Sulakauri Publishing, Tbilisi, 2009.

Η Οικονομική Κρίση και η Εικόνα της Ελλάδας,

by Athanassios N. Samaras

Συνέντευξη του Αθ. Ν. Σαμαρά στον Κώστα Βενιζέλο για την Εφημερίδα Φιλελεύθερος της Κύπρου.

Oyama Thesis

by Shinji Oyama

PhD thesis submitted to Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths - University of London in Sep 2011. Due to be examined in Dec 2011.

This thesis is an attempt to think through a number of questions arising from the intense circulation of Japanese... more This thesis is an attempt to think through a number of questions arising from the intense circulation of Japanese brands in East Asia, which I call the East Asian Brandscape, and, in doing so, produces an innovative conceptual framework to understand brands and branding.

The ubiquitous presence of American brands has been linked to Americanization, particularly Hollywood film’s global dominance, and is summarized in the phrase ‘trade follows the films’. Similarly, the East Asian brandscape has been linked to Japanization, an intense circulation of Japanese popular culture throughout the region, and may be summarized in the phrase ‘trade follows manga’. This Japanization discourse is based on the unsubstantiated assumption that the globalization of Japanese brands is closely linked to the presence (or the lack) of symbolic appeal of Japanese popular culture in a given market. This thesis investigates the largely understudied processes in which the globalization of Japanese brands is taking place in the context of Japanization through case studies on Japanese luxury cosmetics brands.

In the first section, ‘analysis from outside’, the thesis draws out a contour of the East Asian brandscape, which is shaped by large multinational corporations such as L’Oréal, Shiseido, and Estee Lauder. In global capitalism, brands are routinely exchanged across national borders by these corporations in order to manage and thrive on local differences. Drawing on Appadurai, this thesis argues that we need to understand brandscape as the organization of otherwise disjunctive scapes, rather than in the image of the Americanization model.

In the second section, ‘analysis from inside’, I explore the ways in which the branding is reformulated as the design and management of consumers’ experience in/through a great number of brand interfaces – material and immaterial – in which semantic and symbolic registers (such as Japan’s symbolic appeal) are engulfed in the overall affective ambience of brand experience. What is at stake in this reconfiguration, it is argued, is the unequal distribution of skills and finance resources across national borders required to global brand management, rather than distribution and consumption of national symbolic power. What emerge through the analysis of both outside and inside is a complex and contradictory relationship between Japanese brands and globalization that is no longer understood in a national framework.

Ideological dilemmas of british multiculturalism

by Susan Condor

Country-Branding als Identitätsmetapher

by Joan Ramon Rodriguez-Amat

How to Brand an International Organization. NATO Case Study

by Mihai Sebe

Co-authored with Gigi Mihaita, This paper has been presented to the international conference "European Integration Realities and Perspectives", Galati, May 13 - 14 2011

Branding products and companies has always been associated with private enterprises and less, if ever, with... more Branding products and companies has always been associated with private enterprises and less, if ever, with international intergovernmental organizations. International organizations now have a long history behind them, a history often marked by contradictory events. In the last decade the international organizations developed their own public relations department in an attempt to communicate promptly and transmit the general audience their version of reality. Having this in mind we will try to briefly present in the current work the main reasons why we believe that the international organizations, NATO in particular, have started to see themselves as brand and to create a so called “commercial identity” by becoming a brand. By applying the
conceptual and analytical framework used in analyzing the marketing strategies of the private companies we will try to see whether NATO is about to become a brand. Our starting point will be a 2008 statement of François Bureau, deputy general secretary responsible with NATO’s public diplomacy: “We have the green light to think about a branding policy for NATO”. Nowadays global society, perceptions tend to become more important than reality itself, and thus positive perceptions tend to become crucial. NATO has suffer an image decline in the last decade, therefore some new communication measures tend to impose themselves.
The distinction between soft power and propaganda must be carefully analyzed when we speak about branding NATO. Thus we hope to bring some necessary clarifications in the area of NATO branding. Is there a brand? Is a brand going to be constructed? How does it differ from a commercial society? Does NATO need its own TV channel? Raising questions and offering a new perspective is, in the end, our primary goal, as a debate on this subject is a must that offers a new perspective in the area of theory of international organizations.

Collaborative Methods in Researching City Branding: Studies from Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Sydney

by Stephanie Hemelryk Donald

The Idea of Hong Kong: Structures of Attention in the City of Life

by Stephanie Hemelryk Donald

Bolin, Göran & Per Ståhlberg (2010): ‘Between Community and Commodity. Nationalism and Nation Branding’,

by Göran Bolin

pp. 79-101 in Anna Roosvall & Inka Solivara Moring (eds): Communicating the Nation. National Topographies of Global Media Landscapes, Göteborg: Nordicom.

'Electronic Geographies. Media Landscapes as Technological and Symbolic Environments', in Jesper Falkheimer & André Jansson (eds) (2006): Geographies of Communication. The Spatial Turn in Media Studies, Göteborg: Nordicom.

by Göran Bolin

Eurovision in Moscow: Re-imagining Russia on the Global Stage

by Paul Jordan

The Eurovision Song Contest is often dismissed as a kitsch and not very serious event, yet even a brief examination of... more The Eurovision Song Contest is often dismissed as a kitsch and not very serious event, yet even a brief examination of the contest's history shows that it has in fact had tremendous economic, political and socio-cultural significance for a number of European countries. Scholarly neglect of the subject is all the more surprising given that the event has the capacity to illuminate current socio-political debates. This article considers how the event is used as a platform for image building. It focuses on the 2009 competition which was staged in Moscow. Dubbed “the Beijing Olympics of Eurovision” , the 2009 spectacle was on a scale like no other before and was seen by media commentators as an opportunity to promote a more positive image of Russia to the international media and therefore the imaginations of millions of viewers. However, like the Beijing Olympics in 2008, a series of controversies and striking counter narratives dogged Eurovision in 2009. In recent years Russia has not fared well on the international stage. The deaths of Kremlin critics Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvenenko as well as the on-going unrest in Chechnya and the 2008 war with Georgia, which in itself was played out in the gaze of the global media has meant that Russia's international image has been adversely affected. Eurovision was therefore a chance for Russia to manage its own image on its own terms. This paper, based on empirical research conducted in Moscow at the competition itself and from previous research in Estonia and Ukraine, explores the debates surrounding the competition and considers how it can be seen as much more than just a song contest . Popular culture events such as the Eurovision Song Contest are opportunities for the host nation to take centre stage in the imaginations of millions of Europeans and because of this it therefore has tremendous significance in terms of raising a country's international profile.

Simandiraki A. 2005, Minoan archaeology in the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, European Journal of Archaeology (EJA), 8 (2): 157-81

by Anna Simandiraki-Grimshaw

article

The Athens 2004 Olympic Games presented an opportunity for Greece to celebrate its ancient traditions and modern... more The Athens 2004 Olympic Games presented an opportunity for Greece to celebrate its ancient traditions and modern organizational skills. The organizers used archaeology as theory, iconography, idealism etc. They particularly focused on Classical antiquity, when the Games were at their height before their modern revival. This article, however, will examine the use of Minoan archaeology. I argue that, although there is no archaeological evidence to connect Minoan archaeology to the original Olympic Games, the modern Greek national narrative adapted it to the current national image of the Olympic Games. I analyse this phenomenon by deconstructing some of its processes, taking Crete as a case study. I also highlight broader issues, concerning the instrumentality of the public domain in the shaping of cultural heritage.