National Branding

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Economy - Theory of Competition, Competition Policy, grade: 1,3, LMU Munich (Volkswirtschaftliche Fakultät), course: Economic Geography, 15 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The globalization, describing the process of the increasing linkage between countries due to modernization, is the formative phenomena at the present. Whereas for the consumer this development leads to an enlarged range of products and services to choose from, for the supplier this means an increased competition. Companies have to install subsidiaries all over the world, in order to participate in this globalized competition. But not only companies face this strongly competitive structure, nations also deal with this problem. They have to find right answers for questions like: 'Why should a company invest in our country?', 'Why should a tourist visit our country?' or 'Why should someone want to live in our country?' (Association for Place Branding and & Public Democracy 2007a, date of retrieval: 06.06.2008). A significant answer to these questions can be provided by the image of the nation, since every nation has its perception, history and culture, being responsible for the formation of an image. According to this image, people have associations about a nation, which influence them in their decision making process. These associations might not always be positive, especially in times when the image is for example incorrect or outdated (Anholt 2006a: 98). Then the image is no longer able to support the nation's economical, political or developmental goals. In order to avoid this, nations have to find new ways to promote themselves, and to attract the attention of people, might they be tourists, high potentials or investors. One of these new ways is National Branding. A concept, that already proved its positive effect on products by increasing the sales volume and the customer retention, seems to be the right idea for nations to face this challenge. The following paper deals with the difficulty of adopting the concept of branding for the national level, and thus to attract the nation's target group and to mark a decisive advantage over other nations. The approach is based on a theoretical and practical chapter about National Branding, and closing up with a possible future development and a conclusion.