On Branding.
Branding: A brand is an identifiable entity that makes specific promises of value. It's about creating and communicating this set of values by the owner.
Eurovision should be a another dimension of branding, not an avenue to air grievances.
But, what is the 'Armenia' brand? What does 'Armenia' mean to a lay person in Europe? Before you promote your brand, you need to know what it is. Here are some examples of strong brands.
Switzerland: Beautiful mountains, great chocolate, classy watches, strong banking.
Coca-Cola: The best pop to have.
USA: The American dream, liberty, world leader, the good guys.
I am still trying to work out what the 'Armenia' brand is. For the past year it has become to mean a dictatorship but that's not what you want to be known as. We, the Armenians are the brand owners of 'Armenia' and specifically the citizens of Armenia as they are the ones who have an organized state to take care of issues important to the Armenians through pooled resources. And the pool is the sum of the efforts of each of us.
16 comments:
Ararat '73
Chess
Chess is good. We have a disproportionate per capita chess talent.
Mount Ararat
Mount Ararat is not a value.
ttu, bibar
vochkhari panir u tsitsak. Mek el haykakan konyak (not cognac) bastrmayov.
BTW, Ani is now on Twitter--when you're too lazy to actually have a blog. http://www.twitter.com/GoldenTent
nations have stereotypes and not brands. Only those nations are able to promote brand who has mostly neutral stereotypes (Switzerland)
The USA has a very different stereotype in Iran and many other Arab world.
Also Armenia's stereotype which you shaped in your blog exists in very narrow number of people /not counting Armenia's foes/. Talk to foreigners.
Anonymous
The whole point of branding is to clear up the stereotypes and build a favourable image. It is a marketing practice usually done by Tourist Boards, Cultural and educational organisations and embassies. Of course the image should be based on reality. For example Austria via their highly organised and efficient tourist board managed to build the image of Classical Music and tranquillity for the country based on Mozart, high culture and aesthetics. Hence at that way they manage to maintain a constant flow of high quality tourism.
In the case of Armenia until you have single celled idiots in country profile building agencies as we witness in Eurovision you will not achieve anything. One of the examples could be found in the Eurovision music clip. There was a photoshopped high speed bullet train running in the background.
The whole thing should be in the Country Strategic Plan.
Haik,
As I understood business is very politicized in Austria, Switzerland, the USA, etc? Could you please send a link of Country Strategic Plan of Austria?
According to this logic countries like China, Turkey, Indonesia are less favorable for tourism since they lack democracy?
Proper Countries have Strategic Plans which are internal documents hence not available to public. But you can clearly understand their strategies looking at the steps that their promotional agencies take. The steps have very clear and coherent paths.
I didn’t mention anything about democracy but as you mentioned it I will write my opinion. An undemocratic country can have a strategy like USSR had. Another example is Cuba where there is no democracy but they have clear path for promoting their country and boosting their tourism.
Because they where/are not democratic this naturally wouldn’t represent the opinions and wishes of people who live in that country.
You can read about Strategic plans in here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_planning
Adverse perceptions like stereotypes about countries, products, services are normal. Branding is the means to educate people so that their perceptions are more favorable.
The example of the perceptions of the US in Iran is a good example. But ask any Iranian if they want to live in the US and I'm sure the majority will probably prefer to be in the 'land of the free' rather than Iran all else being equal.
of course there is branding and promoting strategy many countries
states try to achieve that through tourism, foreign policies, PR, cultural activities, etc
you can look at UK, Germany, France, Greece, UAE, Cyprus, and you will see what i mean,
as for Armenia, there is no strategy, but haphazard activties aimed at promoting Armenia in an amateurish style, eurovision is one example, if we are trying to say that Armenia is an exotic place then we have to be consistent and keep it exotic and not build "generic" buildings, neglect cultural, unique monuments and churches, buildings, encourage mafia-style, gangstare-land practices, pricey hotels with no customer service
as for democracy, freedom and lawful states, it has an impact and it is indirectly self-promoting for any country and if a state is authoritarian and heavy-handed and interfering in all aspects of life (like Russia), not to mention corruption and authoritarianism, no matter what you promote you indirectly create negative perceptions about your country
someone here mentioned Turkey (and implied its not democratic but tourist destination) ...but he forgot to mention that Turkey nowadays is more democrtatic and more free and more diverse than SS and tashnago-vazkeno gangstero Armenia of today...
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