Branding Romania

There has been a lot of talk and controversy lately on the subject of Romania’s country branding and how its image should be promoted abroad. Although during the past years efforts were made towards building a country brand, there are actually no solid favorable results so far.

“So it’s a cliché to say that a strong brand is the biggest asset a business could have. But, like most clichés, true”. Country branding is no exception. Having a strong brand can make a difference in the overall development of a country, in its international affairs in general, but also in the country’s attractiveness as tourism destination in particular.

Spring 2009 marked the start of a competition meant to solve part of the country branding problem Romania has been encountering for many years now. Thirteen companies from abroad embarked on the ambitious mission of creating Romania’s country brand. So what exactly is country branding? It is the way a country is perceived by its “audience”, in this case, the rest of the world.

Roughly, a successful national brand should aim for the following purposes:

• Encouraging foreign direct investments
• Being a support for exports
• Encouraging tourism
• Creating internal pride

In Romania, the first real international campaign meant to improve the country’s image abroad and encourage tourism was conceived in 2001. The concept of the campaign was “Romania, simply surprising” and it was produced by Ogilvy&Mathers Romania. The cost of the campaign was huge at the time, about 2 million dollars, taking into account the assumed poor results it recorded, which were actually never made public.

The issue of country branding returned to the public eye in 2004, which marked the forming of a workgroup in charge with building Romania’s image abroad, following the visit of Wally Olins to Bucharest who explained the great importance of such an action. The Committee met up a few times, but some of its members never even participated once, therefore it soon ceased its activity.

In 2005, the Agency for Governmental Strategies and the National Authority for Tourism began getting involved in the issue of country branding by ordering research studies on Romania’s image. They discovered that most foreign travels to Romania are made with the purpose of visiting friends and relatives, rather than spending a typical vacation.

The year 2007 brought a concept for a new country brand campaign: „Romania’s fabulouspirit”, initiated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs meant to promote the country’s image in the European Union. It raised a lot of controversy and, although word at the time was that this campaign was going to be around for several years, it was never heard of again.

The most recent slogan the Ministry of Tourism came up with is “Romania – Land of Choice”. A tourist hymn of Romania based on this idea, on which the state spent about 100.000 euros, was also composed as part of this campaign, addressed mostly to the internal audience. The current minister of tourism emphasized that it is not to be confused with a national brand, as this project will be finalized in fall based on the public auction. After many years, efforts and money, it seems Romania will finally have a country brand that does it justice in the autumn of 2009.

Some memorable words on the idea of branding are those of Simon Anholt, an international expert on the subject of country branding: “The image of a country is a tyrant. We can’t control it, it makes up its own mind and it is not fair… branding is an attempt to fight against tyranny”. Building a country brand does not come easy: this goal needs to be sustained by a high level of coordination between the state, the corporate sector, the mass-media and the general population. That’s right: the last part is up to us.

Author: Adriana Niculesc; Sursa: unseenromania.com