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. Continue reading…

Five years have passed since the first attempt to build a national brand concept was made. Since then there have been several such projects and significant amounts of money have been spent.

First was the EUR 6 million album entitled “The Eternal and fascinating Romania,” followed by the USD 1.7 million project “Romania – always surprising” from 2004.

A brand business doesn’t come cheap

It seems that Romania is doomed in finding the right solution for building a country definition and lacks badly regarding a positive approach of country advertising and PR.

Lately, the only visible and audible reactions involving Romanians abroad generated in the local and regional media concerned some Romanian immigrants committing crimes in Italy or the former foreign minister Adrian Cioroianu’s gaffes in terms of communication rigors when it comes to address foreign officials.

Unfortunately these issues built a really unfortunate “brand- awareness’ and makes you wonder, is bad PR always prevailing over good PR or Romania really lacks in managing the issues of its own positive or negative image poles outside.

Should it be a misfortune, a lack in the implication of local authorities, is that Romania can’t find the right communicators or the right projects, because, it seems that money exits. Continue reading…

In the consciousness of European masses the word Romania is often a conjoined twin with communism, Dracula or Ceausescu, and maybe a few other names belonging to sport or culture, but only for the ones in-the-know. A few days ago, a young Australian studying in London admitted he could not point Romania on the world’s map.

A few Oxford students seemed somehow familiar with the notion, localizing it in Europe, but the light in their eyes only sparkled intelligently on hearing Transilvania, written with a Y in their acceptable ignorance.

Romania’s image has got over the 0 kilometre, but only on the reverse. The British (and international) mass-media push, generally but not entirely, the minuses’ treadle, because good news is not news. Until not long ago, the Romanian authorities did not join the eternal race for balancing the image of the country that, theoretically, they work for.  Now and then, they wave a peace scarf from their stalls, or whisper a treat once in a presidential mandate.

But they fail to defend or represent the Romanians from the Diaspora, who often goes to work with their glances sown to the ground while the person sitting next to them in the tube is reading a Right-handed newspaper literature about the Romanian criminals who came to be pour the last drop over the British immigration patience. Continue reading…