By Joe Banks
There was a great story in The Guardian last Saturday, which I’ve been mulling over all week. Simon Anholt, an ‘expert in the field of image makeovers for nation-states’, had managed to convince representatives from 65 countries to attend an event on the topic of ‘nation branding’.
While many people were no doubt sent into a spin by this latest example of diabolical PR chicanery, I actually thought it had a very valid point to make – that is, whether nations like it or not, people around the world tend to have pre-conceived notions about what other countries are like and how their citizens behave. Their ‘brand values’, if you like…
Depressingly enough, and despite the best efforts of the ‘Cool Britannia’ brigade a few years ago, Anholt said that the UK is still generally regarded as class-ridden, boring and old-fashioned. Hard to believe, I know… However, the article also touched on how certain perceptions can affect countries looking to attract technology-based investment or develop a more tech-savvy culture.
For instance, Scotland’s branding by its own tourist board as ‘a place of emptiness and wildness (except for) a thatched pub with some yokels inside drinking whisky’ was fine for attracting hardy holidaymakers with an interest in hiking and alcohol, but according to Anholt, “it's no good if you're trying to persuade Samsung to build their next factory there.”
Similarly, ‘the man from Madrid… glumly noted that a reputation for siestas and all-night parties was not exactly helping promote the Spanish technology sector.’
This inevitably got me thinking about whether these national brand values affect the way in which technology itself is bought and consumed. The UK has been the source of some of the most far-reaching technological inventions in the past 25 years (from the World Wide Web to the iPod), but still we seem to get labelled as, at best, quirky inventors, at worst, fusty academics unable to ‘productise’ our ideas. Along with a culture that isn’t always kind to the entrepreneurial spirit, is this one of the reasons why businesses often seem unwilling to buy British technology?
However, perhaps a bigger question than this (and one I’m genuinely interested to hear some answers to) is whether the ‘re-branding’ of the US since 9/11 has affected this tech superpower’s ability to sell products – particularly B2B technology - in the global market? Certain countries in Europe (hello France) have always been resistant to the perceived march of Americanisation, but how have such issues as Iraq and global warming impacted on US companies trying to sell their wares abroad?
For the time being, the answer is maybe not at all – but as China and India etc continue to grow their indigenous technology industries, will the US need to seriously reappraise its increasingly isolationist brand values in order to help Silicon Valley et al continue to compete on the world stage?
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