Nation Branding - Focus on South Korea

Nation branding has been generating more interest over the last years as countries are tying to establish or even reposition themselves in the global marketplace. Overall the process is similar to branding a product or service, but on a much larger scale. Having a strong brand as a nation can help attracting foreign investment and positively affect the reputation of brands from that country as numerous studies on country of origin and branding have shown. However, this leads to the question if it really is the country that makes its brands or the other way around. I guess it’s like the chicken and the egg story, where it is difficult to find out which one came first.

When thinking about what is crucial in nation branding the association effect comes to mind. Associations are an integral part of nation branding and probably all of us have certain perceptions about specific countries. Normally, if we hear that a product comes from Switzerland we associate high quality and precision with it, on the other hand, in particular Asian countries, with the exception of Japan, still have to fight their reputation of producing low cost/low quality products. This affects the brands reputation and even though corporations from South Korea, Taiwan, and China have created a number of very successful brands over the past years, they are still often linked to the aforementioned.

Many of those countries established themselves and grew their economies over the last decades as low cost producers, a stigma that has stuck on them. Furthermore, political ties have had an impact on their brands, and in particular South Korea has to fight some of those hurdles. They have world renowned brands as Samsung, LG, and Hyundai, but I have personally heard more than once that South Korea is sometimes linked to the North in the mind of some consumers, which is not ideal from a branding perspective. Even though there are general efforts to change the image of South Korea, they have not been completely successful in showing the rest of the world all they have to offer and that they are a developed high-tech country. The challenge South Korea faces lies in repositioning themselves in the mind of the consumer while building on the success of their top global brands. Recent events as the World-Cup and the Hallyu phenomenon (Korean Wave for television dramas and music), have surely been putting them on the right track, but they need to continue working on their communication and positioning strategies.

From my personal experience living in South Korea I believe that from a branding perspective there is plenty to build on.

Other countries as Malaysia with their 2020 initiative or South Africa with the coming World-Cup in 2010 are also putting significant efforts into their branding. A good example for regional branding that comes to mind is Dubai. Dubai is creating a city of superlatives, which is well known around the globe through a very focused communication plan. There lies the difference to the efforts of other regions and countries, effective communication. Just as an example, close to Seoul a huge development project called New Songdo City is creating a business focused city from scratch, but they have not been very successful with their communication strategy. I have not encountered many people yet that have heard about this project and an opportunity to strengthen a countries reputation like this one can be of considerable impact. It might not be product or service, but modern developments of this scale could positively impact South Korea as a brand. I suggest you check out the link yourself; it is a pretty interesting project. As countries develop and establish themselves economically, nation branding becomes increasingly important and I look forward to hear about some examples you might know about.


New Songdo City project

A number of articles have been published on branding Korea in the Koreatimes