Veronika Grishel MA in Economics, PhD student
NATIONAL BRANDING: THE FIRST STEPS OF UKRAINE
Introduction
In the past time building nation branding has gained popularity in business, policy and intellectual circles. In the time of the globalization, numerous countries have invested in branding efforts in the hopes of improve images that point to a future of new possibilities. Much researches have been offered from marketing scholars and professionals alike [8,9] on the issues that every nation faces in this age of globalization primarily their brand image and what that means for their country. As of 2001, an extensive study showed that 766 written works have been published on this topic since 1952 [13]. The fathers of “country branding” in late 1990s were Wally Olins and Simon Anholt [1,11]. It was a brand new idea to “sell” a country as a product, do it in an organized manner and based on a preliminary analysis. A review of the literature on nation brands reveals that much of the work has been within the area of marketing and public policy. The term “national branding” is used with the assumption that a nation brand is any attribute associated with a country that affects that country’s brand image. The problem is that there is not a clear definition of a nation brand and what attributes make up a nation brand. A nation brand is more complex than what can be described by single descriptors such country of origin, the people (cultural) or public policies. Some specialists say that building national branding may be the new trend for smaller and unknown countries in need of a competitive advantage [1,2,5,11,14] . The economies of Central and Eastern Europe are identified as particularly suited to benefit from it [1]. The nation branding proponents explain global relations of power through the market competition and argue that nation branding offers a market friendly approach to governance that transcends politics [2]. Frequently the problem with the branding of the country is that every country has a huge luggage of its history and there is a list of stereotypes in the mind of people. However, Simon Anholt believes that by helping developing countries one can see tangible results, while the outcomes for rich countries are minor [3]. First these countries have to encounter with serious challenges: fighting with stereotypes; reporting about all positive changes, which take place in the country; correcting the reputation of the country with the unfavorable investment climate. The most of specialists say that it is much easier to create attitudes and stereotypes than to change them. The objective of this article is to describe the process of the building of nation brand in the Ukraine and show its impact in the development of the country.
Actual position of image Ukraine
Implementing a national branding strategy is a task for Ukraine, which has a generally negative image. A huge nation sandwiched between Russia and the EU, Ukraine nevertheless remained an island of relative inactivity. What do associate today with Ukraine? What kind of associations we have with Ukraine today? The Kyiv Post compiled its unscientific top 10 list of things the world knows about Ukraine: nothing, nuclear disaster (Chornobyl), soviet past and present, part of Russia, vodka diet and lard, beautiful women and sex tour advertisements (ideal femmes or money grubbing Internet brides and prostitutes), sports, Orange Revolution, the breadbasket and of course, Tymoshenko and her hair [12]. Ukraine needs an identity, a profile, a simplified roadmap for those looking to understand what kind of a country and people they are dealing with. A circle of “no promotion worldwide because everything is so bad” needs to be broken and more valuable effort needs to raise awareness about Ukraine and communicate its ongoing positive changes. Any country with a bad image will struggle to prosper, and without prosperity it is hard to acquire a better image. The building of national brand must be started by the country’s own citizens. Today with more than 80 percent of respondents in a Research & Branding Group poll saying their life has got worse since independence, and other polls blaming politicians, businessmen and criminals for their negative influence over citizens’ lives [15]. If common problems unite the nation, there seems a lot to be united over in Ukraine, as polls show how many Ukrainians are disappointed about the present and pessimistic about the future. According to a survey made by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine [10] , the majority of Ukrainians in 1998 (60%) believed “it was impossible to bear such a difficult state of affairs” and in 2011 the majority (53%) said “it was hard to live but it was possible to stand such a life”. On the other hand, people have less hope for the future: in 2011 only 39% of the people showed such optimism. Most Ukrainians define these days as the era of thieves, swindlers (48%), state mongers (44%) and beggars (40%). Over the last 20 years Ukrainian society remained in a state of demoralization and destabilization. 13% say that things are not moving at all. Ukraine is also one of the most corrupt countries in the world, occupying 152nd place with a score of 2.3 of 178 countries, according to Transparency International in 2011 [18]. Ukraine intensively the image of a politically unstable country: this point was named the key factor militating against doing business in The Global Competitiveness Report 2011 2012 by World Economic Forum. In this Index Ukraine rank 89th among 131 countries [19], this is comparable to Burundi and Cameroon. The biggest challenges in Ukraine are corruption, tax regulations, access to financing and inefficient government bureaucracy. In the famous Country Brand Index the position of Ukraine is still worse 105th position in among 131 countries in 2011 2012 [20]. Is this really the way to the membership in the EU? All the efforts toward “Euro integration” are undermined; the country remains “terra incognito” for the average European.
Some attempts of national branding in Ukraine.
The Orange Revolution in 2004 was the first time in the country’s independent history when Ukrainians felt the positive impact of an image boost. The event itself garnered Ukraine positive international news coverage for over a month. It served to draw attention to the intricate and uniquely long suffering past of this previously anonymous nation. The “Orange Revolution” in 2004 provided an unprecedented opportunity to improve the image of Ukraine. But the country wasted its chance. However, those brief months did enough to demonstrate what could really be possible if the country was able to do something more definitive about its image problems. There are three attempts in post Orange Ukraine to upgrade the nation’s image. The first was made in 2005 when Foreign Ministry invited bids from companies capable of organizing promotional campaigns abroad, but this attempt was finished by scandal. In 2007, the State Service for Tourism and Resorts attached to the Ministry of Culture decided to promote the tourist brand “snowy winters” in the country under the slogan “Ukraine. For snow lovers”. Promo videos were released and shown on Euro news and National Geographic 80 times each [4]. The most active strategy was created in 2010. On the request of the Foreign Ministry CFC Consulting [21] created and implemented Ukraine’s branding strategy [22]. The main idea of brand "Ukraine" is that it should be simple and clear. The philosophy of strategy is to give an answer to the question of what Ukraine as a state and what Ukraine as a society. One word of this philosophy can be described as openness. Ukraine declares its openness to the world itself as an attractive and promising tourist destination, is positioning itself as an active participant in the global socio cultural process. According to the creators of the brand "Ukraine" spirituality, family, land, life, and tradition the core values of the Ukrainian people. Within the concept slogan “Ukraine: Moving in the Fast Lane" and the logo are designed that symbolizes the rapid, dynamic movement forward. The others symbols of strategy were chosen the cartoon characters Harniunia and Sprytko (later abandoned over protests from the public). There appears a question of how are related to each other openness, moving forward, and characters from cartoons.
Figure 1: Symbols of strategy of national branding.
Source: http://brandukraine.org/r/
Moreover, National Agency for the preparation European Football Championship presented the own logo of Ukraine for Euro 2012. At the heart of the logo used sunflowers one of the most popular and well known Ukrainian images. By design, the sunflower conveys the image of Ukraine, filled with warmth, love and hospitality, where everyone will feel like a guest, which is always welcome.
Figure 2: Logo of Ukraine for Euro 2012.
Source: http://brandukraine.org/r /
If focus on a national branding strategy designed, it has a lot of various projects, here are some of them. • The information portals about Ukraine, such as Welcome to Ukraine [23], Discover Ukraine [24] and Travel to Ukraine [25]. Those are the professional and public initiatives to develop reputation of Ukraine as the country is preparing to host Euro2012 football championship [17]. Ukraine tries to use its potential in tourism. • The "one million votes for Ukraine" collecting signatures of million EU citizens to support Ukraine's accession to the EU. • The campaign “Ukraine. Beautifully Yours” [26], is aimed at dispelling notions of Ukraine as a wonderful sex tourism destination and a country that exports its women. Introduction Europe and the world of tourism and cultural potential of Ukraine mouth of modern Ukrainian women, talented, self sufficient and successful representatives of the Ukrainian society, which is known and loved in Ukraine. Pop singers like Tina Karol and Ani Lorak are to help shatter these stereotypes. • “Ukraine. All about U” [27] were the promo videos for CNN and BBC World broadcast for four months in 2011 (a total of 13,000 times). The others ideas from this strategy that can be use in the future are “Ukraine Inspires” (about the life and achievements of famous people, Ukrainian descent, but not associated with it), “Ukraine International Information Center” (ensure operational search and distribution worldwide of positive news about Ukraine and stimulate the emergence of such news), "Global Ukraine" (promoting Ukraine as part of large international events such as the meeting of Heads of G8 or G20), “Ukraine Center for Contemporary Art in Eastern Europe” ( merge actions, projects, festivals, exhibitions), “Fashionable Ukraine” (project Airstrip Fashion Show conducting a fashion show in the top of the world cargo plane AN 225 "Mriya"), "Ukraine: the power of intelligence" (Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko and Ukrainian male national team of Ukraine chess sport) and some others. In business Ukraine also tries to improve its position. The State Agency for Investments and Management of National Projects designated InvestUkraine [28] to provide the investors conduct via all round support and provision of special services. From the end of 2011 Ukraine started the special road show, which is a presentation on investment potential and top five national projects in the 16 largest financial centres of the world. Among the projects are ‘LNG Terminal’ (the construction of the re gasification terminal for liquefied natural gas on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast), ‘Energy of Nature’ ( the construction of wind farms and solar power plants), ‘Clean City’ (the construction of a modern waste recycling and disposal complex), “Open World’ (looks to establish a national information 4G net), ‘Olympic Hope – 2022’ (plans to construct the sport and tourist infrastructure for the Winter Olympic Games 2022). The vital goal of increasing the volume of investments to US$ 72 billion [7]. Ukraine’s key advantages are: geopolitical position with access to the strategic regional markets of the EU, Russia and Asia; connection with the Middle East region via sea routes; the fourth most educated population in the world and fifth for its number of certified IT specialists; cheap labour market; the agricultural potential. The State Agency set up the annual International Investment Forum with state leaders, heads of government and global companies all participating . There were two International Forum Ukraine: country and city branding. The last was focused on Euro 2012 and the long term goals of Ukraine’s communication campaign after Euro 2012. Therefore, Ukraine can still fill the minds of foreigners with positive information about itself and do so at a lower cost. It has one more chance – Euro 2012. This will be a true test for the Ukrainian branding campaign. If it doesn’t fail, then brand “Ukraine” will be once again reloaded.
Conclusions and perspectives.
Ukraine has many strong competitive advantages and its potential has to be communicated efficiently. They haven’t been assembled altogether into a national story. And that’s why the country drowns in a prejudiced post Soviet image – these existing fragments of a more modern image are not enough on their own to build up a new image strong enough to replace the former image. How Ukraine is perceived internationally has an enormous effect on the country’s attractiveness for investors, tourists and importers of Ukrainian products. If implemented properly, Ukraine’s nation branding program can become an engine of the country’s economic development. Nation branding requires the involvement of professionals from all walks of life. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs must attract the support of the Ukrainian and foreign businesses, the Ukrainian diaspora, think tanks, NGOs and the art community, among others. If Ukraine’s authorities decide to address the image issue, they must first and foremost define modern Ukraine in branding terms and streamline the country’s ragged profile. Ukraine must declare what it is, what it stands for, and how it wants to introduce itself to the world. This is all about positioning the country, because Ukraine has not yet established a position in the minds of global consumers. Its current positioning is the result of a lack of a proper bearing, new strategy tries to improve situation, but also within it there are some various projects (everyone tries to break different stereotypes). It is necessary to connect all projects within one idea. There are more than enough variants of national branding of Ukraine, most Ukrainians take their poor international image for granted or treat it as a matter of indifference.[6] Apart from promotional videos, day to day work must be performed, particularly with respect to the mass media, the public and opinion leaders. Embassies have to be centers for disseminating positive information about the country they represent. A network of national cultural institutions abroad, such as the Goethe Institute or the Polish Institutes, may play a key role in promoting a country abroad. The states that want to systematically advance their interests in the world set up special information networks that report on the country and its culture. Every embassy of countries that have strong brand operates relevant assistance programs, cultural centers and information centers. Ukraine is bringing up the rear in this area. When such events appear, their activities are merely formal and are often not geared interest among the target audience. In other words, it is impossible to enhance one's image without a certain form of institutionalization. Ukraine needs a permanent managerial and coordination framework for advancing in the key capitals of the world. It is important to take into account the changing international media landscape, evolving audience expectations and the increasing importance of online in making travel decisions (portal brandukraine.org is in Ukrainian only). There’ll be no holistic place marketing campaign without proper rating in the Future Brand Country Brand Index and similar rankings, joint projects with Discovery Channel and National Geographic, key national media of the priority markets for Ukraine, professional representation of Ukraine at major tourism fairs and expos, decent foreign language country guides and massive multi language online presence. Looking ahead, the country has the potential to leverage UEFA Euro 2012 as a major forthcoming sports event to improve its profile in the international community. With the global spotlight promised for a month, Ukrainians should use the event to re introduce their country to a prejudiced global audience. There is a need to show that Ukraine has changed since the last time the world looked at it, what is Ukraine’s new role in the world, why should one come to the country, what one can expect from the country, and so on. There are objective indices, such as ratings in country Ukraine is near the bottom. But there is also subjective, important to remember that national branding can be direct not only for actively promoting outside, but first of all must consider the domestic audience. With corruption, collapsing infrastructure, poor social benefits, substandard healthcare and so much more in desperate need of fixing, experts say that only pragmatism can now become a new national idea for Ukraine [15]. The challenge now facing Ukraine is that the government will have to spend more time and money if it is to make an impact on the image problems which hamper the nation’s development. Only tax and regulatory reform that would remove these problems can be an efficient tool for invigorating business and creating jobs. If the bribery as a chance to avoid a social dead end and earns his living by fleecing citizens, foreigners will continue to be an irritant. The best example in this area is Georgia, the country that was able to win the stereotypes and difficulties. Visitors to Georgia can easily see for themselves the country's successes: upon arrival, foreigners deal with polite officials and non bribe taking law enforcement officers. Incentives for small businesses are a prerequisite for the emergence of new enterprises and honest competition, in particular in the tourist sector [16]. The competition enhances quality. Georgians themselves saw why reforms were being carried out and the benefit they brought, and now they convey this understanding to the guests. And this is the main conclusion, that the problem of Ukraine is not so much in the bad stereotypes, but in a complex real situation. It's one of the main rules of successful branding is conformity promotion and advertising to the reality. This must be taken into account in the first place, otherwise Euro 2012 may backfire on Ukraine, the perception of the country as lying outside Europe may only be reinforced.
Literature
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