Hi, this is Efe Sevin.
I am a researcher interested in public diplomacy, nation/place branding, and public opinion studies. I am also a doctoral candidate at American University, School of International Service in Washington, D.C.
Currently, I am working as a part of Emerson Baja Coalition to help in the rebranding attempts of Rosarito Beach, Mexico and as a Political Communication Consultant for Turkayfe project.
During the little free time I have left, I try to travel, get more accustomed to American culture, and read Sherlock Holmes novels.
We had a great conference over a week ago in Utrecht. Once again I would like to thank Ares and his colleagues for creating another opportunity for interested parties to meet.
Ever since I returned back to DC, I have been thinking about my research and state of the field. I, indeed, saw some developments in the field since Bogota – we definitely had more of a common understanding in main concepts (-We still had different conceptualizations but we understood each other), Despite Gregory Ashworth’s advise against trying to predict to future, I want to throw a couple of ideas about the future of research in the field based on my observations in Utrecht.
Last week, we had a short discussion about a new branding initiative, Brand USA, Inc, on Place Management & Branding’s Facebook page. I just wanted to write a short post about my take of this project. By coincidence, I, together with a colleague from Howard University, decided to drive to Louisiana from Washington, DC. to attend National Communication Association’s Annual Conference. On our way to New Orleans, we had the opportunity to observe how “Yes We Can!” and “Change” bumper stickers were replaced by humongous crosses and “We do not deliver ‘aids’ to our enemies” slogans. Let me shortly reflect on Brand USA and my interaction with my observation of ‘diverse’ America.
Today, I went to the press conference organized by the Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index (NBI) to unveil their latest survey, NBI 2011. With the United States being at the top of the list third year in a row, NBI listed a total of 50 countries’ brands. In the table below, you can see the top 10 countries from 2008 to 2011.
As I have mentioned earlier, I have several doubts about NBI as a robust measurement scale. Below, I’ll try to organize my ideas under three headings:
- What is NBI good for? When should NBI be used?
- Why doesn’t NBI measure ‘nation brands’?
- Why is NBI’s understanding of nation brands incomplete (if not entirely wrong)?
I ended my last post with a cliffhanger. I argued how taking ‘brand’ as a whole is an unforgivable mistake. You cannot measure the brand of a country, give it a number, and rank them. You need to figure out what a country’s brand stands for, and whether the target audience is willing to ‘buy’ what that brand stands for or not. In this post, I want to elaborate on this point, and to take a quick look at some of the measurement scales we have to introduce a couple of discussion points.
As I portray several other personae in my daily life, I sometimes forget the fact that I am trained as an international relations scholar. The recent talks between Syria and Turkey reminded me that fact, as well as the necessity to discuss a nation brands in terms of global politics and soft power capabilities. What is the Turkish brand in Syria and how does this perception affect Turkey’s role in the region?
Yesterday afternoon, thanks to a random visit to a pub, I realized that 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup is underway in Germany. This event, again, made me think about the place of ‘sports marketing’ in place branding projects. Can there a ‘branding’ aspect of hosting such events? I argue that economic gains or media exposure cannot be seen as main motivators. Rather, countries host/participate in these events to associate themselves with the ideals and brands of these events. Continue reading →
Last year, I wrote a short post about Turkish public diplomacy where I practically claimed AKP and Erdogan were the biggest obstacles to a robust PD strategy. Last Sunday, AKP won its third consecutive elections, and will be governing the country for another term. And I still have the same concerns about Turkish PD.
Turkayfe.org, Turkey’s International and Digital Coffeehouse, is a social diplomacy website dedicated to promote Turkey and to contribute to the Turkish branding events. Turkayfe is hosting two events on coffee culture in Washington DC, and New York in association with the Washington D.C. Culture and Tourism Office, andAmerican Turkish Association (ATA-DC).
For Spanish speakers, here is a 15-min documentary about a small Peruvian nation-branding campaign. Practically, Peruvians travel to Peru, Nebraska and share their music, drinks, food, culture, and daily lives with the locals. The video got over half a million hits in 10 days.
