Brand This Country!

Romania is the northern neighbor (across the Black Sea) of Turkey which was formally known about a century ago as the mighty Ottoman Empire. When you say Turkey today you think of one exotic European country, belly dancing, sunny beaches, good looking hotels and lots of shopping destinations. So far so good. But let me remind you that the Turks were known until about a century ago as the most crude and fierce Muslims, the people that nearly enslaved half of Europe, the people that were have to be payed loads of money just to keep your head on your neck or to preserve some sense of faith and national integrity within the borders of your country. Despite the general conception that Vlad Dracula (or the Impaler) was the guy that invented impaling as a torturing method; it wasn't. The Turks did it as well as lots of other unspeakable methods of individual and national dehumanization. The Turkish penitentiary system was considered the cruelest system until the '70s and Turkey was perceived as a poor and unwelcoming country until almost 15 years ago, and the former disadvantages could go on and on.

I don't intend to mess up Turkey's image and I do not hold a grudge against their former cruelty when they were known as the Ottoman Empire. I simply wanna talk about perception shifting and why some countries become Widely Known Brands with sustained Brand Values and Promises, with a whole elaborated ID System and a believable Single-minded Selling Proposition while some other countries (like Romania, my country) don't. One idea implies that the human mind is eager to forget the past information to make space for newly created one. True for most of the people who live the present at large and consciously ignore obsolete or deep buried past knowledge. True targets for marketers, of course, but in fact enjoyable not-living-in-the-past people.

On the other hand, Romania (for example), was never an expansionist country, never messed around with other countries internal order, and, beside that, we added our contribution, military and economically, from medieval times as crusaders, through the 2 W W Wars and now, as members of EU we try our best but it seems that we're not regarded as a true Brand. More as a sustaining force, a weak Brand endorsed by others. So why public perception does not see us as a Brand and speculate mostly our weaknesses when in other cases (Turkey for example) it regards only the newest emphasized values, disregarding the (I would say quite recent) historical truths.

I think that Country Branding has more in common with marketing than history and the country has to be sold as a product, through a whole branding and selling system, like any other marketed product. If you see something more truthful beyond this opinion please let me know, because I'm interested in any good ideas about Country Branding. I will write more posts in the future about this subject.