Comments

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  Alan 'Brand' Williamson February 21, 2010 at 11:03am

  Rafa
  
  Your Q: Why do we need to focus on the 7-8 years band to extract proper triggers for the cultural codes of our behaviour patterns?
  
  My A: Many cultural anthropologists and regression analysts believe that most of us imprint the meanings of things most central to our lives by the age of seven - the period of our lives when we're most impressionable. The age band may vary between 7-9 depending on the culture - Anglo-Saxon, Gallic, Hispanic, African, Asian etc.
  
  Most people are exposed to only one culture by the age of seven - although this is changing due to globalisation. Few young Americans are exposed to Japanese culture and few young Japanese are exposed to Hispanic culture. This is why people from different cultures have such different reactions to the same things.
  
  Every word, every action and every symbol has a CODE - the so-called cultural source codes - and their foundation is laid - in our sub-conscious mind - when we're 7-8 years olds. To unlock these codes using Focus Groups usually results is falty output because people cannot tell you - using their conscious minds - why they do or not do things, because their past and future behaviours are mostly goverend by their sub-conscious minds.
  
  Could these codes be influenced and changed as we go through life? Yes, but not frequently and usually it takes a major event - such as 9/11 - to have a major impact.
  
  Rafa, this is a subject I'm very interested in, particularly in cultural clashes, collisions and contradictions, both within a nation and between nations, because buried deep in the murky waters of cultural conflicts lies usually the source of big brand ideas with a future-focus.
  
  Please take a few moments to view Channel Islands: Capital of Cultural Collisions.
  
  Rafa, let's hope we can keep this conversation going. Thanks.
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  Paul Barnett February 19, 2010 at 3:56pm

  Alan / Rafa,
  I think I tend to agree with Arnholt when he says, "People believe what they believe about countries because they’ve believed it all their lives and they’re not going to change their minds because a twenty-second ad on CNN tells them to", although I think he lessens the strength of his arguments by putting forward his opinions in such a strong, and often over stated way. I do think people´s opinions can evolve, but not quickly and not the result of a single message. More likely, the result of multiple messages, via multiple mediums, I think. And, some with more impact than others, for sure. The direct experience f someone we know will impact us more, even if it contradicts our existing perceptions, whereas a commercial will be seen as propaganda only.
  I think the discipline of branding, and of developing and implementing a brand strategy, are where branding brings benefit in developing a nation brand, rather than in the communication and promotion. As I see it the job of government should be to form policies and guidelines that create some synergy between diverse stakeholders so that the strength of the country as a whole is increased, and certainly not weakened by conflicting messages and policies. As for any direct role in marketing and communications I feel that the Government´s role should be limited to influencing rather than implementing campaigns. The problem is governments never do the job well, and have limited resources to do it. By trying to they allow the private sector and other stakeholders to see marketing as the Government´s job, but their job is governing not marketing isn´t it? If you look at government run public information campaigns targeted at their own citizens, their effectiveness is usually very patchy in terms of results. Are they really going to be the best option for marketing a country?
  Of course, many marketing and advertising agencies will be reluctant to accept these arguments, it´s the big campaigns that earn them the big bucks, not the consulting fees. And the campaign work is also a lot more glamorous too. But this will all end, when governments wake up and understand that the value of the discipline of branding is in helping them to develop strategies and policies, then implemented by others not themselves. Who are the others that would then implement strategies? I think perhaps the various agencies such as DMO´s for tourism, or trade and investment promotion agencies in other areas. But they first need to be strengthened and restructured to really reflect and represent. They also need to be properly financially structured and staffed by experts. These agencies exist, but they are just not effective as there is rarely a clear policy driving each of them individually, and even less often, all of them collectively. To have the means to inspire all stakeholders to buy into a strategy they will first need credibility. They should also have a limited role in terms of marketing and communicating externally, and should focus on communicating the message to stakeholders who are empowered, by clear, credible and practical guidelines, to take actions that are on-brand.
  On Alan´s specific point about USA I would love to see the grand plan that saw the regions created as sub-brands of the one big idea, The American Dream. But, I really think that there was not a plan for this was there?
  I like the concept of cultural source codes and agree that focus groups have severe limitations! On these points we have a meeting-of-minds.
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  Rafa Luque February 19, 2010 at 1:52pm

  Alan,
  Why we need to focus on the 7-8 years band to extract proper triggers for the cultural codes of our behaviour patterns?. Not quite clear to me.
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  Rafa Luque February 19, 2010 at 1:46pm

  An excerpt from Anholt's last book, "Places":
  "... the idea that is possible to 'do branding' to a country (or to a city or region) in the same way that companies 'do branding' to their products, is both vain and foolish. In the 15 years since I first started working in this field I have not seen a shred of evidence, a single properly researched case study, to show that marketing communications programmes, slogans or logos, have ever succeeded, or could ever succeed, in directly altering international perceptions of places"
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  Alan 'Brand' Williamson February 19, 2010 at 10:51am

  Paul, Wendy thanks for keeping the conversation going re. Single Idea vs Multiple Ideas.
  
  Let's continue the conversation but from a slightly different perspective to see if there can be a 'meeting-of-minds':
  
  Brand Leadership
  With the explosive growth in social media and with virtually everybody on the planet capable of expressing their opinions, the days of managing one's brand through the old central 'command-and-control' technique seem to be over.
  
  So what is a brand to do? Suggest it leads its market to a new future. Brand Leadership now becomes the 'name-of-the-brand-game'. The big question then becomes: Could your brand achieve leadership in one category or multiple categories? Just ask brand leaders how difficult it is to achieve leadership in just one category even with big budgets. Trying to lead in several categories all at the same time I would suggest is a marketing mission impossible. I have yet to see it happen.
  
  Brand America: A great example of a destination brand achieving leadership in a future-focused category: Home of the American Dream. All those fabulous man-made destination sub-brands inspired by this single big idea: New York, Disneyland, Las Vegas, Napa Valley, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall St etc.
  
  Brand America is also a great example of a leader going off-code by exporting its brand of 'freedom to achieve the dream' using military might under false pretexts. However, one of the benefits of owning a brand leadership position is you can quickly recover your leadership position if you get back on-track and on-code. Not so easy when your Nos. 3, 4, 5 and so on.
  
  Recall how Brand France, the world's No.1 destination, recovered from a series of international boycotts when it triggered a nuclear test in the Pacific despite worldwide condemnation. I very much hope that an Obama-led Brand America (currently struggling at home) will do the same. Time will only tell.
  
  Cultural Source Codes
  Let's now turn our attention to the complication of communicating a leadership position and let's use an example that I'm currently working on: Project England's Vineyard: The greatest concentration of vineyards in Southeast England and home to the current world champion sparkling wine: Nyetimber in Sussex.
  
  Here I not only have to deal with the code for Sparkling Wine (Celebration) but also the code for Southeast England (Home) and the code for England (Class - High Social Status). Then when I have to communicate with say the wine lovers of California, I have to consider the code for America in England (Abundantly Big), the code for America in America (Dream) and the code for wine lovers in California (I'm still working on that).
  
  All of the above needs to be considered if Project England's Vineyard has any chance of gaining brand leadership in its chosen category and its targetted market(s). Phew!
  
  Note: Cultural source codes that drive our behaviour patterns live in the dark recesses of our sub-conscious minds – our tour guides being cultural anthropologists and regression analysts, who take people back to their earliest imprints – the most impressionable times of their lives - usually when they're 7-8 years old. Which is why Focus Groups are such an unreliable methodology because people respond based on their conscious minds and not with their sub-conscious - where the triggers of their behaviour reside.
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  Paul Barnett February 19, 2010 at 2:18am

  I just read this by Simon Arnholt, "People believe what they believe about countries because they’ve believed it all their lives and they’re not going to change their minds because a twenty-second ad on CNN tells them to. People immediately recognize that kind of communication for what it is—propaganda—and they will instinctively reject it or ignore it.", which seems to be relevant to the discussion we are having. Simon, for the few people that don´t seem to already know, is said to be the founder of the term Nation Branding (a term he apparently regret´s using now), and is widely, but not universally, considered to be the leading thinker on the subject. This quote is from the text of an interview published by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). In the article he suggests that just marketing is not appropriate for Nation Branding, but that for tourism branding, which can be considered a product it is. What kind of tourism marketing he puts faith in I have yet to determine.
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  Paul Barnett February 17, 2010 at 5:34pm

  Wendy´s comment made me think, are single messages based on big ideas the right thing when we are talking about an impulse buy, and when we are talking about a major purchase? I think that travellers may be making the purchase increasingly last minute, but I think their choices are developed over a long-time, based on multiple messages that come from many channels, including word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family. If we think of the places we ourselves want to travel, did we really arrive at those decisions based on any single big idea?
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  Paul Barnett February 17, 2010 at 5:24pm

  Alan,
  
  I agree that it is the most important topic within destination branding, but I really don´t get your argument. Taking the American example, do tourists really go to America because of the American dream? Do the policy makers and marketing guys there really see other cities and states as sub-brands; and did they develop them, and do they market them, that way as a result of conscious planning? I have my doubts.
  
  I believe the examples you mention are some of the stories, and a few of the big ideas, that make up what brand America is in the minds of potential tourists. But, I don´t see how they all connect as sub-brands to the one big idea "the American dream" - and a good thing too given the state of the dream today.
  
  Regarding Canada, did they drop out of the top ten because they are pitching multiple messages? Or is it because their customer base suffered more than others in the recession and, rather than not going to Canada, they are just not travelling anywhere? And, of Australia, are they really doing that badly? In 2009 their tourism performance was flat. Given the recession they might have expected a considerable fall?
  
  On the point, "trying to get a single message through all that 'noise' is difficult enough, but trying to get multiple messages for a single brand is virtually a marketing mission impossible." I think this is old media thinking. I believe that, given the channels and technologies we have, it is possible to target messages that are refined for each target audience. Narrow casting targeted messages to specific audiences may be more complex, but I think it is the future of marketing tourism. And, to make matters more complex, I think the trick is to get the timing of those messages right too.
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  Wendy Capra February 17, 2010 at 5:02pm

  I just stumbled on this group, and while I'm not in tourism branding, my work in marketing gives me a good sense of what you guys are talking about. As an outsider to the discussion, but as someone who loves to travel and so I'm the target of nation branding strategies, I tend to agree with Alan, I think there's too much "noise" out there, so much vying for our attention, that a single clear message to me seems to be the way to go. But it has to be an evolving message, maybe, because people will get bored of the same message over and over, no? It's a tough topic, which is why you're all discussing it, but I think something very big and clear has to jump out and grab me, because frankly I'm overwhelmed as it is by all the messages thrown at me, not to mention text messages, twitter, facebook... sometimes you barely know which way is up!
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  Alan 'Brand' Williamson February 17, 2010 at 10:39am

  Jose, Paul
  
  You guys are discussing what is arguably THE most important topic within destination tourism branding. Congratulations.
  
  You probably know that I (and Steve Cranford of US-based Whisper Branding) are probably the only destination brand developers in the world today that are in the opposite camp: Country brands should find a single, future-focused big brand idea and then bring in their hierarchy of sub-brands - states, cities and resorts - to focus on theirs - so, collectively, there is a portfolio of multiple messages for the country but with each brand within the hierarchy focused on a their single message(s).
  
  The Mantra: "First attract with a single branded proposition, then distract with multiple product offerings & experiences."
  
  Let's just consider the portfolio of brands in the news right now due to the Winter Olympics: Canada, British Columbia, Vancouver and Whistler.
  
  Brand Canada follows a multiple message strategy right now through its theme 'Explore' which sadly has resulted in this fine country dropping out of the Top Ten world tourism league table. Ditto for British Columbia and its capital city Vancouver - currently pushing multiple messages - from Beautiful to Big to Laid-Back to Sophisticated to West Coast to Home. The only exception is Whistler, focused on a single idea: Luxury Ski Resort - despite being an all-year-round destination - Whistler, today, has overtaken Vail and Zermatt as the 'World's No.1 Ski Destination' despite its outrageous prices. The power of a single focus.
  
  You see, in today's hyper-competitive marketplace, with virtually every place on earth - countries, regions, states, cities, towns, resorts, streets - all aiming to gain market share, trying to get a single message through all that 'noise' is difficult enough, but trying to get multiple messages for a single brand is virtually a marketing mission impossible.
  
  Now consider what is arguably the world's most valuable destination: Brand America: Home of the American Dream - a powerful single-focus big brand idea. Witness how Brand America allows its sub-brands to focus on their messages: New York: I Love NY (World's Capital) - Texas: Big - Las Vegas: Casinos - Hollywood: Film - Disneyland: Family Fun & Happiness - Silicon Valley: IT - Wall St: Finance, and so on.
  
  Now consider Brand Australia trying to get away from its 'Crocodile Dundee' rough, tough macho image and failing miserably. What it should do is bring its sub-brands into play - its cities such as Melbourne and Sydney and its resorts and wine regions.
  
  Let's hope we can keep this discussion going - our tourism futures depend on it!

  

  Brand Canada: 'I Am Canadian'

  You know you're from Canada if you... - created at http://animoto.com