Branding National Identity

Abstract: The following thesis, "Branding national identity", authored by Anamaria Georgescu and Andrei Botescu, attempts to develop a multidisciplinary perspective on a particularly new topic raised by marketing and advertising. Several theoreticians in the field discern the matter as a strategy of "fighting globalisation with its own weapons" (Simon Anholt, 2002). It promises to offer equal opportunities for global back up to countries with a low level of economic development. This is to be done by appealing and emphasizing the cultural and national specific. This controversial set of suggestions requires to be objectively debated using various perspectives. Also, a practical extension of our debate is to consider aspects of the scrutinized theoretical constructions, in a particular example of a developing country: Romania. We brought a new angle to the approaches of nation branding using sociological theories and concepts like "the imagined communities" of Benedict Anderson, "the interacting identities" or "global networks in the Information Age" described by Castells. We meant to examine the concept of national identity, which represents the content of such strategies. It has proven to be rather a field of disputes than an unambiguous area for the contemporary sociology. Therefore, the effort of finding a representative national brand has to be the most difficult part in pursuing nation branding strategies. Nevertheless, the idea of brand and advertising influence, and particularly the persuasion proficiency of the national brand, has generated a large ethical debate. We developed our arguments examining illustrative visions of different authors like Naomi Klein, in No logo, and further related articles, which demonise the brand's sway. We also utilized Roland Barthes's Mythologies, analysing the national identity myth's culpability, and Simon Anholt's book Brand new Justice: The Upside of Global Branding, referring to the benefits of brands for underdeveloped countries in a global economy. How to put things at work or how to start and manage a nation branding campaign is likely to find out researching past and ongoing programs. Thus, we have investigated several branding agencies specialized in the field. We offered illustrative examples in specific matters and also we developed our own discussions related to the different approaches and instruments of national identity communication. The prospect of nation branding in a Romanian environment started to be considered by different entities a complex stimulation of an anarchic actual identity perspective. Thus, we considered to offer an analytical perspective of the opinions, programs or ideas exposed by different external or internal sources, using the theoretical and empirical insights assembled throughout the whole paper. Several key concepts utilized in our dissertation are: national identity, globalisation, nation branding, holistic approach, comprehensive brand, creative industries, and symbolic communication.