National Brand Identity & Its Effect On Corporate Brands: The Nation Brand Effect (NBE)

Multinational Business Review, Fall 2003 by Jaworski, Stefan Paul, Fosher, Don

(Please see the Singapore and Canada cases provided in the Appendix.)

FUTURE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE POWER OF THE NATION BRAND (INTERNAL & EXTERNAL)

Communications are increasingly speeding up. second and third world countries are rapidly developing-and many are becoming Brand savvy. Thus, the necessity of having the advantages of a powerful, well-managed Nation Brand will be exponentially more vital over the coming decades. Eventually, the Nation Brand Effect (NBE), both internally and externally, will be a "given" (basic) factor of Brand success, value, equity, and identity directly effecting Brand performance and results. As (1) the world market continues to deregulate, (2) Brand building skills diffuse across markets and societies, and (3) competitive levels increase, only nations with strong Brands (both internally and externally) will be able to achieve and sustain leadership positions. This reality is where skillfully designed second world nations (especially from Asia) will have an opportunity to overtake current first world nations or, at least, dominate desired niches.

As more sophisticated models of Brand management evolve, there is little doubt that the power of the Nation Brand Effect will be a strong basis for any new toolkit generation in every part of the globe. Possibly, one day, even a direct calculation for NBE will be part of the asset section of the corporate balance sheet (differing per country). Even the company capability to capitalize on the NBE may, itself, be part of Brand equity valuation. With upwards of 70 percent of a Brand's value not being reflected in the company balance sheet at this point in time, such a factor on Brand value as NBE, when properly understood and quantified, could even increase this percentage to as much as 80 percent. The new reality for the next two decades:

Nations that focus on Brand strategy skill development (its incorporation into both the nation and corporate fabric) and that focus on skillfully developing Nation Brand Effect (internal and external), will be the key success stories and leaders of the true Brand based world order.

Stefan Paul Jaworski, Studio X Branding

Don Fosher, Studio X Branding

Stefan Paul Jaworski (Masters Graduate in Marketing) is a Partner and Chief Brand Officer for Studio X Branding-Temporal Brand Consulting, which is a leading multinational brand consultancy. he has worked on some of the world's top brands, has generated frontier brand ideation-including multiple dimension brand contact point analysis-and is the author of two regarded brand strategy books. Jaworski has written numerous white papers, case studies and articles on brand strategy, and speaks globally on brand marketing.

Don Fosher is a Partner with Studio X Branding-Temporal Brand Consulting. His career has spanned five decades and has included work in every industry including b to b, b to c, consumer products, technology, pharma, and services. Don is widely known as a brand ideation expert, generating numerous frontier brand concepts and processes including Brand Links, Brand Locks, and Intramarketing.