Nations as brands

The reputation of the U.S. sucks in the rest of world. This article is about how nations can brand themselves. ‘Anholt and others argue that countries have to align their foreign and domestic policies with a well-researched set of national images, much as a successful marketing campaign requires a company to ''live the brand.'' The United States, for example, might brand itself as a nation of personal freedom, risk-taking, and cultural tolerance, and then coordinate policy around the promotion of that brand (by, say, expanding market-friendly foreign aid programs). ''All nations need to compete for a share of the world's attention and wealth, and that development is as much a matter of positioning as anything else,'' Anholt wrote in 2003, ''so it makes perfect sense for governments to do everything possible to ensure consistency of behavior in every area.'' He even recommends that countries appoint Cabinet-level branding ministers. ''I've visited a great many countries where they have ministers for things that are far less important than branding,'' he says. Talking about freedom and democracy won't get us very far if those efforts are competing with Abu Ghraib and the Patriot Act. In a media-saturated world, image matters, and people won't listen to our sales pitch if our policies send a conflicting signal. In other words, we've got to ''live the brand.''’ Damn right. Too often America (and Americanization) means typecasting the U.S. as the land of Coke, Big Macs, and Britney Spears rather than the land of Martin Luther King Jr., Thelonious Monk, and Philip Roth. What brand are you living -- McAmerica? Empire America? Free America? Art America?