While trolling the Internet for job postings today (let's be honest, it takes up a lot of my time these days with graduation about a month away), I was intrigued by the description of a project directed by development consulting firm Chemonics. The project has helped a winery in Moldova successfully brand itself and build a consumer base in the UK market. Moldova is another one of the countries I dealt with in my office at State last summer, so I'm always interested and glad to see their successes. As a result of this project and the help of USAID, Acorex Wineholding was able to break into both the UK and German markets by enlisting the help of a wine brand design firm. This firm in turn helped them develop a unique brand identity, headlined by its new slogan, "Taking Root."
This small-scale project got me thinking about how branding, and more specifically ideas of nation branding, can be used in a development context, and how it related to our discussion of Simon Anholt's work on place branding last week. As Anholt states in his introduction, "...the reputations of countries are analogous to the brand images of companies and products, and are equally critical to the progress and prosperity of those countries..." While Moldova has a long way to go in terms of basics to stability, like a market economy, consistent rule of law, and infrastructure improvements, I think this project--as seemingly insignificant as it may seem at first glance--is a very good first step to establishing itself as a nation that is capable of doing successful nation branding in the future. It creates attention and interest about Moldova--which wants eventually to join the EU--in the UK and Germany, both countries with vast public diplomacy and branding strategy experience, to Moldova's potential--as an eventual tourist destination for wine connoisseurs, for example, or as a viable import-export partner. Chemonics' role in facilitating this partnership should not be overlooked either--it goes back to our discussion last week of the need for more public-private collaboration on the path to successful public diplomacy. In short, this small project is a great example of how nation branding and development can go hand in hand, especially in a strategically important region like Europe.
Christinia,
ReplyDeleteThank you for bringing this program attention. I think this is a really interesting example - will Moldova's wine production and "Taking Root" change the way that European's view Moldova? Will most people recognize the brand as being a Moldavian one? Will this program make a new "brand" image for Moldova?
Unfortunately, I think it is extremely hard to change a country's "brand" and fear that Moldova may fall short. As is the case with many other countries, such as my group tried to demonstrate with Turkey last week, multifaceted programs similar to this may be successful in introducing a product or a concept to Europe, but in the does not change European's overall views. For one thing, many people do not recognize the origin of products (e.g. most in Europe do not realize that Turkish products are indeed Turkish). But moreover, even if Moldova is seen as a bastion of wine production, will this be enough to convince Europeans t hat Moldova is "European?" I think not.