The Branded Proposition

It is important to realize that a country or a city is also at its core, a product that is available for sale or promotion in the global market. When we say it is ‘available for sale’, we mean that it is present in a global market place competing with different cities and countries; each with different population, race, varying demographic, diverse industry and it’s own set of strength and weakness. If I was to think about a vacation spot to travel to, I can pick any city in the world but chances are, I would only pick the city that appeals to me. That is what countries and cities face on a daily basis: the appeal to the rest of the world based on their offerings and attributes.
Another example, closer to home, is that of sporting events coming to a country. Pakistan has been largely shunned by countries outside the subcontinent in 2008, and as a result played no test cricket in the year. There was a period of time a few months ago when there were safety concerns in India as well (the fact that Pakistan is unsafe is a given), but Australia toured India and refused Pakistan. The ICC Champions Trophy did not take place in Pakistan because of the refusal to tour by England, Australia and South Africa among others.
Issues like the above are exactly what branding addresses; by battling negative propaganda to create positive perceptions in the minds of those who are being bombarded by the media. Think of India and you will think of a secular democracy where people from all walks of life reside in harmony; a country which is a mix of modernity and tradition; where mysticism resides hand in hand with technology. Talk about Singapore, and you’ll think of a modern metropolis; a destination of unmatched wonder. Malaysia, and you’ll probably be taken to breathtaking rain forests and sun kissed beaches; a place where Asia comes together. How have these associations been created? Are they simply a result of positive media portrayal internationally?
The answer lies in the ability to fight global perception and create perceptions of your own. The answer lies in a concerted integrated effort by the custodians of the above mentioned countries to Brand their countries as modern destinations. These campaigns create association not just in the minds of the global populations; but also in the minds of media professionals across the globe, who have in their hands the tethers of a global propaganda machine. Imagine if you could have someone like Larry King believe in all that your country wants to be about.
There are a number of international examples that can be used as case studies for the exercise of Branding Countries. These include David Ogilvy’s creation of Puerto Rico’s Brand Essence of a “Tropical Paradise”, Dubai’s “Fly Dubai, Buy Dubai” and “Surprisingly Singapore”. Spain has made tremendous strides in branding itself as a modern and developed country, while Denmark has successfully branded all of its government ministries and departments. Croatia, another European destination, has been working to reform its image in sports and tourism. Israel has also recently initiated a concerted tourism campaign.
Another interesting example comes from the Chinese brand Haier, originally state-owned and producing low-quality electrical goods for the domestic market, which managed to positively reverse the poor image of Chinese goods. Haier’s business philosophy and policy rested on three planks: Brand First, Innovation and World Class Quality. It now commands an impressive market share in the US with the manufacture of high quality white goods. As a Chinese brand, Haier helps elevate the perception of Chinese goods. Another popular example of Country Brand building is Malaysia’s “Truly Asia” campaign and India’s “Incredible India”, which promotes tourism as a single constituent in a larger Brand Promise from the country. Unilever India’s MS Banga, once defined a Brand as “the starting point which defines the philosophy, the ethos and the culture of the brand, which must then be reflected and manifested in each and every facet of the brand.” For India, the single underlying brand idea, or Brand Essence being marketed is “Incredible India”. This embodies all of the strengths of India, and the opportunities it can provide.

A Brand Called Pakistan
There’s an old PIA print ad from the Sixties, which portrays a young stylish hostess in a sleeveless dress, on which a number of PIA destinations are reflected. The message there is pretty clear: Pakistan International Airlines is a modern Airline which will fly you in comfort to wherever you want to go. Considering that PIA is a constituent of the larger Pakistan Brand, it would have helped in building a positive global perception of Pakistan back in the day. Sadly though, if you see the print ad in today’s context, it becomes a little difficult to believe that it really was PIA because of the present day situation. That’s how much of a mindset change we have experienced, even as Pakistanis.
Talk about Pakistan to most people from the West, and the impression you would get an oppressive territory that breeds terrorists and Islam has become a fundamentally extremist religion practiced by people who have live in the dark ages. This ‘spin’ couldn’t be farther from the truth. Similar to most developing countries, Pakistan does face its share of problems, and these range from health and poverty to terrorism and education, but largely it is made of people who are just as allergic to the buzzwords such as extremism, fundamentalism and terrorism. What you’ll rarely hear on the corporate media is that people in Pakistan and around the world believe in the practice and believe in the potential that Pakistan has.
The country has a number of opportunities which the West and Europe can utilize, from IT and Telecom sectors, to Medicine and Engineering and even the Arts. Pakistani professionals have made a name for themselves internationally, and there is no doubting the quality that can come from them. The IT and Telecom sectors continue to grow, offering great foreign investment opportunities. In Art and Fashion as well, Pakistan continues to have great potential. Cities like Karachi and Lahore are modern cities at par with other world cities, and the citizens in no way are different from their peers across the world. Pakistan is a country seeped history, culture and heritage; and can offer some of the most beautiful tourist spots in the globe.
Why is it then, when the only impression that exists of Pakistan is a negative one? Why is there always talk about poverty, law and order and extremism when Pakistan is discussed? Why is it despair, rather than hope? The answer is simple. Locally, and internationally, we are at the mercy of the international media machine. Whatever they believe, whether true or false, is what the associations of Brand Pakistan will be built around. Even locally, there are very few programs that try to paint Pakistan in a positive light. As a result, even Pakistanis can feel little pride in their country.
What is needed is a direct integrated campaign targeting Pakistanis and the International Community, aiming to neutralize the negative media against Pakistan and moving to build positive associations. Another reason why this is so vital is because most countries around Pakistan are increasingly investing a great amount of time and money into marketing and branding activities to improve the world perception of their existence. Within this environment, it would largely be suicidal for Pakistan not to move in a positive direction with respect to Marketing and Branding itself.

The Question of How
If I have to read another SWOT analysis about Pakistan, I’m going to have to yell at someone. We all know that the population and English language skills are in our favor, as is the quick adoption to everything shiny and new. Even the Eskimo, who might not have known that the law and order situation in Pakistan was a challenge, now knows. So let’s stop with the SWOT and just try and frame the answer to one simple question: how do we want to position Pakistan?
Depending on what the answer to that question is, will give you an endless list of solutions that you need to implement to get the job done. Are we a collection of fantastic beaches and a tourist resort? If so, we need to invest in our cosmetic upkeep. Clean up the beaches and set up the hotels. Are we a business hub? Well, in that case, we need a lot more expo centers, stronger infrastructure, even more hotels and let the world know. Right now, we seem to be giving mixed signals.
There is no government website that can act as the “gateway to Pakistan” because they aren’t search engine optimized. Their only saving grace seems to be that if you google “Pakistan” you’ll get pakistan.gov.pk simply because ‘Pakistan’ is one of the words in the URL. In terms of having a phrase that describes the country, since we don’t seem to have a position we can market ourselves with, we seem to be somewhat slogan-less.

Ping For Help Please – Someone Shall Pong
Thank God for Citizen Journalism and Web 2.0 – Pakistan has hope, and quite a lot of it. Today, the number of bloggers who know about SEO and exert their opinions and influence online to encapsulate the online audience is amazing. You’ll come across at least a new blog that either has Pakistan as part of their metadata or part of their text. These informal blogs, unlike any major concerted campaign, have become where the world visits to get updated on everything that goes on in the country.
And when there was such a healthy stream of videos, text, photographs coming, others actually set up blog aggregators to make it even easier for people to find what they were looking for.
So you’ve got citizens who have access to blogs through cell phones and internet connectivity, who can then be part of blog aggregators who can then also be promoted and projected through social networking sites, who can then be picked up by search engines, which can then provide the exposure you need.
Just like any product or corporate marketing campaign, there is no way people are going to know about you if you don’t have prolific writers. Content builders to build silos of every aspect of your country. Twitter is a tremendous phenomena which is extremely popular. Mostly for social purposes, you do have responsible citizens who use Twitter to share knowledge or breaking news. Nobody can spin a viral campaign for or against an idea like a blogger community can. Strange that no effort has been taken to use their talents and input to consolidate the pieces of Pakistan and send the message that world needs to hear, see and read about. But then, wait – we’re still waiting to assess what direction Brand Pakistan should be taking.     Strategies are needed when it comes to building Pakistan’s image online. Once you have the corporate media reporting gruesome images of earthquake victims all over the television and internet, you need to have people in place with the necessary access points to the internet so that they can upload the true images and get the testimonials and interview in place. Whip out a small camera with USB connectivity, record the footage, upload it online over a community WiFi or WiMAX connection and the corporate media will be getting you to report the news live from where you are.
Imagine what sheer power you have to be able to report what every individual sees. Reduce the barriers to access a computer or laptop or cell phone, and reduce the barrier to get the information out to the internet. Some blogger will pick it up and make a post out of it because that’s what bloggers do. Aggregators will pick it up and you’ve done a piece of responsible journalism simply because you were there.
80 million cell phone users? Even the low end phones that Nokia and Sony Ericsson sell have a camera or a voice recorder. Even if 30 million of those are active connections, just imagine the possibility: that’s 30 million possible reporters giving you live updates about the location they are at. Do you know why the 30 million cell phone users are not converting themselves into content generating machines? Two reasons: lack of awareness of GPRS and lack of awareness of what to do when a photograph, video or incident is captured. That’s why companies like Pixsense (pixsensense.com) win awards around the word because other markets actually realize how to attempt to capture the segment of the population that actually knows how to snap photographs.
But you see, in order to truly unleash the power of the internet, there needs to be the infrastructure in place. Ironically enough, as far as Pakistan is concerned, you already have all the citizens in place. Give them the right, enabling environment and see what happens.
Every UC (Union Council), every township, every Nazim of every district should be paying attention to this. Reaching out to their citizens to promote their localities. Why not? It costs in infrastructure, and even that will be something that can be easily monetized. Google Maps or Naqsha.net shouldn’t have to be looking around for “specific types of people” who can help them map all of Pakistan. With the right tools, awareness and willingness to comply, it takes one viral marketing and SMS campaign (opt-in only please) to let everyone know what “inch” of Pakistan they are responsible for mapping online through GPS. The Karachi Mayor was just a little off when he launched his “I Own Karachi” Campaign – “Each of us could actually own every inch of Pakistan” is more like it if we are willing to point and click a piece of a physical Pakistan, and send its relevant coordinates online and then tag it.
We have the ambassadors at our disposal – IT savvy businessmen and women who frequent different countries holding their flags up high with a tremendous amount of pride. The recent APICTA awards which took place in Jakarta? You had 16 ambassadors represent Pakistan. Several of these winners blogged about Pakistan sitting in a foreign land. Soon after the event was over, if you searched for “Indonesia” you would also get links for the Pakistani companies who attended the APICTA Awards. It cost us nothing. It benefited us greatly. Well, it did until more recent news items then bury that “content cycle”. But that’s not a problem – we just have to keep updating the virtual world with content fresh enough on a very regular basis so that we can keep our side of the story alive. Keep our content cycle alive.
How do consolidate all these strategies so that they work? Reciprocate the behavior. If a businessman represents Pakistan as an investment-friendly country, make sure it is. If a blogger writes about how Karachi’s main roads look so beautiful with the new palm trees, make sure they are there. The monetization process of how people can create the benefit will happen on its own. It’s ultimately an opportunity for corporates to sit down in this entire strategy and plan out what their role has to be.
If Pakistan is to have any chance at its brand, you have to make use of the online media and involve all the people that know how to use it. We have the best minds sitting in the largest companies creating the most gigantic attraction. Can’t we all sit down and create a strategy to market Pakistan?
If the Quaid were alive today, we’d all follow him and his vision. Perchance if he used Twitter, I’m quite sure the entire world would have followed him too. Today we have the tools, the technology and the understanding of New Media marketing to make this happen. Let’s not wait too long to start things off. Who knows? Someone in another part of the world might just collaborate and blog about it.