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During the last decade, Bloom Consulting has developed Nation Brand, City Brand and Place Brand strategies for clients around Europe, Latin America, and the U.S.A. We have worked with political leaders and ministers with a clear objective in mind: to manage the Country Brand as a strategic asset from an economic and political point of view.
Bloom Consulting has offices in Madrid (HQ), Lisbon, Sao Paulo, and Los Angeles.
We have gained the respect of international media such as , , and , who have interviewed Jose Filipe Torres, the CEO of the company.
Mr. Torres is considered one of the top 3 experts in Nation Branding (source: Country Branding Central) and participates in world-class conferences and forums as a keynote speaker.
These variables allow us to classify and measure a country brand performance from a new point of view based on hard data rather than perceptions, surveys or expert opinions.
This year is a special year, as it marks one decade of Bloom Consulting working in the field of Nation Branding,City Branding and Place Branding.
Each year has brought exciting challenges and projects and I am confident that all the work we have done has prepared us to meet any new future challenges.
As a consultancy firm, we find ourselves at the forefront of big changes - we are now in the digital era of Country Branding.
According to the recent Google study "The 2012 Traveler", 70% of leisure travelers begin researching their trip online without a specific destination or mode of travel in mind. Tourists are making more and more decisions online and countries cannot afford to miss targeting that new distribution channel and the potential new market.
As a reference, in 2012 alone, tourists made around 375.000.000 online searches related to tourism activities at a country level. Imagine the insight you can gain from this data and the conclusions you can draw.
I hope this brand ranking can provide you with valuable information and I encourage you to use it as an asset and further evidence of the impact a strong country brand may have on the national economic performance.
Although we would like to go into more detail on each country’s performance, it is impossible to do so in this overview. However, if you are interested to find out more information on your country brand’s performance, please do not hesitate to contact us.
A Country Brand or a Place Brand is an asset for nations, cities or regions to be managedin order to achieve different objectives.
According to our Methodology, there are 6 different Country, Region and City Branding (CRC) objectives or dimensionsrepresented in the Bloom Consulting CRC Brand Wheel (see figure 1):
1 – Attraction of Investment (Trade) 2 – Attraction of Tourism 3 – Attraction of Talent 4 – Increase in Pride 5 – Improvement of Public Diplomacy 6 – Increase in Exports
Each of these six objectives, or dimensions, have different target audiences that have different needs. In other words, what attracts each particular target audience to opt for any country, region or city is completely different (see figure 1).
Therefore, Bloom Consulting methodology is used to isolate each objective or dimension and to develop specific strategies for each one of them.
One may ask why the objectives must be isolated if they refer to the same country brand? The reason for this is that a single strategy most probably cannot satisfy the needs of investors and tourists simultaneously. If it does, it becomes a very general message that most probably will not have enough content to make the difference. According to Bloom Consulting theory, only very few countries can satisfy all needs under an umbrella strategy. Therefore each country, with a professionalized Country Brand, Region Brand, or City Brand strategy, should select the target audience and attend to their needs. By strategies, Bloom Consulting does not refer to logos. You can have the same logo for all six dimensions or no logo at all. The brand is not the logo.
However, not all 6 dimensions can be measured in the same way. Inside the 6 dimensions there are 3 that can be measured in a more tangible way and 3 that can be measured only in an intangible way. Trade (Investment), Tourism and Talent, repre-sented at the top part of the sphere in figure 2, are the ones that can be measured in a more tangible way. See figure 2 to understand the current measurement system.
Based on these explanations, Bloom Consulting should create 3 independent rankings. One for Trade (Investment), one for Tourism, and one for Talent. For the time being only 2 have been developed - Trade and Tourism.
This ranking deals only with the Tourism dimension (Investment).
Figure 2. Current measurement system for each dimension. Tourism is the dimension selected for this Ranking
This ranking contemplates the Tourism dimension, therefore the Bloom algorithm will only consider tourism related figures. This ranking does not try to measure solely country brand perception. The objective of this ranking is to classify how well each and every country is doing in terms of branding, that is, to measure how effective their brand is in the most tangibleand realistic manner. For Bloom Consulting to classify the effectiveness of each Country Brand, we analyzed 4 key variables for each of the 187 countries included in this Brand Ranking (see figure 3).
Through statistical modeling, Bloom Consulting was able to rank the countries to compare them with one another. The Algorithm takes into consideration each country’s economic level of development. The result is an accurate and objective Brand Ranking based on hard and soft data. Moreover, the Bloom Algorithm takes into consideration a country's performance in Bloom Consulting's rankings from previous years in order to leverage Country Brand equity.
Average InternationalTourism receiptsbetween 2007-2011
Tourism economic growth
Average growthof International tourism receipts between 2007-2011
1st Variable
The Tourism economic performance is a very important variable in the ranking. Good economic results, whether achieved by a carefully planned strategy or not, are in part a consequence of good country branding. If one applies common sense to this variable, it is easy to understand that tourists prefer to travel to a country they like or have emotional attachments to rather than to a country for which this is not the case.
Moreover, all information was calculated based on official UNWTO international tourism statistics Nation Brandingis aimed at each country’s international audience, rather than the domestic one.
As illustrated in figure 4, Tourism economic performance is based on:
a) Tourism economic receiptsStrategies and economic returns do not have an immediate impact, therefore the ranking looks at a country’s medium-term (5 years) historical economic performance in tourism receipts. This way, the ranking reflects more consistent trends rather than volatile changes that may occur in the recovering economic climate or due to political instability.
and
b) Tourism economic growthThe growth of international tourism receipts of each country is also an important indicator when measuring the economic performance of a country’s brand. Therefore, the Brand Ranking computes the growth rate of the international tourism receipts over the last five years for more consistent trends, rather than brief volatile changes.
The ranking does not take into account international tourists arrivals, the average stay per trip or the average spending per day separately, as all these figures are included in the Tourism economic receipts variable. What adds value to the economy is the current economic impact and growth, powered by revenues not by the number of tourists.
According to Google(1), nearly 70% of business and leisure travelers considered the Internet to be the most frequently relied upon source of information when making a destination decision, either via desktop PCs or mobile devices. The same study indicates that 64% of affluent travelers use search engines directly as a source of information.
Bloom Consulting has been able to define and gather all country characteristics (selling propositions and strategic positioning of all 187 countries) and messages or "Brand Tags" used by all the National Tourism Organizations. In total, 762.440 destination-specific keywords were classified into 45 tourism “Brand Tags”, which allows us to understand selling proposi-tions and strategic positioning of all 187 countries in the world. This information was gathered in eight different languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish, and it was used in the 2nd variable (see figure 4).
A country receives a higher rating if it uses the most searched and valuable “Brand Tag”. If a country receives a poor rating, it means it is focusing on the least searched and valuable “Brand Tags” or not using “Brand Tags” in demand and high value. What is particularly interesting about this rating is that a country rating will not be better if the NTO simply uses all available “Brand Tags”. If they do so and they are not the “correct ones” they will have a poorer rating. The final result is a live snapshot of the supply and demand for information in the international tourism market. For example, how much value is the “Brand Tag” “Beaches” bringing to Brazil? What other “Brand Tags” are not being used that could have a positive impact? Or, even more importantly, which are the “Brand Tags” that are being promoted that do not bring value to the Country Brand Strategy? This 3rd Variable is the Country Brand Strategy rating and it is shown in figure 5. For reference, it is used throughout the Ranking next to each country. Exceptions may apply to countries that recently (last year) implemented a new Country Brand Strategy, with an objective to move away from specific perceptions. In this case, the rating does not mean a country is doing poorly but rather the results are not visible yet.
One may question why “Brand Tags” are used to measure the effectiveness of Country Brand Strategies, as they are simply promotional messages or products of a country and not the Country Branding Strategy itself? Bloom Consulting assumes that tourists’ interest for the “product” is the most tangible way to assess Country Brand appeal and, subsequently, the effective-ness of a Country Brand Strategy.
We believe it is essential to consider how well a Country Brand is positioned digitally. In order to do that, we have used“Website Analytics” and “Social Media” to evaluate each country’s efforts to make it visible.
The official National Tourism Organization website is one of the most important sources of information and it serves as an online gateway to each country. Nevertheless, it is not the only one by far, therefore this variable has less importance compared to other variables in the Algorithm.
In order to assess the performance of each country’s website we used the “Website Analytics” tool where we examined each country’s NTO website and analyzed the number of visits and the average time spent on the web page. The Bloom Algorithm values websites with more visitors, richer content and a higher digital reach.
Additionally, a country’s presence in online communities, such as Twitter and Facebook, has been taken into account, because online social networking is an efficient and a cost-effective way to interact with the public and promote what a country offers. As each social media network has different purposes and a varying degree of popularity, the ranking has treated the two independently.
The assessment criteria are simple. The more “likes” a country’s NTO has on Facebook and the more followers there are on Twitter, the better. If an NTO is not active in social networks or if it does not have an account, the Bloom Algorithm penalizes its online performance, however the country is still included in the ranking.
Both online performance indicators, Website Analytics and Social Media, are shown in the figure 6. While a country’s Online Performance is a relevant variable, it holds less importance compared to the other variables in determining a country’s position in the ranking.
Figure 6. Website and Social Media performance correspond to the 4th variable
Due to the historical brand equity and the fact that all have strong country brand strategies, China, Hong Kong and Macao have been considered as separate countries in this ranking.
Development of CountriesHuman Asset ManagementBusiness Strategy
The rest of the regions are represented by Australia, Mexico and Egypt. Australia (8) also performed strongly this year, despite being fairly isolated geographically. This reflects the appeal Australia Nation Brand carries in the international tourism market. The first and only Latin American country in the top 25 ranking is Mexico at number 19.
The positive surprise is Egypt (22), as it maintains a privileged posi-tion in the top 25 ranking. Egypt has just registered its lowest tourism receipts and international tourist arrivals for the past five years, while being at the forefront of the widely covered Arab Spring. Nonethe-less, Egypt’s strong result demonstrates the power of the country’s Destination Brand and its continued appeal.
The European tourism powerhouses of Spain, Germany, Franceand the United Kingdom dominate the rest of the top 5. Of these countries, Germany (3) has improved 4 places from 7th last year.
This is due to them having received their highest level of tourism receipts for the past three years and also their best number of international tourist arrivals to date. The United Kingdom (5) has also made huge improvements since last year, when it ranked 9th in terms of Nation Branding. This is partly due to their improved tourism receipts and tourist arrivals but also thanks to their exceptionally active and popular Social Media promotion.
Despite being the country with the most international visitors, France has slipped one place into 4th position. This is signifi-cant as it is the first time they have fallen out of the top 3 and it is a result of lower international tourism receipts, compared to its competitors, and not taking full advantage of social media channels to promote the country as a Destination Brand.
The top 25 is dominated by European and Asian countries,each with 10 representatives appearing in the ranking. Of these Asian countries, Thailand (6) is in the lead after witnessing its best year yet in terms of economic performance in tourism. The next best Asian country is China (10), however it has fallen sig-nificantly out of the top 5 due to its lack of presence in Social Media. This is a topic it may want to address if it wishes to regain its place as the leading Asian Destination Brand.
Unsurprisingly, the rest of the Asian countries in the top 25 include Turkey (9), Malaysia (15), Singapore (17), and the Republic of Korea (18). These provide a strong reference to the Asian region, as an upcoming Tourist Destination for interna-tional travelers.
The rest of the regions are represented by Australia, Mexico and Egypt. Australia (8) also performed strongly this year, despite being fairly isolated geographically. This reflects the appeal Australia Nation Brand carries in the international tourism market. The first and only Latin American country in the top 25 ranking is Mexico at number 19.
The positive surprise is Egypt (22), as it maintains a privileged posi-tion in the top 25 ranking. Egypt has just registered its lowest tourism receipts and international tourist arrivals for the past five years, while being at the forefront of the widely covered Arab Spring. Nonethe-less, Egypt’s strong result demonstrates the power of the country’s Destination Brand and its continued appeal.
The European tourism powerhouses of Spain, Germany, Franceand the United Kingdom dominate the rest of the top 5. Of these countries, Germany (3) has improved 4 places from 7th last year.
This is due to them having received their highest level of tourism receipts for the past three years and also their best number of international tourist arrivals to date. The United Kingdom (5) has also made huge improvements since last year, when it ranked 9th in terms of Nation Branding. This is partly due to their improved tourism receipts and tourist arrivals but also thanks to their exceptionally active and popular Social Media promotion.
Despite being the country with the most international visitors, France has slipped one place into 4th position. This is signifi-cant as it is the first time they have fallen out of the top 3 and it is a result of lower international tourism receipts, compared to its competitors, and not taking full advantage of social media channels to promote the country as a Destination Brand.
The top 25 is dominated by European and Asian countries,each with 10 representatives appearing in the ranking. Of these Asian countries, Thailand (6) is in the lead after witnessing its best year yet in terms of economic performance in tourism. The next best Asian country is China (10), however it has fallen sig-nificantly out of the top 5 due to its lack of presence in Social Media. This is a topic it may want to address if it wishes to regain its place as the leading Asian Destination Brand.
Unsurprisingly, the rest of the Asian countries in the top 25 include Turkey (9), Malaysia (15), Singapore (17), and the Republic of Korea (18). These provide a strong reference to the Asian region, as an upcoming Tourist Destination for interna-tional travelers.
Why did Bloom Consulting create the Ranking?Bloom Consulting created the Ranking to evaluate the impact of country brand strategies in economic terms and, above all, to answer the important question of how countries can become more attractive.
What is new in the 2013 edition of the Ranking? First of all, it is the third “World Edition” of Bloom’s Country Brand Ranking. Secondly, Bloom has improved its methodol-ogy, in comparison to past editions, in order to deliver more accurate and objective results.
What if a country does not have social media accounts, does it still feature in the ranking?Yes, it still appears but it receives a lower ranking than it would have done otherwise.
What criteria was used to define the geographical distribution of countries? We used the official United Nations classification of countries by region.
“Brand Tag”Unique Selling propositions and strategic positioning of all 187 countries (used by all the National Tourism Organizations).
“3T approach”The three tangible dimensions 1- Trade (Investment), 2- Tourism and 3- Talent
Bloom AlgorithmIt is an equation that consists of 4 key variables and calculates each country’s position in the ranking.
NTONational Tourism OrganizationIt is the official state agency responsible for positioning their respective Country Brand (from a Tourism perspective).
Web AnalyticsIs an online tool that measures the performance of each country’s website, where each country’s NTO website is analyzed by the number of visits and the average time spent on the web page.