Mark Ritson on branding: You're stuffed if you believe this Turkey

supposedly global poll.

Despite claiming to be 'one of the world's leading authorities on the
branding of countries', I suggest Anholt takes a good look at his atlas.
The last time I looked, African people were part of the global community
and deserving of representation. There are also quite a few Muslim
countries too, yet their viewpoint is missing. Global is not a word to
bandy around lightly. Something either is, or isn't, global. The NBI is
very much the latter.

The second flaw is methodological. Even if the NBI had been conducted in
a global manner, its crude and incorrect analytical framework would
still render it worthless. To measure the strength of each country, the
Index relies on the 'Nation Brand Hexagon' - a copyrighted system for
assessing the six areas of national competence.

These areas include topics such as Tourism or Governance and appear to
have been invented by Anholt on the basis that they seem to be about
right. How do we know that these six areas are exhaustive and that the
area of Culture and Heritage is perceptually distinct from that of
People? Are all six areas weighted equally? If so, why?

If Anholt had the necessary training to develop brand metrics, he might
have appreciated that to develop a scale like this he would have to
conduct a rigorous secondary data analysis, followed by projective
research, which would then lead to quantitative analysis of the
resulting areas using a correlation matrix committed to a factor
analysis, preferably using principle component analysis and a varimax
rotation.

It might sound over-complex, but if you are going to tell the people of
Russia that their nation brand is weaker than New Zealand, you had
better not be doing it using data analysis that a second-year
undergraduate student would be ashamed of.

The third flaw is theoretical. The NBI is an example of the ongoing
bastardisation of brand. These days, anything that has popular cultural
meaning is defined as a brand, despite patently being no such thing. The
Labour Party is not a brand, it is a political party. Dannii Minogue is
not a brand, she is a woman.

Countries are not brands. They can have an origin effect on the brands
that they produce, but this is nebulous and varies from one category to
another. Australia might be a great place to book a beach holiday, but
how about a course there in medieval architecture?

When you publish a league table that relegates the Czech Republic from
third to last on the basis of a self-generated, flawed research
instrument, you are not just demonstrating your ignorance, you are
denigrating a people, culture, and history that has every reason to see
itself as unique and incomparable to any other.

Fear not, though. The only reputations damaged by the NBI are those of
Anholt and the GMI. Oh, and the concept of branding too.

30 SECONDS ON ... THE NATION BRANDS INDEX.

- Twenty five nations were ranked to form the Nation Brands Index. The
top 10 were: Australia, Canada, Switzerland, the UK, Sweden, Italy,
Germany, Netherlands, France and New Zealand.

- Despite the NBI ranking 25 countries, consumers from only 10 countries
(Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea, the
UK and the US) were quizzed on their opinions. In each country 1000
consumers were asked to rank the other 24 nations. Participants were not
permitted to rank their native country.

- Winner Australia was the first choice for quality of people, tourism
and investment and immigration, but it suffered poor ratings for
products and culture.

- The UK came fourth. The British ranked third in the People category
and fourth for Culture. UK products were placed sixth.