Rebranding Nations

Unapolo­getic, and unabashed, Wally Olins speaks on the brand­ing of nations (Note: .pdf file.):

“And the rebrand­ing of France has pro­ceeded spo­rad­i­cally and often vio­lently ever since. Napoleon’s Empire gave way to the restored Bour­bons, who were over­thrown and replaced by a bour­geois Monar­chy, which was fol­lowed by a Sec­ond Repub­lic which turned itself into a Sec­ond Napoleonic Empire. In an attempt to recre­ate the glory of his uncle, the first and incom­pa­ra­bly greater fig­ure, Napoleon III and the Sec­ond Empire went down to humil­i­at­ing defeat by Prus­sia in 1870. By the time the Third Repub­lic emerged from the ashes of the Sec­ond Empire, French politi­cians had become the worlds spe­cial­ists at brand­ing and rebrand­ing the nation.”

And fur­ther draws par­al­lel between the brand strat­egy of nations and businesses:

“Busi­nesses have to cre­ate loy­al­ties; loy­al­ties of the work­force, loy­al­ties of sup­pli­ers, loy­al­ties of the com­mu­ni­ties in which they oper­ate, loy­al­ties of investors and loy­al­ties of cus­tomers. In cre­at­ing these loy­al­ties they use very sim­i­lar tech­niques to those of nation builders. They cre­ate myths, spe­cial lan­guages, envi­ron­ments which rein­force loy­al­ties, colours, sym­bols, and quasi-​​historical myths. They even have heroes.”

Here in Alberta, there are ongo­ing con­cerns with pre­sent­ing the province to the world in a pos­i­tive light, some­times con­tro­ver­sial, some­times regarded as expen­sive and ulti­mately unsuc­cess­ful. This has resulted in a multi-​​front war of words divided amongst the Provin­cial gov­ern­ment, advo­cacy groups, envi­ron­men­tal stew­ards and the news media.

(Sun­cor Energy upgrader and tail­ings ponds. Fort McMur­ray, AB. Photo by Edward Burtynsky.)

For some, Ed Burtynsky’s aer­ial pho­tos of the tar sands are the only insight into the oper­a­tions hap­pen­ing in our own back yard. Or, they would be if any­one here had paid attention.

“The value and impor­tance of the oil sands will make that much harder the choices that Alber­tans and all Cana­di­ans sud­denly face. Canada has now become a major-​​league mer­chant of one of the most desirable—and dirtiest—sources of energy. The money is flow­ing in, and the prof­its are rolling out—good news for stock­hold­ers, the Cana­dian dol­lar and gov­ern­ment coffers.

“But there are envi­ron­men­tal and social costs to stuff­ing our pock­ets while the oil speeds south. And Cana­di­ans will have to answer a ques­tion already being asked by many Alber­tans: When does a boom become a bur­den?” —Erin Ander­ssen, Shawn McCarthy and Eric Reg­uly, An empire from a tub of goo, Globe and Mail.

See also: Bet­ter Nation Build­ing Through Design, via Design Observer.