Ghana’s FIFA World Cup 2014 campaign: A NATION BRANDING DISASTER.

What are Ghana’s gains for participating in the World Cups?

Is Taking Ghana to the world cup just a “quadrennial Ritual” “a Father Christmas venture” or a Game for Huge national Return on Investments?

As a developing country, what should be our priority as we appear on a world stage like the FIFA World Cup?

Should it be winning the Cup? Can we aim for something else, like using the opportunity to sell our country as global eyes are watching rather than chasing a “mirage”?

If the Black Stars participated in the world cup the first time, perhaps to introduce Ghana to the world as a footballing nation, full of passionate and determined people, should we participate in it, the third consecutive time with the same objectives?

These are but just few questions in my mind as I enjoy the Brazil 2014 world Cup Tournament.

Sports today is more and more becoming a great tool for national development. There are lots of gains that are made by most developed nations through investing in sports. We can talk about infrastructural, technological, educational, Socio Cultural and Economic gains that countries earn by hosting Mega sporting events.

In the same regard Football in our time has become the only supper uniting force that has the potential to bring together different countries, businesses and individuals even with varying religious and political affiliations to explore opportunities, merge efforts, drive social impact campaigns and causes because many people on planet earth are passionate about it and will follow anything associated with football.

What this means is that any country, business, organization or individual can create movements, change the world and earn more from football. There’s more in football than what happens on the pitch. The question is; how many are taking advantage of this?

“In my Opinion, We are missing the Chance to optimize the FIFA World Cup to its fullest. We are losing the game on gaining economic and developmental returns from participating in the biggest, most followed and patronized sporting event in the world. We are losing the opportunity to brand Ghana, project our values to the world and attract Goodwill, investments and tourists from abroad.”

I believe that, just as it is professionally prudent, for every project or venture to have stated objectives to succeed; participating in the World Cups should have objectives too. Good project managers set Primary (core or major) and secondary (subsidiary) objectives that are specific, realistic and achievable. These objectives are mostly expressed in both financial and non-financial terms.

Now the Big Question is; whenever Ghana is participating in any international sporting event, who defines the objectives, and what do or should these objectives achieve? For instance; what are our primary objectives as a nation for participating in Brazil 2014? How specific, realistic and achievable are these objectives? Do we pay attention to the non-financial or qualitative objectives as we might be paying to the financial ones?

How are these objectives communicated to the citizenry so that we all know what to look out for in evaluating and monitoring our performance at the world cups?

We are all aware and It is true that Most Football fans (citizens), sports administrators and some other stakeholders expect the primary objective of their country’s participation in these tournaments to be winning the Ultimate. “We Pray and hope the black stars bring the Cup Home”. But can we think about other gains as well?

Interestingly, it is also true that in times like this, every Ghanaian will have his or her own individual objective, depending on where he or she sits. Arguably, It is believed that, to most players, it is more about the financial gains, global marketability and personal branding, to sports administrators it is about the money as well, to a section of the public like the supporters unions, it is all about slots to travel, perhaps as payback for their loyalty to the government (political party in power) and you can imagine what the objectives of the Politician will be.

As these tournaments will forever be here with us. The higher purpose of this article is to ask the big questions of “what is in it for Mother Ghana”. What value and equity, are we creating through our participation in these tournaments that corresponds with the huge, associated resource investments?

As a country we need to start thinking big about taking maximum advantage of any global exposure we get to leverage and promote our nation Brand “GHANA”, communicate our unique stories, values, heritage and culture to the world, influence how we are perceived globally and attract the right kind of relationships, investments and brand equity.

It is sad; we couldn’t maximize tournaments and events in the past such as the Visit of President Obama to Ghana (a choice he made justifiably based on the fact that Ghana is a beacon of democracy on the continent, something Obama thinks is worthy of emulation by other counties on the continent) upon his election, which brought a lot of media attention to Ghana. This was in fact, a story enough for us Ghanaians to use as a key marketing, PR and Branding hook in our nation branding efforts. We need to get to work seriously on this as one people.

“You can call this an addition to the “value for money debates” but I see it as my contribution to a national debate on why we spend on projects and what the tax payer gains, but the difference here is, am not doing it with any political lenses on.”

So what is nation branding about and how can we take advantage of mega events like the world Cup to Brand Ghana?

For the purposes of clarity and for those new to the Concept of Nation Branding, I would like to discuss the concept briefly: “I will try hard not to go into a long academic essay on this though”

Just as Product or personal brands, project an identity, uniqueness, emotional connection and value with the objective of persuading target audience to patronize them and become loyal, and at the end ensure profitability and sustainable to the brand, so does Nation Branding applies to countries. In recent years, marketers have coined and used the term ‘Nation Branding’ as an attempt to position countries in a “new light”, in order to attract perceived financial investments from abroad, revitalize local economies and of course, create economic opportunities for local businesses.

The concept of nation branding has been used by many developed countries (good example: America –New York City) as a conscious effort to facilitate nation building, Patriotism and economic development; some of these countries accomplish this through other activities and policies unconsciously and don’t refer to it as “nation branding”.

The concept is a progressive process that includes

1. Identifying or discovering the unique selling prepositions of a country, this can be achieved through a national consultation, research and strategic audits.
2. Creating a blueprint of how that country would like to be perceived and related to by internal, connected and external stakeholders.
3. Communicating these values and USP to the said audience through a result oriented, strategic, integrated communications approach that builds an image and reputation that the nation desires.
4. Engaging these audiences and stakeholders to forester unique and mutually beneficial relationships that will help the nation in its developmental endeavors.
5. Monitoring, Measuring and Maintaining the reputation, brand equity and collateral that has been built over the period and reporting these gains to the necessary interested stakeholders.

In the twenty first century, the proliferation of technologies and instant communication channels mean that people have far greater choice as to how and where they focus their leisure time activities and interests. While much of the twentieth century was still largely an age of nationalisms and national consciousness, the twenty first century is definitely an age of globalism.

While formal diplomacy still shape international perceptions and strategic concerns, increasingly diplomacy has evolved in the post-cold war era into shaping international views of nations as sites for business development and tourism. Thus marketing the national brand has become increasingly important in a world that is becoming economically integrated yet divided into almost 200 nations.

The power of attraction on the international stage is also used by governments and politicians to enhance their own brands among the citizenry in order to gain or sustain legitimacy.

In this increasingly unified yet still divided world, sports mega events, particularly Olympic Games and the FIFA world Cup, have become high demand points that have symbolic value well beyond the results on the fields of sporting competition. Major sporting competitions and tournaments are regarded as events to be marketed and managed and terms such as hallmark and mega suggest that size really does matter. The lure of large and spectacular events is thought to be an expedient way to be attracting media interest which translates into influx of capital through tourism and new investment.

The branding of (Nations) destinations as desirable sites for new investment and tourism consumption has included sports and sporting events as key elements of new economic development strategies.

These explained, (which I want to believe is brief and simple to understand enough) I hope I am good to bring you home now to the substantive issue of Ghana participating in the world cups and my frustration over what our gains are as a country as we are at a point where we need all it takes to “make our nation great and strong”

Like all other countries, Ghana always looks forward and strives hard to participate in the FIFA world cups. It is great joy and pride for every citizen to have his home country participate and rub shoulders with other great countries.

We are witnesses to how every President and government (political party) in power during the world Cup season associates themselves with the Ghana Black stars and wish the team does best during their tenure. Perhaps they are looking to score political points or genuinely interested in the wellbeing of the country. Am not sure I can tell from where I sit.

If not for anything at all, the mere fact that your countries name gets mentioned globally and on all international media, amongst other great countries and they are not necessarily tagged with words such as “underdeveloped, third world, war thorn, poor, politically unstable, etc” but are seen as equally competitive forces, capable of challenging the giants is already a great thing.

These said, is the global media mention and attention (eye balls and share of voice) enough reason for the huge investments?

We all know there are lots of preparation and resources that goes into this bid. Over the years that we have participated, there have always been debates and public discussion about the budgetary allocations and how these monies are spent.

I will not pretend to know much about sports administration or sports business, fact is I watch football only when it is the Ghana Black Stars playing, so surely whenever the world cup is here I root for Ghana to the bone and as a nonstop forever living optimist and dreamer, I always strongly believe and hope, the black stars go far in the tournament and raise the Ghana Flag Up high.

I follow the black stars simply due to my citizenship and patriotism. But as a Social Entrepreneur, brands, public relations and marketing person, I have so many questions on my mind as u can imagine. In fact this article is just a questions article.

To shorten this article, since we all witnessed how Ghana (the black stars, GFA and Black Stars management team, and Government) ruined its reputation internationally with all the issues that occurred in Brazil and the many revelations and discussions going on, on all media, I will end by asking? WHAT IS IN IT FOR GHANA AND HOW CAN WE MAKE SURE GHANA GAINS POSITIVELY FROM SUBSEQUENT WORLD CUP APPEARANCES?