Nation Branding
Ashraf Oozeeraully
Brand Coach | Corporate Brand Strategist | Thought Leader | Game Changer |Place Brand Strategist |Business Transformer | Networker | Employer Brand Strategist |Brand Experience Creator - FOUNDER OneEssence
"MAURITIUS HAS A TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITY"
Interview with late Wally Olins, founder of Wolf Olins and Chairman of Saffron Consultants ( Spain ) - Conducted March 2004
Late Wally Olins is a world figure in branding. Co-founder of Wolff Olins, a global brand consultancy based in UK and Chairman of Saffron Consultants (Spain)?Wally was?an international authority in nation branding and has advised many of the world’s leading Nations and organizations both in the public and private sectors on identity, branding and communication. He has written a number of books and articles on the subject and was an energetic visiting lecturer to universities and academic institutions.
Since I joined DCDM ( now BDO) in 1997 by launching the island's first Communications Consultancy within an Audit Firm ( Internally known as C&D: Communications & Design), I have been in touch with the world's leading brand consultancies to strike strategic alliances with them. I hence interacted with FutureBrand, Interbrand, Enterprise IG ( The Brand Union, now Design Bridge & Partners), Wolff Olins and Landor amongst others. Mauritius was too small at this time to be considered as an option for locating one of their offices. However this relentless interest of mine caught the attention of DCDM's co-founder, late Jean-Marc Harel. We discussed how this could represent an opportunity internally and he contacted his friend William Knight, who was involved in the 70's in raising finance for the Mauritius Fund. William had a word with his friend late Wally Olins, the founder of Wolff Olins and the latter was invited to consider Mauritius as a potential assignment. As DCDM was known to spearhead a number of Mauritian initiatives abroad, Wally accepted the challenge.
As the Corporate Brand Manager of the largest audit, tax and consulting professional services firm, affiliated to Arthur Andersen, it was such a thrilling and inspiring experience and as an always brand-passionate to be working alongside with Wally. This ignited my interest beyond imagination. I recall I bought his seminal book: Corporate Identity when I was working with CREAD FCB back in 1996. It is such a comprehensive book. Having the opportunity to meet him, and above all collaborating with him was a dream come true!?"Wally was known for his strong personality, blunt frankness and is a ‘no-nonsense’ person!" - states one brand commentator based in UK.
We thus pioneered the concept of Nation Branding together by ‘touring’ key sector leaders for Offshore, Agriculture, BOI and Freeport to explain them about the necessity to shift from fragmented sector marketing to create an overall nation branding platform under a single umbrella. Hence, we contacted late Germain Comarmon of the BOI, late Babu Rajpati ( Agriculture), Gerard Sanspeur ( Mauritius Freeport), Georges Chung ( Finacial Services Promotion Agency). In order to increase awareness of this specialized subject matter, I also wrote a number of thought-provoking articles.
My drive to establish Nation Branding was so strong that later, in 2003, I arranged myself to be invited at a cocktail of the Institut Francais de Maurice, so as to share with Hon. Paul Beranger, the then Prime Minister, the importance of driving such a project from the top. I managed to talk to him and he aptly directed me to "go and meet Hon. Nando Bhoda who was then his Minister of Tourism". I did send him an mail to elaborate on the concept and on our initiatives at DCDM level, but I did not stop there. I was relentlessly pursuing this drive to make the Government of Mauritius adopt the Nation Branding Paradigm. Later in 2003, I addressed an article to the then Minister of Finance, Hon. Pravin Jugnauth ( currently our Prime Minister in 2024), through pre-budget papers to ensure this item gets included in the National Budget. Which was finally the case, even though at that time, they did not assign any budget to it. But at least my efforts were crowned with a recognition that it should be a convergent discipline.
Around 2004, I also published articles in Industry Focus, a Magazine edited by the Export Processing Zone Authority ( EPZDA) to elaborate the various components of a Brand Mauritius and also made the distinctions between Nation and Place Branding, which is the current norm.
Whenever I have the opportunity to walk the talk, I do it and feature in various articles/interviews, as was the case for a coverage on Nation Branding on l'Express, the island's daily ( 2008):
After so many years, it is only in 2009 that a true Nation Branding project got initiated under the then Minister of Tourism. Xavier Duval. The ultimate outcome, was Acanchi’s (in-)famous “ Maurice, c’est un plaisir” which was not a really relevant value proposition for our nation’s complex and composite brand. While its meaning had direct connotations to a sex-tourism destination, it did not reflect the reality of the essence of the brand, nor was it a powerful statement in international markets competing for a multi-faceted brand: with FDI as a keyeconomic growth-driver, exports or Tourism, Global Business, Services or Healthcare! Visibly the GOM, selected the wrong player and the Minister of Tourism was the target of negative comments from various local and international quarters! This exercise has suffered from an inexistent nation branding methodology while there were no local subject-matter experts involved in interacting with them to ensure key local insights and strategic inputs were fed. It was clear for me that the project was driven by an advertising-led approach. The local partner to the project was Circus Advertising!
Then during the pandemic, a series of players in the tourist industry ( Ministry of Tourism, Associations and Operators) had the other failed re-branding initiative around Sustainability with the "Sus-Island" identity, which sadly also had a strong negative and vulgar sexual connotation and was hence de-facto badly criticised by reporters, industry professionals, thought leaders and even the public had fun with it! For me this was another drastic and "negative" branding that can safely be qualified as de-branding!
Today, we are at crossroads. With the onset of the global pandemic and struggle to return a yet un-defined ‘new normal’, we are facing a major recession and long years of hard times rising unemployment, threatening inflation, increased debt and decreased economic growth and national wealth.
The international Expression of Interest deployed in March 2019 to select an international consultant to formulate a proper brand strategy has been cancelled due to the current global situation and may be other hidden political reasons! I had the opportunity to have submitted the proposal from Landor, as their independent Nation/Place Brand Strategist but the exercise was unfortunately cancelled. We were ready to shift paradigms again with Landor Team...
In April 2021, the MTPA then took the lead to issue another international bid, since the GOM thought it wise to surf on the growth of the Tourist sector in the post-pandemic context. I was then the lead Nation-Branding strategist operating in a international consortium to submit the Tender. My challenge in the pre-project level was to re-align the proposal from an Advertising/Marcoms approach to a proper Branded Approach. Thanks to the 720° PowerValue Methodology I managed to re-engineer the proposal from an advertising and communication perspective on the right Nation Branding/Place Branding Methodology standards. It was not easy to "direct" an establised Europe-born organization with years of experience in Tourism "Campaigns" to shift to a strategic branding approach... Again, the exercise was finally cancelled, may be for internal-politics reasons that was never explained.
In the context of this international bid, as a Thought Leader in the discipline of Place Branding, I did publish an article in Business Magazine in the column "What the Expert Says" - in order to sensitise the various stakeholders on the need to adopt the proper strategic framework in handling such an assignment. It also elaborated on the desination management strategy component of the Brand Mauritius. My aim was to sensitize the MTPA and the then Minister of Tourism ( Steeve Obeegadoo) to ensure they take on board local expertise in tackling such a post-covid strategic assignment. You can discover the article below:
I explained that there are also a series of quick wins, low-cost strategic solutions, high-impact/affordable international PR solutions that can be leveraged if we adopt the appropriate holistic Strategy Consulting methodology, 720°PowerValue - backed by innovative thinking and out-of-the-box solutions. [ I have been successfully implementing this 720°PowerValue Methodology with all my clients for the past 30 years]. In the case of a comprehensive Country or Nation Branding process, it proceeds as follows: A first loop 360° Inside-Out focus, originating from inside Mauritius to World Markets, merged seamlessly with a second focus of 360° Outside-In Approach - from World Markets to Mauritius - thus completing the 720° holistic loop with all necessary elements in ensuring a Optimal solutions that results in a long-lasting Nation Brand Strategy.
The inside-out process is an internally driven process, where all constituents and components of the Nation are aligned over specific strategic imperatives that need to be defined upfront. NGOs, Associations, Civil Society, Public and Private sector Instititions, the civil society and relevant Ministries are driven by a well formulated social-strategy to involve the the People component of the Nation in understanding and factoring-in their deep expectations, fears, frustations, hopes and ambitions in the process of Nation Building. The GOM here plays a key role in Value Creation of the People for the Nation, its citizens, through its Institutions and Ministries. We call this segment of the Methodology the "Mauritius-Brand" since it is an internal effort, and hovers around the Essence of the Nation.
The Outside-In process, on the contrary, focuses on how the Mauritius appeals to the expectations of the visitors, tourists and investors by factoring-in their various expectations and ambitions. We call this component the "Brand-Mauritius" as it deals with the external challenges of the Nation Brand.
The article was also intended to sensitize the Policy-makers at the MTPA about the fact that since there is no expert within concerned Government Agencies who masters Brand Methodology, Place-Branding and Nation Branding, they are left at the "mercy" of the International Brand Consultancies only, without any local expertise, which is a critical element to ensure formulating an integrated brand strategy around the "Mauritian Worldview". It is time that the Republic of Mauritius values its citizens in driving Place/Destination/Nation Branding from the "inside" to the "outside"!
Now let us focus on the One-Question interview I did with Wally Olins in 2004. Enjoy his towering vision and let’s hope we will soon tackle Brand Mauritius intelligently and smartly TOGETHER, facing Challenges that will rock Ship Mauritius in stormy seas ahead…
THE INTERVIEW:
Ashraf Oozeerally : After some initial resistance, today more and more countries are turning to branding as an effective way to make their voices heard on the the global marketplace. Wally, you have personally been pioneering Nation Branding for the last decades, and you are known for that. I have two questions. First, is Nation Branding really effective? Then, this Friday 12 of March 2004 we are celebrating our 36th year of Independence from Great Britain, what offhand advice could you share with us in this field?
Wally Olins : "Well, I think you have to look at Nation Branding over a very long period of time. All nations have always tried both to create in their own population a feeling of pride and a feeling of self-confidence and they’ve also tried for one reason or for the other to persuade other nations to either love them or to fear them. That’s been the way nations have operated since the late 18th Century. Since the French Revolution this has become a much more overt and clear form of national projection. What we have today is something slightly different in terms of the techniques used but it’s not fundamentally different in terms of what Nations were doing.
The reasons why nations need to project an idea of what they are is because they want to attract tourists, they want to export their own products and they want to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). In the years since about 1950 or so, the number of nations in the world have increased from about 80 to 250. In other words, the amount of competition that exists between nations to attract FDI, tourists and to sell their products abroad is far greater than ever. So these are for purely commercial reasons. Mauritius needs to attract tourists very badly. To attract FDI, Mauritius also needs branding and to export its products. Every nation including Mauritius needs to project that the Mauritius Brand is better than the competitive brands and is more interesting, is worth more, is better quality, is an attractive place to come to.
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In addition to that, there is the fact that a nation has to project an idea of itself to its own population, to make them self-confident, proud and happy about being who they are. A nation also needs political influence. A nation has embassies and high commissions. Every nation participates in trade fairs, exhibitions and so on. Almost all nations advertise their tourism capabilities and potentials. They have national airlines, they have hotels and various kinds of such things. What Nation Branding does, is to bring those ideas together in a form so that instead of everybody advertising or projecting themselves separately within the nation there is some kind of coherence so that one thing helps another and everything the nation does on the whole is seemed to be related with everything else that it does so that if you are talking about FDI or exports, that’s kind of linked in the way Mauritius talks about itself on tourism.
That’s what Nation Branding effort means and of course nations are increasingly involved in all this because there are so many nations in the world. If you look at Central Europe now you can see nations that did not exist before like Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia emerging. If you look at your part of the world and the African Continent, the nations that have emerged in the last 50 years is enormous but unfortunately many of them have not made any impact because they are not sufficiently governed efficiently for them to become attractive to investors. Mauritius is in a very very different situation and therefore has a tremendous opportunity which it is already exploiting in Tourism but in FDI and in branded exports, it has all these potentialities as well.
So as I see it, the opportunity that a nation as Mauritius has, is to make what it does with more coherence. It isn’t a question of doing something different. It’s a question of doing something what you already do much better and much more efficiently and Mauritius has that opportunity."
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Ashraf Oozeerally
Strategy Consultant | Brand Developer | Business Transformer | Nation Brand Strategist| Game Changer
OneEssence
Introduced Landor to Mauritius in 2004. Collaborated with them on past Nation Branding projects as their local nation brand strategist. Visit https://landor.com/en/
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Ashraf Oozeeraully, an Independent Nation Brand Strategist is also the Founder of OneEssence, a boutique and niche brand consultancy based in Mauritius. Ashraf is a born Transformer who is obsessed in shifting paradigms by challenging assumptions and thinking out-of-the-box. Educated at University of Montpellier in?Administration Economique et Sociale, for the past 30 years he has been assisting all kinds of organizations, local and global brands, Top 100 companies and micro-enterprises alike to address complex challenges by embracing brand-led business transformation.
As a Thought-Leader in the discipline of branding & strategy, he had the unique opportunity to collaborate closely with world-recognized authority in Nation Branding, late Wally Olins, founder of Wolff Olins, in assisting various stakeholders of the Government of Mauritius make the transition from fragmented sectoral marketing to embrace Country Branding as a positioning platform.
He has developed a unique strategy consulting methodology - 720°PowerValue - based on the Arthur Andersen Global Best Practices, for whom he was working for, and implemented it to find solutions to complex strategy, organizational and brand-related issues.
Some Clients he has serviced: Accenture, Apollo Bramwell Hospitals, Blanche-Birger Re-branding into Birger, CIDB Rebranding, Fudz App brand strategy, Nokia, Shell, Sony Ericsson, Toyota, MCB, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Housing & Land-use Planning, Polycolor brand repositioning strategy, Polytechnics Mauritius brand creation...
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“Catch them young, coach them right!”
4 年very interesting article!