Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.08.2008, Side 20

20 | REYKJAVÍK GRAPEVINE | ISSUE 10—2008
Which “brand” is more famous Sony or Turkey? What
about Smirnoff or Austria, Snickers or Seychelles Is-
lands, The Blue Lagoon or Uzbekistan? Even though
the answer will at some rate be subjective there are
formulas and theories that can give us a scientific an-
swer to the questions, at least – for what it’s worth –
which brand is worth more. Based on my taste I would
go for Sony, Austria and Snickers, but
I’m not sure about the last one. Here
I am accepting the fact that nations
can be brands. They can have official
slogans. A disappointed Slovenian
I once met explained to me that his
nation’s official slogan is “The coun-
try with love” (A rather unappealing
wordplay, I must say).
What about Iceland? It certainly
has an image but is it a brand? How
big is it and how should the slogan
sound? Who decides how it is pre-
sented and how it is maintained?
These are interesting questions and
up until this point the public and
more sadly also authorities had only
limited answers.
WHY MESS WITH A
“PERFECT” IMAGE?
Let’s start with a banal but yet neces-
sary thought. Isn’t Iceland’s image ex-
ceptionally good? Aren’t we the glob-
al flavour of the week, month, year
and millennium? The land of elves
and poets, beautiful women, fire, ice
and crazy nightlife? We know the drill.
Iceland is the best. We tell ourselves
that Icelandic water is the best in the
world and that Icelandic agricultural
products are more ecological than
those from rest of the world. Tourists
even buy it since it’s relatively debat-
able. But when we start to brag that
we construct the best houses in the
world, I think we stir up a few laughs
(just friendly laughs though like when
you laugh at a picture of a dog with
sunglasses).
My point is that we over-estimate the image of
Iceland. It is neither as well-known nor as positive as
we think. It is pointed out in the report that according
to a 2007 research by nation branding specialist, Simon
Anholt, Iceland came in number 19 out of 35 countries.
All Scandinavian and OECD-countries in the research
were higher on the list (p. 20). Maybe it was time we
took a look at this thing called nation-branding. It’s no
good to have a perfect image if the image is only in our
own head.
NO U-TURNS
It is no secret that the ideology of nation images and
nation branding is an adaptation of similar ideas used
for companies. That does not justify my intentional but
silly comparison between companies and nations. We
are not interested whether Ikea has a better image than
Korea. But we could be interested whether Sweden has
a better image than Korea, at least
in some isolated fields, e.g. furniture
making. Maybe it is a dark side of
globalisation, but countries are now
just as dependent on a competitive
identity as companies. And make no
mistake. The idea is not to create a
totally new image for Iceland. One of
the first things stated in the report is
that building an image is a long-term
project which revolves mostly around
coordination between those that al-
ready serve the cause and to sharpen
an image that already exists. The key
is to bring out an image that all par-
ties can agree to.
WHAT’S THE IMAGE FOR?
To understand what kind of work is
being done it is necessary to under-
stand who stands to benefit from it.
According to the report, there are
mainly three fields that benefit from a
sharp and strong nation image. They
are export of goods and services, for-
eign investment and tourism.
Research shows that consum-
ers are more and more deciding on
products based on their country of
origin. A good example is the posi-
tive image of Swatch wrist-watches.
We would buy a wrist-watch made
out of rhubarb if we knew it was from
Switzerland. Iceland can benefit from
this since research also shows that
the majority of people are willing to
pay more for a product from a coun-
try with a clean environment. In this
sense one of our tasks is to sharpen
this angle of our nation’s image.
When decisions are made whether to make invest-
ments in foreign countries there a few issues at hand, for
example, access to international airports, financial en-
vironment and taxation, number of experts, universities
and research centres. Still executives do not, according
to studies, only base their decisions on clean economi-
cal facts but also on their gut feeling for the nation’s im-
age and reputation. In this field I personally think it’s
important for Icelandic authorities to decide what kind
of investment should be brought in. The country is a
THE IMAGE
OF ICELAND
Luckily most nations were named before the existence of nation-branding. If people
would have been as business-minded in medieval times as now we would never
have heard of Iceland. Our glorious semi-arctic island of midnight sun and hip
nightlife would have been named “Cool-land”. Greenland would have been sued for
false advertising. But finally, for better or worse, we are systematically starting to
brand the image of our nation. Last year the Prime Minister appointed a commit-
tee to give a report on the matter. The report is now out but since most people are
not that much into reading governmental reports (don’t start because it becomes a
habit) we will give you a summery plus some of our own thoughts on the matter.
FEATURE By Bergur eBBi BenediktSSon — pHoto By gaS
The Government's search for Iceland's identity
HOW WAS IT DONE?
The Report “The Image of
Iceland – strength, status
and course” was made by a
committee appointed by the
Prime Minister of Iceland,
Geir Haarde, in 2007. The
Chair of the committee was
Svafa Grönfeld, the dean of
Reykjavík University. Other
members represented were
The Ministry of Foreign Af-
fairs, the City of Reykjavík
and firms in the field of
tourism and advertising.
Staff came from The Trade
Council of Iceland and the
Prime Minister’s Office. The
main role of the commit-
tee was to summarise the
status of Iceland’s image
today, design a course for
the future and make sug-
gestions for improvements.
The committee gathered
information by getting vari-
ous parties from businesses,
the government and the
culture scene together at
round table discussions as
well as going over all official
information available on the
matter and looking at writ-
ings of scholars and other
nation’s experiences with
image-building.