Nation Branding, in What Context?: Spatial Competitiveness and Attractiveness

Introduction

The study of the development of national identity gradually becomes a field of diffusion of marketing concepts and practices in national economic policies, mainly from a socio-cultural perspective, capable of leading to subtle changes in all correlations concerned and functioning most often as a tool of soft power and promotion of national image and interests (Melissen, 2005; Nye, 1990; Pistikou, 2018). These slender adaptations occur because the receivers of these messages of the ensued nation-promotion strategy take as added value the specific culture of the nation they “buy into.” It should be noted that brand-building processes require long-lasting adherence since, in the short run, only a little payoff may materialize (Masouras, Komodromos, & Papademetriou, 2019; O’Shaughnessy & Jackson, 2000; Siakalli & Masouras, 2020; Sophocleous, Masouras, & Papademetriou, 2019). To this end, nations need to incorporate an integrated strategic perspective when formulating the nation-brand instead of targeting and supporting ephemeral and meteoric advertising campaigns (Morgan, Pride, & Pritchard, 2002).

Moreover, any typical overview of the terminology followed by theorists and advocates of nation branding, a concept which has prevailed for the development of such nationwide marketing strategies of a country’s identity, reveals a relative inadequacy in examining the dimensions relating to the competitiveness of industries and firms other than nations, as well as the corresponding co-produced and co-evolving dynamics of attractiveness. Αs examined in the subsequent literature review section, that nation branding marketers seem to often treat the national socio-economic system as a “canned” product, excluded from globalization’s dynamics. However, from an overarching perspective and via available data, it becomes clear that the current phase of globalization does not lead to the definitive homogenization of the different societies of the planet that is eliminating all their socio-cultural specificities (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2012; Vlados, Deniozos, & Chatzinikolaou, 2018). Globalization does not come to impose a complete cultural and ideological homogenization of all societies and, in this way, the “end of history” (Fukuyama, 1992). On the contrary, it reproduces heterogeneity incessantly, which leads to increased differentiation and allows various local idiosyncrasies to coexist and co-evolve (linguistic, cultural, merit-based, symbolic). Therefore, contemporary global dynamics seem to make up the actual context for integrating the nation branding concept.

With this as a given, this research focuses on the following three theoretical considerations, which reflect the upcoming three sub-sections of the study. Overall, the purpose of this chapter is to distinguish the conceptual evolution of nation branding, to combine it with the study of competitiveness and attractiveness and to arrive at a new theoretical framework for the conception of national economic policy and strategy through an introductory overview of the relevant literature. The questions that will be addressed are the following:

• 1.

  What is the recent evolution of nation branding’s concept, in what theories it is based on, and why does it matter?

• 2.

  If it is significant to understand how nations “self-advertise,” then why do the dimensions and scientific documentation of competitiveness (especially an approach that does not just focus on the nation’s perspective and side) seem to remain quite under-exploited?

• 3.

  If attractiveness is the other side of the same coin of any space’s or actor’s socio-economic development with competitiveness, what could be a new theoretical framework within which modern nation branding can function to articulate such a strategy?