Nation Branding and Country of Origin: Case Study of Singapore

1. [Assignment cover sheet]
Assignment 1: Individual Brand Case study Report
Nation Branding and Country of Origin: Case Study of Singapore
Word count:
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2. Table of Content
List of Figures..........................................................................................................................................................3
List of Tables............................................................................................................................................................3
1. Introduction......................................................................................................................................................4
2. Literature review ................................................................................................................................................4
2.1. Definitions....................................................................................................................................................4
2.1.1. Brand .....................................................................................................................................................4
2.1.2. Nation brand........................................................................................................................................6
2.1.3. Country of origin (COO)..................................................................................................................7
2.1.4. Branding ...............................................................................................................................................7
2.1.5. Nation branding..................................................................................................................................8
2.2. Impacts of COO and nation branding.................................................................................................10
2.2.1. Impacts of COO................................................................................................................................10
2.2.2. Impacts of nation branding ...........................................................................................................12
3. Nation branding strategy................................................................................................................................13
3.1. Basic principles.........................................................................................................................................13
3.1.1. Strategic analysis .............................................................................................................................13
3.1.2. Strategic planning............................................................................................................................15
3.1.3. Strategic implementation ...............................................................................................................16
3.2. Elements......................................................................................................................................................16
4. Case study of Singapore.................................................................................................................................17
3.1. Nation brand ..............................................................................................................................................17
3.2. COO.............................................................................................................................................................18
3.3. Nation branding........................................................................................................................................18
4. Conclusion .........................................................................................................................................................19
Reference.................................................................................................................................................................20
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3. List of Figures
Figure 1: Nation brand ..........................................................................................................................................6
Figure 2: Evolution of branding scope .............................................................................................................8
Figure 3: Nation branding evolution.................................................................................................................9
Figure 4: A model of indirect effect of COO on purchase intention .....................................................11
Figure 5: Model of indirect effect of COO on brand equity.....................................................................11
Figure 6: Ansoff Matrix......................................................................................................................................16
List of Tables
Table 1: Brand’s levels of meaning...................................................................................................................5
Table 2: Internal analysis....................................................................................................................................14
Table 3: Nation brand Competitor analysis matrix.....................................................................................15
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4. 1. Introduction
Today, brand and branding have become one among central topics in contemporary marketing.
Brands are designed to send a clear message and signal, which can be identified and transferred
to all economic, cultural and social values (Kenyon et al., 2012). The presence and value of
brands have been embedded in various aspects including products, services, organisations,
nations, communities, people, and languages (Holt et al., 2004). It is undeniable that the topic of
nation brand and country of origin have, over the two recent decades attracted a great amount of
attention of both researchers and practitioners thanks to its significance, close relationships with
and huge impacts on the nations’ images, products and services, etc. Being an established field,
nation branding examines the strategic management, value as well as performance of a branded
national identity (Fan, 2010). In contrast, the nation branding is still facing numerous challenges
from the conceptual to implementation process. Particularly, the failure to generate a successful
nation branding will cause not only huge cost but also serious reputation damage. Thus, the
strategy to establish a nation brand must be conducted with great thoughts and caution.
In light of this, this report aims to present a novel approach to the issues of national brand and
country of origin by using stepwise and layered narratives of various definitions, theories and
frameworks. The case study of Singapore will also be utilized to provide more practical insights
into the theoretical perspectives.
2. Literature review
2.1. Definitions
2.1.1. Brand
Brand has been subject to a number of definitions. It is defined by the American Marketing
Association in 1960 as “a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of these,
intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate
them from competitors”. According to Philip Kotler, the brand is a complex concept which is far
beyond simply a symbol. Brand also conveys a quality guarantee and a seller’s promise to the
4

5. buyers. The brand can transmit up to six levels of meanings as described in the table below,
including attributes, benefits, values, culture, personality and user (Kotler, 2001).
Table 1: Brand’s levels of meaning
Source: (Kotler, 2001)
In addition, there are a number of concepts around brand. Brand equity refers to the power and
value of brands in the marketplace, which is often reflected in its incremental value such as profit
margin or market share. While one extreme is the brand is unknown to the customers, some have
a certain level of brand awareness which is the knowledge customers have about the brand. The
next level of brand acceptability, then brand preference, and finally brand loyalty (Maurya &
Mishra, 2012) .
5

6. 2.1.2. Nation brand
Each country has a unique name and image on the minds of both local people and other
international friends, thus, each country has a brand.
Given the context of globalisation in which countries have to compete with each other to attract
investors, tourists, donors, media, immigrants, as well as the government of other nations, etc.
nation brand has become increasingly important. The more powerful and positive a nation brand
is, the more competitive the country will be. Obviously, when a nation has a good brand, it will
receive respects, trusts, and recognition from other people and institutions around the world
(Anholt, 2003).
Interestingly, two different notions should be recognized, which are nation brand and national
brand. A national brand, unlike from a global brand is originated from a country and somehow
its use is limited within that country rather than globally. Meanwhile, the nation brand also
differs from commercial brands in which many elements are not easy to change within a short
time and not under control of those in nation branding management (Fan, 2010).
According to Anholt (2003), the nation brand is the sum of people’s perceptions across six fields
of national competence including: Tourism, exports, people, governance, culture and heritage,
and investment and immigration (See the Hexagon below).
Figure 1: Nation brand
Source: (Anholt, 2003)
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7. In another research, Fan (2010) defines the nation brand as the total sum of all perceptions
international stakeholders have about a country including: “people, place, culture/language,
history, food, fashion, famous faces (celebrities), and global brands, etc.”
2.1.3. Country of origin (COO)
The country of origin, or COO was first studied in 1965 to refer to the source of manufacturing,
production, and growth of a particular product (Dinnie, 2003). Today, the COO is often
expressed as the terminology “Made in [name of country]” which consumers can see on the
products.
2.1.4. Branding
Branding is the action of creating brand awareness through various channels to target the
audience (Yee, 2009). According to Kotler (2001), branding is a difficult process and a number
of challenges are posed by branding including: 1) to brand or not to brand; 2) how to handle
brand sponsorship; 3) how to choose a brand name; 4) how to conduct a brand strategy; and 5) to
reposition a brand later on or not?
There are three major kinds of branding: product branding, organisation branding, and
destination branding. The last one is also termed as place, or nation branding (Stuart et al., 2005).
The scope of branding has been evolved from product, to corporate and service branding, and
finally to nation branding as illustrated in the following figure (Dinnie, 2008):
7

8. Figure 2: Evolution of branding scope
Source: (Dinnie, 2008)
2.1.5. Nation branding
As each country is making continuous efforts to enhance its brand to the international
community for objective fulfillment, it can do it through nation branding. Unlike COO which
relates mainly to economic interests, the nation branding tends to be more concerned about the
total aspects in the country’s image including political, economic, and socio-cultural issues (Fan,
2010).
The evolution of nation branding is attributed to the interaction between national identity and
country of origin, given the economic globalisation, resulting in the lowered trade barriers
among nations and the competition on the world stage. This condition requires the nations to turn
to brand management techniques, as illustrated in the following diagram:
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9. Figure 3: Nation branding evolution
Source: (Dinnie, 2008)
Nation branding is defined as a process to create, monitor, evaluate and actively manage the
nation image to improve or enhance the country’s reputation for international audience. In other
words, nation brand is to communicate to other people how good your country is (Fan, 2010).
9

10. 2.2. Impacts of COO and nation branding
2.2.1. Impacts of COO
The impacts of COO’s brands on consumers’ behavior have long become an area of interest
among researchers in the international business. It is widely agreed that COO has a significant
impact on the customers’ evaluations of products. Also, the customers often use COO as an
extrinsic cue to make assessments on the product quality (Agrawal & Kamakura, 1999). In other
words, the consumers often have a country – product link to develop country – product images
when evaluating the quality of a particular product manufactured by firms in that country.
Instances of country – product images are German cars, Japan electronics, Swiss watches, and
Belgian chocolate, etc.
While COO has significant effects on consumers’ initial evaluations of products, studies have
shown that the effects are less significant on their decision making process. This process
normally is determined by two kinds of effects: the halo effect and summary construct effect.
The former effect happens when the consumers evaluate a product they do not know well by
using general information of this country. The latter effect occurs when the consumers have
particular familiarity with the country and have developed associations with and confidence of
the countries (KilDuff & Tabales, 2017). As such, the effects of COO seem gradually weaker
when the consumers move from product perception to attitude information and to purchase
behavior.
Many researchers also argue that the COO has indirect rather than direct impacts on the
customers’ purchase intention. The model below illustrates that the country image and product
category image which both reflect the COO will promote the brand image to the consumers.
Once they have a positive brand image, they will have a stronger purchase intention (Yang et al.,
2016).
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11. Figure 4: A model of indirect effect of COO on purchase intention
Source: (Yang et al., 2016)
The COO is said to have an influence on the customers’ brand loyalty, association, awareness as
well as perceived quality, leading to the indirect effect on the brand equity as conceptualized in
the model below:
Figure 5: Model of indirect effect of COO on brand equity
COO also has considerable impacts on corporations, particularly in the internationalized and
globalized context. As brand equity can impact the price setting, the COO can ultimately
influence the pricing decision of firms. Namely, the companies in countries with positive COO
are able to charge a higher price than those in countries with lower COO (Agrawal & Kamakura,
1999).
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12. 2.2.2. Impacts of nation branding
Clearly, the nation branding is beneficial to the country and various stakeholders.
The definition of nation branding provides a clear advantage of the nation branding for the nation
image. As far as we may concern, the nation image could be good or bad and despite of this, it
can hardly reflect the reality of the country in an accurate manner. For developing countries in
particular, the time is a critical factor that disconnect the image and reality. For instance,
Vietnam has been growing very well to become the middle – income nation and one of the most
peaceful countries; however, to many foreigners, Vietnam is still in war. It means that in reality,
that country actual performance is good but the country image may remain unchanged or even
lag behind years, decades or centuries. To some extent, it is a challenge to change the people’s
perception towards the impression on a country once it is engraved in their mind, particularly the
negative one. Many people blame the media, or the government, etc. not to be able to change the
country image. However, it must be admitted that even the rich countries such as America also
find it difficult to restore or change its image (Anholt, 2005).
Nevertheless, it is widely agreed that the nation’s international reputation can be managed or
altered by a clear strategy, leadership, relevant governmental coordination, cooperation between
the public and private sector as well as among the residents as a whole, i.e. by nation branding
process. Thus, a nation should not wait until its nation image automatically catches up with time
but should proactively public its image, development, prosperity, change, achievement to be
seen, recognized and acknowledged by other countries in the world. From which, the proper
nation branding ensures that even small, poor and new countries can build up and foster their
cultural social and historical value in the global arena with a new image engraved in the mindset
of other people. As such, the nation branding also leads to a faster return on investment made by
the country itself, the donors and foreign investors (Anholt, 2003).
Through nation branding, the country aims to achieve different objectives such as attracting
investment and tourism, fostering imports and exports, etc. Moreover, the nation branding can
increase currency stability, store international credibility, enhance investor confidence, political
influence, and stronger international partnership as well as foster nation building. Accordingly,
the nation branding can drive sustainable development and competitive parity, particularly when
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13. countries do not possess natural resources as competitive advantages, or countries in remote
areas, etc. In such cases, countries having a good nation branding practice are said to have “soft
power” (Dinnie, 2008).
3. Nation branding strategy
One challenge of nation branding is how to effectively transmit the message to different people
in different countries. People are governed by various cultures while the nation image is a too
broad and complex construct so it seems impossible to apply the same formulae as the
commercial brands. Moreover, the nation branding needs the close coordination of all
stakeholders such as the residents, the public sector, the private enterprises, and the non-
governmental organisations, etc. These stakeholders should collaborate in a consistent and
coordinated fashion to develop a core message. In fact, it should be noted that a message, a
slogan or a campaign is impossible to represent a nation and to be used by multiple sectors. As
such, it is recommended to conceptualize and conduct the nation branding at one sublevel only,
for instance event brand, tourism brand, export brand or a particular brand (Fan, 2010).
No universal template is applicable to nation branding strategy. However, there are still several
basic principles and elements of strategy as discussed below.
3.1. Basic principles
3.1.1. Strategic analysis
First, the strategic analysis including internal and external analyses should be implemented.
Regarding the internal analysis, key sectors should be reviewed including: 1) Tourism; 2)
Foreign Direct Investment; 3) Export promotion; and 4) Talent attraction to assess the nation
brand capability over a scoring scale (e.g. 1 to 10) across several key success factors. The
internal analysis is described in the following tables.
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14. Table 2: Internal analysis
Sectors Key success factors Nation brand capability
Tourism
Customer service levels Scale 1

10
Safety Scale 1

10
Value for money Scale 1

10
Accessibility Scale 1

10
FDI
Stable economic and political Scale 1

10
environment
Skilled workforce Scale 1

10
Streamlined administrative procedures Scale 1

10
Infrastructure Scale 1

10
Export promotion
High quality brands Scale 1

10
Effective COO positioning Scale 1

10
Strategic development of target markets Scale 1

10
Innovation Scale 1

10
Talent attraction
Favourable residency criteria (for visa, Scale 1

10
passport, etc.)
Attractive lifestyle Scale 1

10
Opportunity for career progression Scale 1

10
Reputation for higher education Scale 1

10
Source: (Dinnie, 2008)
Meanwhile, the external analysis focuses on competitor analysis considering broader
environmental factors which affect the activities of nation branding. This aims to compare and
contrast the country of concern against other competing countries across strengths and
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15. weaknesses, strategic goal and current strategies, etc. of four above-mentioned key sectors (See
Table below).
Table 3: Nation brand Competitor analysis matrix
Sectors Strengths Weaknesses Strategic goals Current strategies
Tourism
Country A
Country B
FDI
Country C
Country D
Export promotion
Country E
Country F
Talent attraction
Country G
Country H
Source: (Dinnie, 2008)
3.1.2. Strategic planning
After the strategic analysis, the strategic planning should be made to set detailed and measurable
objectives. Normally, a country will target multiple objectives rather than just one only. The
Ansoff matrix is often used to help define possible directions for the strategy development based
on the availability of products and markets (Figure below). To apply to nation branding strategy,
the Ansoff matrix can identify strategic directions across various nation brand activities.
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16. Figure 6: Ansoff Matrix
Source: (Moore, 2013)
3.1.3. Strategic implementation
The final stage after identifying the strategic planning is implementation, which is the most
crucial but challenging stage. The challenges a country must be well aware include: control
insurance, knowledge management, change and structures management, as well as internal and
external relationship management, etc. Moreover, limited budget, political pressures and external
environmental factors such as disasters, economic gloom, etc. can affect the strategic
implementation of nation branding (Yee, 2009).
3.2. Elements
A number of elements can be encompassed when undertaking a nation branding strategy,
including (Dinnie, 2008):
 Nation brand advertising

 Customer and citizen relationship management

 Nation brand ambassadors

 Nation days

 Nation brand naming

 Nation brand tracking studies
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17. 4. Case study of Singapore
This report also presents the case study of Singapore to see its elements of nation brands, how
this country has successfully implemented its nation branding strategy and its lessons learnt. For
such a small and new country like Singapore, brands are unarguably the most valuable assets.
Singapore has shown an amazing performance to grow from merely a small island country
separated from Indonesia to the First World country just over after over 30 years. A critical
contributing factor is a stunning nation branding strategy which incorporates concerted and close
coordination among various stakeholders (Koh, 2011).
3.1. Nation brand
Since 2012, Singapore has maintained its position as one among 30 global nation brands,
according to an annual nation brand rankings by Brand Finance Corporation (Dixit, 2012). In
application of Anholt’s Hexagon, Singapore’s nation brands are identified as below:
 Tourism: Singapore is known as the top destination when travelers think about where to
visit in Asia. Tourists can enjoy a small but extremely clean and green city, with modern
means of transportation and exciting leisure activities.

 Exports: The products in Singapore are highly evaluated for cutting edge technology and
sophistication, as well as top level quality. Thus, education services, customer services,
aviation as well as technological devices made in Singapore are really respected.

 People: Singapore people are considered the smart and hardworking citizens. They are
also ambitious and high achievers.

 Governance: Singapore is embedded in people’s mind as a corruption-free place to do
business. Particularly, the Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong, is well-
known as a highly dedicated and committed person, who is scandal-free and paid a lot of
attention to education development.

 Culture and heritage: Singapore is the mixture between Asian (Malay, Chinese, South
Asia, East Asia) and European cultures. Thus, Singapore is even called a country where

“East meets West”, or Easy Asia, and Garden City.

 Investment and immigration: With its competitive advantages, Singapore is one of the
most worthy destinations for investment and immigration not only in Asian region but in
the whole globe. Singapore has attracted various students, employees, and investors into
17

18. famous institutions such as National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang
Technology University (NTU), and strong sectors like energy, healthcare, electronics,
technology and environment, etc.
3.2. COO
Made-in-Singapore products and services clearly bring significant sense of trust and quality
guarantee for customers rather than other products made in other countries. Particularly, the
country of origin has considerable positive effect on products made with Singapore’s strengths
and competitive advantages such as electronics, technology and customer service. Some
examples are personal calculators, Tiger Balm, Axe medicated oil, Tiger Beer, Singapore
Airlines, Razer, Philips Electronics home appliances, and Bata shoes, etc.
3.3. Nation branding
Singapore has defined four key pillars of nation brands to aim for its nation branding, which are:
Nation Tourism, Nation Product, Nation Investment and Nation Talent. These four pillars are
also in line with the four key drivers of the economy as identified by the Brand Finance in
ranking nations in terms of global nation brands (Dixit, 2012).
The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) was founded in 1964 which is only one year right after the
independence of Singapore as a separate nation. This is a right direction in the nation branding
strategy of Singapore when STPB can focus on its function and the problem of control
management can be ensured (Yee, 2009). Tourism can be said the most developed sector in
Singapore and has received special attention of the government. Singapore understands that
tourism can help convey many messages of the country images to international friends in the
most efficient way. The Singapore country has experienced a number of slogans, such as The
Lion City since it was established; the Garden City in 1967; Instant Asia in the 1970s; Surprising
Singapore in 1985; New Asia in 1996; Uniquely Singapore from 2004 – 2010 and since 2010,
“YourSingapore”. So far, STB has marketed Singapore’s multi-faceted appeal as a destination
featuring with premium business, diverse leisure, excellent healthcare and education services.
According to STB, the success of the nation branding is contributed to two factors: Destination
brand positioning and visitor centric strategies (STB, 2016).
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19. The evolution from Singapore’s destination brand from Uniquely Singapore to YourSingapore
has implied that the unique strength of Singapore the customers can not only experience but
easily personalize, including premium sights, sounds, tastes, culture and attractions (STB, 2016).
This expresses a nation branding strategy focusing on the tourism users and people through the
provision of outstanding and excellent products and services. The visitor-centric integrated
marketing campaigns that are customized to fulfill the needs of target customers in target
countries. For instance, STB launched a “Get lost and find the real Singapore” advertising in
Australia to change the perceptions of the Australian from considering Singapore as a stopover to
a great leisure destination.
Singapore also set up the Global Investment Program (GIP) for foreign investors, entrepreneurs
and business people who wish to run business in the city state, under which the investors will be
supported from the country’s Economic Development Board (EDB) not only in terms of business
but also immigration procedures and facilities.
Singapore is also well-known for its talent attraction strategy. It has established the top ranking
universities and corporations to locate in the small but dynamic city state from its favorable tax
policies and link between universities and local businesses.
4. Conclusion
In conclusion, this report has presented the issues of national brand and country of origin by
using stepwise and layered narratives of various definitions, theories and frameworks. The case
study of Singapore was also be utilized to provide more practical insights into the theoretical
perspectives.
The concept of brand and branding is complex, especially when it applies to the nation scale.
Singapore has been in the right direction from the beginning and has achieved tremendous
success to become the top nation brand in the world. It is greatly attributed to the vision of the
government, and close coordination among all stakeholders.
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20. Reference
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Dinnie, K., 2008. Nation Branding: Concepts, Issues, Practice. 1st ed. Oxford: Elsevier.
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21. Kotler, P., 2001. Marketing Management, Millennium Edition. 1st ed. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall,
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