Branding Romania

“So it's a cliché to say that a strong brand is the biggest asset a business could have. But, like most clichés, true”. Country branding is no exception. Having a strong brand can make a difference in the overall development of a country, in its international affairs in general, but also in the country’s attractiveness as tourism destination in particular.

There has been a lot of talk and controversy lately on the subject of Romania’s country branding and how its image should be promoted abroad. Although during the past years efforts were made towards building a country brand, there are actually no solid favorable results so far.

Spring 2009 marked the start of a competition meant to solve part of the country branding problem Romania has been encountering for many years now. Thirteen companies from abroad embarked on the ambitious mission of creating Romania’s country brand.
So what exactly is country branding? It is the way a country is
perceived by its “audience”, in this case, the rest of the world.

Roughly, a successful national brand should aim for the following purposes:

• Encouraging foreign direct investments
• Being a support for exports
• Encouraging tourism
• Creating internal pride

In Romania, the first real international campaign meant to improve the country’s image abroad and encourage tourism was conceived in 2001. The concept of the campaign was “Romania, simply surprising” and it was produced by Ogilvy&Mathers Romania. The cost of the campaign was huge at the time, about 2 million dollars, taking into account the assumed poor results it recorded, which were actually never made public.

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No Comments to “Branding Romania”

• lw says:

  July 2, 2009 at 2:58 pm

  the whole branding of romania is a farce. those tasked with branding this country have ZERO experience in country branding, yet they take a s**t load of cash to do it, with a few thousands disappearing into pockets of others.

  and out MoT’s experience in Tourism? Her husband owns a couple of 2* hotels.

  oh, and the fact she was the President’s mistress!
• james cadariu says:

  July 2, 2009 at 5:11 pm

  service, service, service. The country is incredibly beautiful and diverse. It is completely DIY at this point, though. You have to know locals to get anything done. If you go through touristy places, employees are less than friendly. We had about 30 people follow us around at Peles castle just to make sure we didn’t take pictures. Dealul Mare wine country is so hard to get to from Bucuresti that I felt like writing my own book. Renting a car is difficult, as is finding the passable roads.
  My favorite things about Romania are the mountains, the delta and the people. Play off the assets. Natural paradise-make the carpathians a brand like the alps. Brand the Delta as an eco-paradise. These assets are located almost entirely within Romania’s borders. Have the government invest in the modernization of the wine industry and then market that. The land is perfect but right now the wines are of very low quality. I would sell the country on a natural basis because the capitol is not at all a spot I would recommend. Then train the people to be service-oriented to those that arrive.
  Those slogans in the article are horrible. I would be more non-specific and humorous like Romania is awesome. Or use Romanian humor instead of idiotic phrases written by consultants. The bad results of using “surprising” to sell a country are not surprising.