Is the promise of nation branding sustainable?

This paper examines the aims of nation branding and reflects on the extent to which practices in the industry have been able to fulfil these aims. It is an inquiry into the reliability of the applications of branding nations. To fulfil this aim the paper investigates the phenomenon of rating nations through competitive indexes and the effect of this phenomenon on the unification of nation branding promise and practice. It reflects on a country case and changes resulted from branding programmes with reference to data published in nation/country brand and perception indexes. The paper concludes that the ideal promise of helping nations redistribute the world’s wealth more fairly by branding the nation is unreliable, and that branding the nation in order to achieve the nation’s interest in the long-run proves to be naïve in some cases. By questioning the unification of nation branding promise and practices, the paper aims to alerts practitioners to the importance of aligning national aims and identity with nation-branding programmes. It can also encourage marketing scholars to develop further research into the practices of nation branding in relation to national interests in the long-run and the consequences to national identity and nationalism