NATION BRANDING: CORRECTING THE NEGATIVE IMAGE OF MALAYSIA-INDONESIA RELATION

Indonesia and Malaysia are two neighboring nations that shared similarities in many aspects, such as their national languages are closely related; the majority of the population of both nations were of Austronesian ancestry or of the Malay race, with signiÞ cant Malay culture shared among them. Both nations are Muslim majority countries, the founding members of ASEAN and APEC, and also members of the Non-aligned Movement and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Yet, because of Malaysia-Indonesia relation issues, such as territory, migrant worker, culture, environment, media, education, and economic trade so that Malaysian and Indonesia diplomatic relations could be affected over a series of protests against Malaysia. This paper overviews the most import ant challenges as well as mistakes of nation branding in the region. A country’s brands can make a positive contribution to the overall image of a country and enhance its competitive reputation. Perceptions of a country are based on many things and all aspects of a nation help form public opinion and shape its image. Businesses have resources and expertise as well as a global worldview that is advantageous to public diplomacy, and building favorable country-to-country relationships in the global society is in the self-interests of business as well as governments. Keywords: nation branding, country image, country relationship