What it takes for branding?

Branding a nation is an activity that aims to measure, build and manage the reputation of a country. In today's competitive market, the benefits of a strong brand are especially significant because these can ensure businesses a critically important competitive edge.
Is Bangladesh yet to get a respectable position in global branding measurements? The answer is most probably no. According to BBC World News and Future Brand Index, Bangladesh is placed at 102th position in the world in 2010. In the South Asian context, India is placed at 23rd and Nepal at 59th position. This is a clear indication that we are not tapping our resources and exploiting our achievements to represent ourselves to the outside world.
Marketing Guru Philip Kotler who defined brand as a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of all, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of the competitors. Likewise Australia Unlimited, Sparkling Korea, Cool Malaysia, Uniquely Singapore, Incredible India, Amazing Thailand, Sri Lanka: The Pearl of the Indian Ocean, Dubai: The Jewel in the Desert are some of the slogans and symbols used by respective countries according to their current business needs.
Brand strength is a nation's ultimate asset that helps to stand out regionally and globally, and to realise future ambitions beyond its geographic boundaries. When a product, service or a company is identified with a strong country brand, it has a better chance of premium pricing, longevity and preference in markets.
More importantly, nation branding focuses on the nation as a whole - its people, culture and heritage, products and exports, investment, climate, tourism and so on. A brand is basically a promise to deliver a specific set of features, benefits and services consistently to the buyers. The best brands convey warranty of quality. Branding can convey up to six levels of meanings: attributes, benefits, values, culture, personality and user.
Brand identity is based on the proposition that consumers buy not only a product but also the image associations of the product, such as power, wealth, sophistication, and most importantly identification and association with other users of the brand. It is true that brand value lies in the trust of a brand name for quality and reliability, a form of guarantee for its reputation, a promise the brand delivers and the service it provides to the consumers. An increasing importance of the symbolic value of products has led marketers and, consequently, policy makers of countries to leverage their products with distinctive characteristics of the country of origin.
Bangladesh RMG exporters are one of the most important suppliers of garment product to the most advanced markets such as those of the USA, and the EU. We can hope within 30 years Bangladesh will become the 'export power house' in the world. Bangladesh has been a hot spot, especially as wages have risen in China. McKinsey, the consulting giant, has called Bangladesh the "next China" and predicted that Bangladeshi garment exports, now about $24.5 billion a year, could double by 2021. With the global success that RMG has brought about, Bangladesh is well set to brand its name as the most renowned garment producer in overseas markets.   
Bangladesh has today achieved the fame for its preparedness against natural calamities like cyclones and floods that has made the world acknowledge the country's resilience and its abilities. In an international conference held in Japan after the tsunami, Bangladesh was invited as a special guest to talk in the conference because of its successes in dealing with natural calamities, although the country was not affected by tsunami.
By making our citizens attached to the concept of brand, we can encourage home made products. On the other hand, brand strategist should concentrate on branding the country beyond the borders. Its success depends on how far they can reduce the gap between a native's perception and a foreigner's perception about the country. Considering these objectives the National Brand Index (NBI) focuses on six categories, such as: people, governance, exports, tourism, culture and heritage, investment and immigration. If the government comes forward to take proper steps, the country will be largely facilitated in its path towards branding.
Good brand names don't happen overnight. It takes extensive research and a lot of time to work on. In various ways, the government's calls for "Digital Bangladesh" and "Time for Change" can encourage the private sector entrepreneurs for branding Bangladesh. It is high time the civil society and the political leaders came forward to take an integrated approach to this important task.
harun.bkmea@gmail.com