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The purpose of this paper is to comment on the article by He et al., and to propose a framework for the worldwide dissemination of a nation brand image as a way to understand the nature and resilience of nation brands.

The approach is conceptual with illustrative examples.

By integrating research on the dissemination of cultural narratives in a power structure with the literature on shared reality and consensual perceptions, this paper develops a framework for future research on the factors that impact the emergence of a consensual image about a nation brand. These factors include the nation’s political and economic power, the widespread adoption of the nation’s language and the nation’s cultural attractiveness. The framework further proposes that these factors positively affect the likelihood that people would develop an image of what they perceive is widely shared about a nation brand, or the shared reality about the image of such nation brand. The framework also elaborates on some of the consequences for perpetuating the nation brand image and for reinforcing brand-affiliative consumption behaviors.

This paper offers a framework that allows marketers to further understand the worldwide dissemination of nation brands.

The paper integrates a novel framework with recent findings about the psychology of globalization, opening avenues for future research on nation branding.

This paper aims to provide an integrative review on nation branding literature and to identify new avenues for future research on embedding nation equity into commercial brands.

Integrative review and analysis with conceptual development and future research directions.

The authors firstly identify conceptualizations and measurements of nation brand as national identity and as national image. Consistently, three theoretical perspectives investigating nation branding were given: first, the macro view focusing on nation brand broadly as political and cultural identity; second, the micro view focusing on nation brand as a country image; and finally, the integrative view using the emerging construct of nation equity. Inspired by the last theoretical view, the authors discuss four research foci that examine nation equity in commercial brands for future research.

The paper provides an integrative understanding of nation branding and identifies novel research opportunities to study this research field – building the connection between nations and commercial brands through nation equity.

The paper aims to apply the co‐creation paradigm to nation branding in order to analyze how the identity and image of a nation brand are inter‐twined in terms of levels and dimensions, respectively.

This explorative study was conducted among 178 Finnish university students, who were asked to build a program for branding Finland. The students worked in small groups of two or three. In all, 75 reports were handed in, of which those (67) targeted at tourists were taken for analysis. The analysis was conducted in accordance with a model modified from Gnoth.

Its image is a critical stimulus in motivating tourists to visit a destination. A nation brand is at the crossroads of three levels of identity and a fragmented set of images. The idea is to exploit the right fragments in line with the destination and the target groups.

The empirical analysis was based on data gathered from MBA students. The intention is to extend the sampling to include branding experts, company representatives and delegates of the Finnish Nation Brand Committee in order to build up a more specific picture of a nation's brand identity and image. The examination is restricted to one, rather homogeneous country, Finland. It would be of interest to conduct comparable analyses in other, more heterogeneous countries. Another avenue for future research would be to test the market, in other words to question potential visitors about their perceptions, and thereby to determine whether the nation's brand identity and image coincide.

This paper contributes to the theoretical discussion on the role of branding in the marketing of places, herein called nations. For practitioners, it highlights the importance of managing the brand “bottom up”, in other words starting from the people.

Drawing on the six-dimensional framework of the Anholt-GfK Nation Brands Index (NBI), the purpose of this paper takes a government-to-business (G2B) perspective of international marketing by shedding light on how governments (as sellers) can harness their nations’ brand image to attract businesses (as buyers) to invest in the country.

Using Korea as context, this study interviewed Korea-based foreign multinational companies (MNCs) to elucidate how nation brand had influenced their FDI decisions to establish R&D centres in Korea. Purposive sampling identified 36 MNCs from diverse countries and industries that had set up R&D centres within the last decade. Individual in-depth interviews probed the MNCs’ views of Korea’s nation brand in regards to their FDI decisions. Recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed for common themes.

Five key thematic attributes of Korea’s nation brand emerged: rigid labour market, pro-FDI government, Chaebols’ dominance, strong nationalism and rapid industrialisation. These attributes relate to NBI’s dimensions of people, governance, investment/immigration, culture/heritage and exports, respectively. The dimensions impacted Korea’s nation brand differently.

This study contributes to nation branding research by applying the Anholt-GfK NBI to empirically investigate nation brand’s influence on attracting business investments at a macro-G2B level. The findings are particularly useful in guiding government policy-makers and trade organisations on running nation-brand promotions and marketing campaigns for FDIs. The findings will also benefit foreign businesses who are considering injecting capital investments into a country.

Despite the growing interest by scholars, practitioners and public policymakers, there are still divergent and fragmented conceptualizations of nation branding as the field is still developing. In response, the purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize nation branding research and to provide directions for future research.

The authors review peer-reviewed theoretical and empirical journal articles published during the last two decades – from 1998 to 2018. Selected journal articles on nation branding were subsequently synthesized for further insights.

The field of nation branding is fragmented and has developed in the course of the last two decades in different directions. This paper identifies key publication outlets and articles, major theoretical and methodological approaches and primary variables of interest that exist in the nation branding literature. The findings also highlight several research themes for future research.

This research fills a need to summaries the current state of the nation branding literature and identifies research issues that need to be addressed in the future.

Despite the recognisable importance of nation brand websites, they have seemingly not been the focus of dialogic communication interrogations of marketing and communications scholars. This paper is one of the initial attempts to address such research lacuna. The paper aims to examine the dialogic potential of the Brand South Africa website and its effect on the country’s image, as well as the impact of this image on consumers’ (tourists) visiting intentions.

Drawing from the dialogic communication and impression management theories, the authors applied partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to analyse data solicited from 672 participants via an electronic survey.

This paper demonstrates that the dialogic communication principles of the Brand South Africa website have positive influences on the image impression of South Africa. Country image impression was also found to have a significant effect on intentions to visit.

This study is of potential benefit to researchers, government agencies and those responsible for nation branding.

This study contributes to marketing and tourism literatures, by drawing on theories of dialogic communication principles and impression management, to fill the gap regarding the effect of nation brand websites on country image impression and visiting intention of consumers (tourists).

Sport mega-events have received much criticism of late. However, there has been increasing awareness of the brand-related benefits from hosting a sport mega-event, with their hosting being a deliberate policy for many nations, most notably among emerging nations. One such nation is South Africa, which explicitly stated its nation branding ambitions through the staging of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Through this single case, this paper aims to identify the unique characteristics of the sport mega-event that were leveraged for benefits of nation branding.

An interpretivist, qualitative study explored the insights of nation brand stakeholders and experts, elicited using in-depth, semi-structured interviews (n = 27) undertaken two to three years after the staging of the event.

Three characteristics of the 2010 sport mega-event were deemed by stakeholders to be unique in creating nation branding opportunities: the scale of the event that created opportunities for transformational development; the global appeal, connection and attachment of the event; and the symbolic status of the event that was leveraged for internal brand building and public diplomacy. The paper proposes that while sport mega-events provide nation branding opportunities, the extent of these benefits may vary according to the context of the nation brand with lesser-known, troubled or emerging brands seemingly having the most to gain.

While acknowledging the critique of mega-events, this paper highlights a pertinent example of an emerging nation that leveraged the potential of a sport mega-event for nation branding gains. It extends the understanding of sport mega-events and their potential for nation branding.

The aim of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework for nation branding based on the concepts of co‐branding and perceived fit, and to apply these concepts to discuss the type of nation brand that China may develop and how this brand relates to individual destinations through brand architecture.

Branding is a deliberate process applied to the shaping of a nation's image and reputation on the global stage, in the heightened global competition for ascendancy. The paper reviews selected literature of national identity and nation branding to identify models, techniques and prior research that informs nation branding. This paper examines national branding and nation building from the perspective of international tourism promotion and development.

The formation of the Chinese national identity is the result of a complicated historical progression, as well as current national aspirations, and the process of globalization and the introduction of the market system. Branding the nation in the globalised world is a strategy or tool in the competition for attention and wealth, as well as a tool of self‐affirmation. Nation brands are more complex to develop and less tangible than corporate brands.

The paper identifies that value of examining nation branding as a form of co‐branding, with the related concepts of perceived fit, brand architecture as well as existing techniques.

This study aims to investigate the reverse effect of the country of origin’s reputation on the notion of place brand.

Using a case study methodology, cases of Lagos (Nigeria) and Dubai (UAE) are examined to generate a model of place brand/branding.

Three pathways of the flow of causality between nation brand and city brand were emphasised, and problematic themes of interest to focus are recommended as a way forward for aspiring cities to create and improve their global reputation to generate increased footfalls of visitors and investors.

It is possible for cities to create effective brands irrespective of the reputation (strong or weak) of their countries of origin. The implication of the reverse relationship between nation and city brand has the potential to expand the theoretical framework of a place brand.

The study’s uniqueness is in highlighting the different relations between nation branding and city branding that could guide practitioners in actualising a successful city brand project.

This study aims to focus on the internal audiences of a nation brand, i.e. the citizens of a country and is built on the theoretical premise that migration intentions (MIs) prevalent among the skilled and educated elite of a home country signifies a weak nation brand.

Through the theoretical support of the migration motive theory of push and pull (Richmond, 1993), nation branding theory (Anholt, 2006) and the two-construct country image model (Roth and Diamantopoulos, 2009), the authors constructed a framework that incorporates the relationship between affective and cognitive country images of both home and migrant country and migration motives and intentions to migrate.

The findings reveal that push and pull factors are strongly affected by the images of the home country and the migrant country, respectively and strong home country images are associated with weak MIs, while the opposite is true if a strong migrant country image is possessed. Further, evidence of the dominance effect of cognitive images in complex decision-making environments such as migration was also provided. Moreover, the results also suggest significant differences between Chinese and Pakistani respondents.

This study guides nation branding researchers by opening up a debate on self-images and conceptually independent attitudinal constructs of country image. For policymakers in developing countries, the results reveal that they should primarily strengthen their internal brands and focus on cognitive images to stem the flow of brain drain.

This study takes the traditional country image debate to migration discourse, moves it forward, contextualizes it as a function of a nation’s brand strength and provides evidence that confluence of migration studies with the theoretical stream of nation branding can provide significant explanations for migrant behavior.