eBusiness Weekly
Dr Clinton Musekiwa Tapera
Traditionally, branding has been a preserve of products and services. It has been an activity or discipline confined to the corporate world. However, governments across the world have slowly realised the importance of this concept in differentiating that countries and achieving global competitiveness.
The usage of branding techniques to promote nations is relatively a new phenomenon, which is said to be a consequence if the current increasing competition in the world. Nation branding has emerged as a practice as countries turn to brand management techniques in order to be visible and attract inward investment tourist and special skills, boost exports, international political influence and international partnerships.
Globalisation has led to a more competitive market where products and services are in intense competition. Every country, every city, every region must compete with every region must compete with every other for the share of the world’s cake, because of this, the need for differentiation has become important.
Destinations must, therefore, promote this unique features in order to be conspicuous in a highly competitive world stage. This competitive global environment calls for destinations to carefully think about precisely what the destination should evoke in people’s minds selection of appropriate features to present to the world and employing the appropriate communication techniques to attract the right people as effectively and as persuasively as possible.
Powerful brands provide security for demand and competitive differentiation. Destination brands should but constantly reviewed and updated to remain relevant and useful. Destinations should always reinforce their presence as well as work to ensure that its offerings are understood clearly and depended.
A superficial mental association outsiders make with brands is not sufficient in the modern days. The needs and wants of tourists are continually changing across the world.
Destinations should continually address the changing needs and wants since dialling into the emotions of nations and cultures you wish to reach is critical to branding success. To sum it up, the perception of an outsider of any country is determined by his/her own experience by what other people say or what the media portrays about the destination. It is also affected by how a country portrays itself, the only thing that the consequently branding a country can be complex and multifaceted. Increasingly countries are marketing themselves aggressively creating challenges and greater threats to countries that do not review this outdated and tired images or counter on a continuous basis any negative perceptions that are based on ignorance or lack of information.
Centrality of communication strategies
It is prudent to interrogate the implementation of cost effective communication strategies on the basis of adequate promotion budgets. Outdated brands die slowly according to the product life style.
The internet has revolutionised branding. The coming up of the new media cheaper forms of transport, diversifies choices, enhanced prosperity, evolving expectations and new demands have added to the branding revolution.
Perceptions virtually change every day. The speed of the blog, sms or email are having a strong impact on nation’s images and brand status that there is need to respond to issues with equal speed and detail. The speed should not be threatening for destinations. It facilitates the discovery of new opportunities everyday acquiring new means to exploit them.
The Zimbabwe’s historical perspective on its image and perception since 1980.
The appreciation of the background about Zimbabwe’s brand status and how it came to be what it is in terms of image is very important. An analysis trends from colonization t independence and their impact on image and perception of Zimbabwe perhaps can explain the current image and the consequences so far indirect.
It may also assist to unravel the drastic shift from the Jewel of Africa of 1980s to the current brand status. The critical land question and its profound impact on Zimbabwe on a global scale must be historically understood and appreciated.
The reform programme marked the watershed of image and perception challenges that still haunts the country to this day hence the need and acceptance by the Second Republic to embark on the “Rebrand Zimbabwe” initiative with a view to revive tourism and restore its position as a significant player on the global stage.
The pre-independence and post-independence historical analyses lays the foundation for a deep understanding of Zimbabwe’s turbulent image and perception history and the need to restore its status in the context of destination branding.
