Brands are no longer the sole preserve of goods and services. Consider how cities, celebrities and even sporting occasions such as the Olympics work to become brands, promoting an identity and developing relationships with consumers.
The impact of branding an entire country is illustrated by the positive results of a brand strategy developed for Tourism New Zealand to market the country as a tourist destination.
The project was founded on collaboration. It drew together key stakeholders from New Zealand industry, government and partner businesses to participate in research, analysis and strategy development.
This was an acknowledgement that collaboration can produce the best work and a move to promote the widest possible ownership of the project and so stimulate co-operative investment.
The scope of our work included detailed briefings of advertising and PR agencies charged with developing an identity and creating a global media campaign to bring the strategy to life.
The results were impressive: over the four year period from 1999 to 2003, New Zealand tourist numbers increased by 34%. Remarkably, tourism has now become the country's number one export industry, overtaking diary products with 9.6% of GDP.
Most pleasing, 100% Pure New Zealand was judged to be the most successful tourist development marketing campaign by the first World Tourism Communication Conference in 2004.
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