Discussion Leader: Diva
Readings
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 415-441.
Samanth Subramaniam, "How to sell a country: the booming business of nation branding," The Guardian, November 7, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/07/nation-branding-industry-how-to-sell-a-country.
Chad Haines, "Cracks in the Façade : Landscapes of Hope and Desire in Dubai," Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of being Global ed. Ananya Roy and Aihwa Ong (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011): 160-181.
Ravinder Kaur, "Post-exotic India: on remixed histories and smart images," Identities 23, no. 3 (2016): 307-326.
Primary Sources
David Gertner and Philip Kotler, “How Can a Place Correct a Negative Image?" Place Branding 1:1 (2004). 50–57.
Simon Anholt, “Nation Brand as Context and Reputation,” Place Branding 1:3 (2005) 224–228.
Branding Videos: #BeMyGuest (watch this playlist)
Recommended
Robert Govers, “Brand Dubai and its Competitors in the Middle East.” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. 8:1 (2012). 48-57.
Melissa Aronczyk, Branding the nation: The global business of national identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
In-Class
The readings of this week revolve around Nation-branding. Many countries try to emphasize their distinctive characteristics through place branding. We discern that Nation branding aims to measure and build the reputation of countries. In one of the assigned articles “The Booming Business of nation branding” Samantha Subramanian notes that “Every modern nation-state has built itself around some perceived essence, such as some identity regarded as unique, even if it’s a mixture of truth and lies, elisions and exaggerations”. This particular quote made me think of Chad Haines text and how Nation Branding within Dubai can be faulty and not always true. Haine states in the beginning of the chapter that “The billboards, the real-estate projects they advertise, and the new life- styles they market reflect strategic aspects of Dubai as a global city. The idea of Dubai is intentionally manufactured as a brand, rooted in its project of presence; brand Dubai is about being visible, engendering global visibility and wealth visibility ( Haines 160). Nation Branding within Dubai makes many civilians around the globe believe that everyone in Dubai is wealthy. He further than states in the chapter that the reality of Dubai is that most people are not wealthy because Dubai is dominantly filled with immigrants. If you're talking about the locals (Emirates) most of them are wealthy, since the UAE government subsidizes them a lot and their salary is relatively higher compared to immigrants that have the same positions. This fact does make the cost of living (rents, foods, clothing) considerably higher and far worse for the immigrants that have migrated to Dubai for work, therefore, they struggle in a number of ways. In fact, most migrants that live in Dubai are struggling to an extreme extent for example they’re unable to see their family, forced to stay in Dubai under a contract, passports being obtained from them from their employer so they won’t travel, living with a number of other people in a small constrained room. Haines further states “For years, Dubai had expressed anxiety over long-term residents; the economic crisis was a wake-up call to many who now recognized that Dubai was not their economic Mecca” (Haines 163). We understand that Dubai’s economy has been built, to a large extent, on cheap foreign labor where immigrants are often treated very badly and almost like slave labor. This goes back to Subramanian's comment where she notes that Nation- branding can be exaggerated and oftentimes people can have the wrong impression and image of a country due to place branding.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, if you mention the word Dubai to anyone around the world they will automatically think of richness and fast development. It’s not the poorest place on earth, that is true, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a fair share of misery going on. Side by side with that misery there is violation of the most basic of human rights; the most obvious of cases: exploitation of the labor force. The system within Dubai and many other “wealthy” states is unfair and many tend to overlook that due to Nation-branding/ place- branding.
Keyword:
“Place branding is a means of attracting capital, investments, businesses, residents, talent, tourists, events, prestige, and influence, creating at once competition between places while simultaneously creating networks of interconnecting places through capital investments and the production and exchange of symbolic capital” (Haines 164).
The readings for class today center around the idea of nation branding, specifically in regard to India and Dubai. From a business perspective, marketing agencies are hired to help countries construct images of themselves to increase tourism and awareness. The company, Institute for Identity, has built an entire business model around nation branding. They work with countries (tourism boards and local persons) to understand the essence of culture, and then, they exploit that essence via marketing campaigns. While the Institute for Identity has worked primarily with Russian cities and provinces, countries all over the world have turned to external nation branding companies. India’s national branding campaign, Incredible India, worked to shift the global image of India, and market it in a post-exotic way that remixed old stereotypes. The Incredible India campaign is particularly interesting because, in its advertisements, India essentializes itself, employing the same stereotypes it seeks to escape as a way to refine the global understanding of itself. It takes ownership of certain cultural assumptions, like vegetarianism and yoga, and either amplifies those ideas or mocks them. India is able to control its image and advertise itself as a land of adventure and magic in a way that plays into western notions of exoticism. India’s repackaging of the exotic grants them more agency in deciding how they are represented at a global level. India scrubs itself clean from anything that they believe tourists feel is unpalatable, appealing to their target “modern” audience. Dubai does the same thing in their tourist marketing, detaching themselves from Islam and migrant worker communities, in order to appeal to the Western world. Indeed, Dubai purposefully creates a facade of glitz and glamour, marketing its wealth as a way to appeal to capitalist minded tourists. Walking on gold in Dubai is the marker of success and decadence, or so it is meant to seem. In reality, migrant workers that built the city live in poverty and prison, unable to return home and rarely able to fully support themselves and their families.
ReplyDeleteThe Horkheimer and Adorno reading complicated my understanding of nation branding, as it points out the cyclical nature of branding and of human understanding. Countries use and reuse troupes constructed by and about them. India, for example, recycles the same stereotypes and generalizations about its people because it cannot escape the way the world sees it and because those same stereotypes inform its national identity. As Horkheimer and Adorno write, “every phenomenon is by now so thoroughly imprinted by the schema that nothing can occur that does not bear in advance the trace of the jargon,” meaning that everything that we see comes from something else. In nation branding, there is no way to be original and there is no way to escape the omnipresent culture industry, which controls us in ways beyond our comprehension.
Key Word: Neoliberalism- the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism and free market capitalism.[2]:7[3] It is generally associated with policies of economic liberalization including privatization, deregulation, globalization, free trade, austerity, and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society. (Wikipedia)
Best,
Hadley
This class readings all revolved about Place Branding: Culture for the Masses. A very interesting topic that is correlated with a nation’s culture, identity, traditions, economic structures, politics and investments. The focus of the readings focused on the theoretical ideas of branding a nation and the negative/positive views of that. Also, it focused on how can a nation’s branding can misplace or misleads the nation specific objective.
ReplyDeleteIn the reading about "Cracks in the Façade: Landscapes of Hope and Desire in Dubai," it talked about the city branding project of it beaning a luxury city. A city filled with skyscrapers, gated communities and mall. It also discussed the establishment of the image and some rough patches that affected the city’s image. An example of that would be the 2008-2009 financial crisis that left Dubai really hurt and damaged the brand of the city. The damage that came from the crisis focused on how can a so called perfect city that is only focused on a luxury lifestyle be hurt by such crisis? The global media hurt Dubai’s image at that time as a country that promote neo-liberalism in the region and in the globe. Also, a very important point that the write explained that Dubai’s brand wasn’t clear it was a Muslim city that promoted all such things that are non-Muslim and it didn’t promise to the image of the imagined paradise and the constructed dreamland, it was actually as noted by the writer followed a path of labor exploitation that affected them, and made their image unclear. However, I believe that Dubai made an amazing job that showed dividend in there economic and political future outcomes. It created a hub that made the region more productive and innovative people from all around the world started to pour capital into the region. Most importantly, the views about Muslim countries that they are strict and against the west are changed because of Dubai, it connected the region more to the rest of the world.
As for the reading about "Post-exotic India: on remixed histories and smart images," and How did the image focused on the technological side not on the historical side of India made something different for the nation’s brand image. I believe that the people nowadays talks more and more about visiting India or to invest in India due to the cheap labor and good technological qualities. The history of India is well noted globally, and I believe that the connection between technological and tourism branding is very important economically that India succeed in.
Keyword:
Nation branding is a developing field in which scholars continue their search for a unified theoretical framework. Many nations aim to improve their country's standing, as the image and reputation of a nation can dramatically influence its economic vitality.
This week's readings all covered the topic of place branding. The first reading by Samantha Subramanian titled “How to Sell a Country: The Booming Business of Nation Branding” closely followed a few case studies of nation branding by various place branding business experts. The one that the piece opens with is a company called Institute for Identity (aka Instid). This was really intriguing to me because I didn’t even know place branding companies existed. Later in the piece, Subramanian brings up the man who coined the term “nation brands”, Simon Anholt. I found many of his ideas very relevant, specifically the concept that “most successful brands [come] from countries that were successful brands in their own right”. Although Anholt’s argument is pro nation branding, I find that this quote is actually a reason to go against it, as it clearly displays the ways in which the marketing industry is unequal. If a country has been through a lot of hardship or has been ruled by many nations, for example, it is going to be harder for them to have a cohesive “brand”. What is there to do then? To me, his argument is only pro nation branding of nations that make his job somewhat easy, and don’t require too much brand formation but rather enhancing. A point that stuck with me from this reading that I felt was consistent throughout is the issue with the oversaturation of the marketing world. As the reading states, “every region and city now finds that it has to be a competitor in the vast”, showing how the industry is becoming so competitive that it is no longer about economic prosperity but rather this idea of “winning”. Lastly, I was interested in the way that Instid’s Natasha Grand described the importance of the pursuit of a nation's identity. This point actually swayed my perspective of nation branding a bit, showing the positive possibilities it can bring to the table. She describes how, before she assists with branding for a country or region, she goes there, spends time in dozens of towns, sees all the museums, and visits all the small businesses she can. By doing this, she is experiencing the culture and is able to ensure that the branding she puts together will be consistent and cohesive with the natural ebbs and flows of the location.
ReplyDeleteIn his piece “Cracks in the Facade: Landscapes of Hope and Desire in Dubai”, Chad Haines discusses the marketing and branding of Dubai in detail. There is one quote in particular that stuck with me in this reading: the idea that place branding has two facets. The first is the “visible”, surface image, including the name, logo, and advertising campaigns, The second is having the “infrastructure to deliver on the promises of the brand image: the facilities, resources, and expertise”. When reading this, I realized the importance of these two facets working together. As discussed later in the piece, the downside of Dubai’s marketing scheme is that they are not the deeper rooted racism and inequality, and are instead covering up Muslim culture with Americanized ideals and brands. The issue here is that they are not acknowledging the second facet that goes below the surface to ensure a stable ground to build upon. This is something that I’d like to bring up in class, as I feel it is important to understand when approaching the positive side of nation branding.
As other people have mentioned in their responses, the Adorno and Horkheimer piece was slightly challenging. What I understood from it, though, was that marketing/branding/pop culture are all claiming to be unique in different ways, when in reality they are all after the same goal of economic and cultural control. They relate this to many industries, such as the film and various technology industries. This reading showed me the negative side of place branding– the idea that through promoting a place’s ‘uniqueness’ is inherently making that place less unique, especially as more and more places and people enter the marketing and branding fields.
DeleteLastly, the thing that sparked my imagination in the Ravindeir Kaur reading, “Post-Exotic India: On Remixed Histories and Smart Images”, was this idea of the “remix”. This really connected the idea brought up in the Haines piece for me about the two facets of branding– the importance of respectfully remixing a culture for branding. This is definitely tricky ground to tread, but I think that if done in the ways described in the Haines and Subramanian readings, it is possible to do efficiently, effectively, and respectfully, It is essential that places do not neglect their histories or culture(s), but rather incorporate them into a positive gaze. To place brand respectfully, one must take the past, present, and future of a location and its culture, and remix them to form a cohesive marketing plan that is true to the histories, goals, and passions of the people of the community.
Key term...
DeleteSloganeering: creating slogans as a marketing strategy. Eg: Vegas’ “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” slogan, Israel is “The Promised Land”, NYC is “The Big Apple”, LA is “The City of Angels”, etc (Subramanian)