Beyond Nation Branding to Building Country Brands through Marketing Mix

Abstract

Technological advanced and other factors has resulted to stiff competition among countries. Hence the concept of branding has moved from products to Nations. Countries compete for investors and tourists. A favorable country brand determines the choice people make either to study, to invest in, to live, or just to visit. Most countries have concentrated on production of attractive leaflets, business cards and little is done in building and developing a brand. This paper reviews literature that links the role of the marketing mix in brand choice. Largely marketing mix has been used in studies relating to tourism and country destination but not necessarily building country brands. This paper attempt to contextualize marketing mix to reflect the sub elements of a country and how they affect different foreign investors in country choice. Previous scholarly themes concentrate on the term country brand choice to mean country of origin and how it affects products purchase choice (Made in).  Similarly a number of studies have expressed dissatisfaction with 4Ps model, and agreed that 7Ps is more applicable to both goods and services. This makes 7Ps the essential general model in marketing. The question remains to whether it applies to country marketing since country is not a good or a service but a combination. This paper is work in progress towards a research study on Country marketing mix and country brand choice.