Perception is reality. However perceptions are created and can be recreated. With an active local media bent on splashing every little negative aspect of the country every single day and a hostile international media ready to add fuel to fire, Pakistan today is perceived as a country where travel advisory and business advisory is on ultra red alert. There is no denying the insecurity prevailing in the country due to terrorist attacks. But there is also no denying that the way it is scooped on by our competing channels in a bid to outdo each other on breaking news and our government’s complete lack of focus on having a country branding strategy has presented a one sided picture to the world.
Countries like people and products are not born with an image and need a planned and cultivated effort to produce a deliberate image based on a certain positioning attributes that the brand managers cultivate in the minds of its audience. Have a look at any country big and small to see how professionally it is managed; take a mega country like India with its ‘incredible India’ campaign or a smaller country like Malaysia with its ‘Malaysia truly Asia’ campaign or even a city sized country like Singapore with “Uniquely Singapore” slogan and you understand the planning behind creating deliberate perceptions of these countries.
This is a globally competitive world and countries like products have to compete with each other for investor and tourist attention. Normally, the ministry of industries and trade and the ministry of tourism are responsible for creating marketing plans for pitching unique selling points of the country to attract its target audience. India has a Brand Equity Foundation that is responsible for highlighting and marketing the attributes of brand India and its ministry of tourism runs these exotic campaigns for presenting the country as a haven of culture and entertainment. India’s advertising strategy has been so successful that separate state and city advertising has also become part of attracting global audience. Goa has the Go Goa campaign inviting tourists to its beaches and Gujrat has the vibrant Gujrat campaign to invite investors and tourists alike. As we know that many parts of India have suffered from terrorism and ethnic strives with Gujrat’s incident of 2000 Muslims being burned alive in the train being one of the worst single incident of terrorism in the region. However, to neutralise this image they have picked up Amitabh Bachan and many other celebrities to act as their brand ambassador. By doing so, they have splashed so many alluring features in the minds of the audience that a positive outlook to a great extent has replaced the negative image.
Pakistan, on the other hand, has no ministry handling the most critical and crucial aspect of the country image. A smaller country like Sri Lanka, which had been suffering from terrorism for much longer than Pakistan, declared 2011 as the year to visit Sri Lanka and their successful campaigning of this invitation has brought them record tourists this year. Their immensely successful marketing of packaging the cricket world cup with special offers was a classic example of how a planned effort can get huge dividends for a country which is literally a one city wonder and a drop in the ocean. Not too far from Sri Lanka is Maldives that is even smaller and has just a few beaches to talk about, but its colourful marketing campaign of “the Sunny side of Maldives” has made most residents of this micro island millionaires.
Pakistan is blessed with many more attractions, cultural and geographical. With one of the highest mountain ranges in the world, from green valleys to grey deserts, from riverbanks to seaside, with unique historical and archaeological sites, it is indeed a marketer’s dream as far as having a choice of positioning the country is concerned. With its diversity of scenic beauty the best campaign for it would be “Pakistan-Naturally Beautiful”. Such a campaign produced with a show of breathtaking mountain peaks and awe inspiring cultural heritage is bound to present a different picture for the audience to watch. Regular runs of this campaign on global media will definitely give the target audience a chance to associate this country with something other than bomb blasts and corruption. Even if the government were to announce a competition of creating a campaign for branding Pakistan and fund it through a public/ private partnership, in case their bankrupt coiffeurs cannot afford it, the response from the talent available in this country will be overwhelming. Such an effort to rebrand Pakistan with professional campaigns is the need of the hour to dilute the terrible perception that is being reinforced by a media totally indifferent to the disastrous impact of the scandalous projection of this country.
The writer is a consultant and CEO of FranklinCovey Pakistan and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com