Study: Brand Australia’s decline continues, hitting 4-year low

by Marketing ON 25 October 2012

Brand Australia continues to decline on the world stage, slipping five places below its world-beating peak to sixth in 2012’s rankings of the world’s top country brands.

FutureBrand’s ‘2012-13 Country Brand Index’ (CBI), shows brand Australia declined in strength relative to other country brands for the third time since 2008 when it topped the rankings as the most valuable country brand in the world.

Canada, Japan, Sweden, New Zealand, and Switzerland, which topped this year’s rankings, all emerged ahead of Australia, based on perceptions of quality of life, tourism, business conditions, culture and value systems among 3600 residents, investors, tourists and government officials from 18 countries.

Australia’s decline has not been as stark as the United States’, however, which fell again in 2012, marking a fall from grace which has seen the country slip from first in 2009 to eighth place this year. The report identifies successive financial crises, a decline in the clout of Western values and questions over the nation’s public policy as factors behind its steep decline.

“Despite an upswing in brand perceptions following the 2008 appointment of President Barack Obama, attributes like ‘political freedom’, ‘stable legal environment’ and ‘freedom of speech’ have suffered declines in perception as the nation nears its 2012 presidential election,” the report reads. “Amid questions of foreign policy, the near-approaching ‘fiscal cliff’ and a staggering US$14 trillion national debt, brand USA is left to face its biggest opportunities and, possibly, setbacks during this year’s election cycle.”

In contrast, Brand UK, buoyed by eighteen months of celebrations and international coverage, rose two places this year to hover just outside the top 10 at number 11. However, the report warns the impact of the Royal Wedding, Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee and the 2012 Olympic Games may be short lived. “While brand UK now enjoys some of the highest rankings in the CBI’s ‘awareness’, ‘familiarity’ and ‘preference’ dimensions, once the fanfare of the Olympics dies down and the ubiquitous display of the Union Jack fades, focus will turn to the United Kingdom’s uncertain future,” the report reads.

Other themes to emerge from this year’s study were the ‘hard benefits of soft power’ embodied by the social stability, freedom, tolerance, transparency and environmentalism of nations such as Switzerland, Sweden and Finland; and the ‘untapped power of the PIIGS’, which earmarks Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain as nations with rich cultural and natural assets.

Australia, which has ranked in the top 10 for the past eight years, came in between tenth and fourteenth place for the key major attributes of quality of life, tourism and business conditions.

In a new addition to the study, FutureBrand has published the Future Fifteen, a ranking of 15 country brands on course to transform the global landscape economically, politically and culturally in years to come. The fifteen earmarked for the future were:

Branding Australian cricket’s subversive little brother

by Marketing ON 15 May 2012

Project: Twenty20 Big Bash League

Client: Cricket Australia

Agency: FutureBrand

Background

Australian cricket was facing a huge and quite unique challenge in a sports context, due to it having three related but increasingly distinct formats: test, one-day and Twenty20.

Careful portfolio analysis revealed both the potential ‘fit’ between the Twenty20 short-form format and younger audiences but also highlighted the dangers of one format potentially cannibalising or diluting the audience for another format.

Part of the problem was cricket being perceived as a comparatively boring and traditional game, at odds with the intensity and immediacy sought by a younger generation of fans. Structural issues were exacerbated by poor performances at test level, traditionally the barometer for Australia’s popular attitude to cricket, and by other off-field controversy.

The new portfolio strategy was centered around the reinvention of the state-based T20 format to specifically target a younger audience through the introduction of new league, with new teams and new players, all expressed through an unexpected raw, urban attitude – by any estimation a big shift for a sport steeped in tradition and perceived to be on the wane.

Objectives

Australian cricket needed to reengage a potentially lost generation of younger cricket fans as both game attendances and TV audiences were stagnant or in decline.

Increasing competition from other sporting codes displaying a much more ‘in touch’ attitude to overall youth style and channels (as opposed to simple ‘sport’ style) were seriously threatening cricket’s position as ‘Australia’s favourite sport’.

Catch it

Strategy

Inventing a league and tournament with no history, using teams with no grass-roots whilst simultaneously distancing the T20 product from the one-day format without alienating ‘mums and dads’ seemed an almost impossible task (on paper at least).

What we did have going for us was a product that perfectly suited the adrenaline/drama junkie desires of Australian youth yet was still underdeveloped and poorly packaged. We also had a new league format that would address the ‘so what?’ criticisms of previous Big Bash seasons in that it would culminate in a genuine finals series.

One other asset to activate was in the latent strength of local (as opposed to state vs. state) rivalries that generate so much passion in the NRL and AFL. In using much more tangible city profiles we would be able to quickly attach some genuine identity to these new teams.

To increase the distinction from the past each team would select a non-traditional team colour and a name that would not evoke a local animal or historic aspect. So no ‘Redbacks’, ‘Bushrangers’ or ‘Blues’. Again, this was a big cultural and brand departure.

Lastly was how the teams would be constituted. There would be the excitement of the initial rostering process where unlike the ‘all star’ approach of the Indian IPL, the Big Bash League would combine young local talent, experienced test stars and some cosmopolitan glamour via two overseas stars per team – be they from Delhi, Auckland, Islamabad or Somerset.

Fixture

Execution

There was an opportunity to challenge the visual paradigm cricket and express what ‘anti-cricket’ or ‘cricket’s subversive little brother’ could look like. The heightened dynamism, intensity and immediacy designed to provoke renewed interest from a younger generation of fans.

From the split shield symbol to the gritty concrete textures, every aspect of our creative approach was designed to convey anti-establishment and a ‘counter cricket culture’ that would deliberately polarise audiences – even at the expense of the alienating older traditionalists.

The desired outcomes included projected increases in broadcast reach, game attendance and commercial revenue with a significant contribution from the targeted younger generation of fans and their families.

The new identity and design informed a huge array of social media and advertising applications that collectively challenged preconceptions of cricket, built strong anticipation and awareness of the new league, and ultimately provoked passionate debate about the new teams and players.

Billboard

Results

The results from the first season show a dramatic increase in both broadcast reach (80% increase compared to previous season) and game attendance (58% above KPI with 49% attending a T20 game for the first time) predominantly from the targeted younger audience.

The media value of the T20 Big Bash has increased significantly (730% compared to the previous season).

Over 30% of kids interested in cricket now describe themselves as fanatical about the T20 format compared to the previous season.

Mike McKenna of Cricket Australia says that the target of attracting 16,000 fans per match was exceeded: “We certainly beat that: we’re at nearly 18,000.”

“The TV ratings have really surprised us and delighted us. We were expecting somewhere in the region of 165,000 – and we are well ahead of that in the region of 280,000 per match so we’re very pleased with those KPIs.”

Poster

Australia ranked #1 brand… again!

by Marketing ON 12 November 2008

Australia has been ranked as the World’s Top Country Brand for the third consecutive year, according to the 2008 Country Brand Index (CBI) that will be officially released at London’s World Travel Market.

Rising from its sixth place ranking last year, Canada came second with the United States rounding out the top three country brands in the 2008 study. Other countries making the top 10 include Italy, Switzerland and France.

The CBI explores how countries are branded and ranked according to key criteria, and identifies emerging global trends in the world’s fastest growing economic sector – travel and tourism, which accounts for US$5.9 trillion of economic activity worldwide this year and more than 238 million jobs.

The study of approximately 2700 international business and leisure travellers from nine countries is conducted by FutureBrand, a global brand consultancy, in conjunction with public relations firm Weber Shandwicks Global Travel & Lifestyle Practice.

“In this our fourth year, it is exciting to see many countries embracing the idea of brand. However, we still feel this is a largely underdeveloped category with most countries continuing to promote and market themselves in ways that are not differentiated.
Particularly in the coming years, country brands must improve both their strategic orientation as well as their delivery,” says Rina Plapler, senior executive director of FutureBrand.

This year’s index includes rankings and trends as well as travel motivations, challenges and opportunities within the worlds of travel, tourism and country branding, but what is missing is the bottom 10 – how can a country improve its brand standing if it doesn’t know where it stands?