In these ever-changing times, many governments promote their own strengths, interests, aspirations and reputation like the businesses promote their brands. With no exception, South Africa has realised that self-promotion and image-building are essential for attracting investors and visitors, and to compete in the international markets
Government's branding can be used as a strategic vehicle and process to promote its identity; create trust and loyalty; build patriotism and responsibility among citizens; attract international attention; ensure competitiveness and productivity; communicate more effectively with its citizens, stakeholders and customers; and manage and communicate what the country stands for. The fact of the matter is that having a reputation or none at all seriously impacts on a country's ability to stay relevant and strong in the current competitive economic environment, where only nations with a strong dose of credibility and competitiveness can survive and thrive.
Our government has done an excellent work to promote the country's brand internationally through agencies such as the International Marketing Council, Proudly SA, Government Communication & Information Systems (GCIS), Investment SA, and SA Tourism, but there are still challenges inside the country. All these efforts have resulted in several millions invested in what is now commonly termed as building Brand South Africa. According to Brand Finance, South Africa has emerged as Africa's most valuable nation brand, and that Brand SA is currently ranked the world's 41st strong nation brand.
As SA continues to search its soul and look towards enhancing its international reputation and increasing its brand equity, it is imperative to recognise that nation branding is not only for foreign consumption. IMC's (Brand SA custodian) CEO Miller Matola says nation branding must be driven domestically, meaning from inside the country by citizens. "If we are not confident domestically, how are we going to promote our country abroad, and persuade other people to believe in us?" The question is - how can citizens perceive South Africa's government as:
Citizens should be united behind Brand SA's vision
The aggregate leadership and citizenship behaviour is critical to a nation's strategic development and progress goals. This means all stakeholders should be united by Brand SA's vision and shared values to work together and align their behaviour to a common national strategy. When ordinary citizens are made to feel important and instrumental in shaping, directing and realising the country aspirations, a strong sense of national identity and responsible pro-social behaviours are engendered by the citizenry. This will help reduce the nation's negative scorecard such as crime, violence, vandalism, corruption, unstable political environment, labour unrest and service delivery protests.
The bad news is that certain perceptions of government work, if not reversed, will continue to act as powerful deterrents to government's attempts to build a strong nation brand, particularly inside the country. These include public sector strikes, government's lousy employer status and service delivery protests.
Despite having a Labour Relations Act (LRA) that promotes and facilitates collective bargaining, peace and productive workplace, the country's labour relations can best be described as hostile and adversarial. As a result, strikes have become a permanent feature of the country's labour relations, particularly during the June - August collective bargaining season. Normally this period witnesses full-scale strikes and some are characterised by clashes with police, intimidation, vandalism and violence. Labour disputes create hostility and hatred between government, civil servants and citizens, which ultimately results in negative domestic and global perceptions. It is therefore incumbent upon employers and unions to exercise their LRA rights to promote workplace democracy, accountability, service excellence, productivity, competitiveness, and the image of the country.
Citizens perceive public sector as a nameless, faceless monolith, slow-moving, bloated, bureaucratic and incompetent institution. Speaking at the announcement of his cabinet reshuffle, President Zuma said: "We reiterate that we need a national executive and public service that knows where our people live, who fully understand the needs of our people and what we are trying to achieve." Therefore, a lot of branding work targeting citizens need to be done so that citizens perceive government as an employer of choice. Government needs to modernise its human resources policies, particularly recruitment, hiring, and career path practices. Government should provide a workplace environment offering rewards that complement the social importance of a public sector work. There is still a challenge to transform government into the kind of workplace that citizens will want to call their own responsibility.
The purpose of the country's brand is to improve the visibility, reliability, accessibility, affordability and availability of government services through increased public recognition, public participation, integrity, efficiency, diversity, responsibility, and transparency within the government's Batho Pele principles. However, service delivery protests - which are normally accompanied by violence and vandalism - against government's slow rate of basic service delivery have created confrontation and animosity between government and the country's brand ambassadors - the citizens.
South Africa's story needs to be told... Her struggle for liberation, peaceful negotiation of democracy, truth and reconciliation, wellbeing of her people, sporting excellence, cultural diversity, democracy and rule of law, her warmth and hospitality, historical and cultural landmarks, post 1994 achievements (economical, social and political), country's global humanitarian assignments, and about her huge challenges and aspirations... And they have to be told the country's citizens first. In addition, the best stories must be told through the country brand supporting principles, policies and programmes that are embraced by our leaders, political parties, academia, business, ordinary citizens and the rest of civil society movement within the country's brand promotion strategy.
Therefore, the starting point in building a strong nation brand is by empowering and involving our citizens to be ambassadors of the country's brand. Nation branding expert Simon Anholt emphasises "that a nation brand is national identity made tangible, robust, communicable and above all useful. Unless the overall strategy rings true about its people, there is little chance that it will be believed or endorsed by the population, much more the rest of the world."
It is therefore no longer sufficient to encourage citizens to sing the national anthem, wave the national flag, and love the country. The fact of the matter is that many of today's powerful nations' brands are built on ideas and ideals shared and embraced by that nation's citizens.
