IDENTICAL APPROACH TO THE NATIONAL BRANDING

Abstract

This article is devoted to the issue of country positioning in the international arena, carried out with the help of national branding tools. The initial assumption for the study was the following: the formation of a positive image of a country in the world requires other methods than the traditional promotion of a company's goods and services on the market. The authors adapt the identical approach to the understanding of a company's brand to a country and consider main points of it through the prism of national branding. Two areas of ‘brand as identity’ research are characterized: visual identity as a representation of "appearance" and behavioral identity as an experience of interaction. Particular attention is paid to four parameters on which brand equity depends: corporate style, organizational style, corporate image and reputation. The article presents the definitions of the national branding developed by scholars from different countries, and the aims of corporate and national branding are compared. Some problems, appearing in the process of creating and maintaining a positive image of a country abroad are raised, differentiating existing parameters. For example, the article discusses, why organizational identity plays more important role for a country than for a company, in which it relies on corporate identity and might be educated. The results of the study should be valuable both for scholars, seeking to understand what a national brand is and how it is developed, and for government officials, who are interested in their country' being favored in the world. The conclusions prove that the identical approach allows to improve the process of positioning a country globally, in particular related to Ukraine.