Interbrand, a global brand consultancy firm sees enormous potential in Sri Lanka for nation branding due to its vastly rich landscape for tourism which will help drive foreign direct investment and stimulate economic growth.
A top delegation of the company which was in the country last week, told the media, “Your country has immense scope for nation branding due to its global attraction for tourism which will create preference, premium and loyalty to for products.”
“The company sees great potential for expansion in the Sri Lankan market,” Interbrand India, Managing Director Ashish Mishra said. Interbrand launched operations in Sri Lanka last year with the rebranding of Hatton National Bank with Sri Lankan partner MND (Michel Nugawela Designs).
Nation branding has multiple benefits for the economy. Primarily, it helps attract foreign direct investment which triggers economic activity. Countries are known by their brands. USA is identified with brands such as Nike and Germany for cars.
Sri Lanka has to scale up and go global with brands that will create value for companies and the country.
“Sri Lanka needs to come up with unmatched brands to scale up among global brands,” MND, Managing Director and Sri Lanka representative for Interbrand, Michel Nugawela said. Infrastructure is a vital sector to drive the economy.
Developing Research and Development, digital infrastructure for financial organizations, education and sports all should grow simultaneously. As Germany is known for engineering which helps to brand the nation Sri Lanka has tourism and its diverse segments such as nature and spiritual tourism to brand the country.
“What should come to mind when we speak of brand is important. Sri Lanka should be identied with more brands other than tea and tourism,” Nugawela said.
He said Interbrand is already in conversation with key brands in Sri Lanka. Our expertise will help push them up further to create value.
“The reason foe coming to Sri Lanka is to help clients to go beyond being business driven organizations to purpose driven porganiastions. Many organizations in Sri Lanka are driven by business purposes. Very few in the world have realized there is a larger purpose.
“Large companies in India and in Europe have brand ambassadors to redesign logos and communication but do not have a business strategy. Business strategy must translate into brand strategy to achieve corporate success,” Nugawela said.
Established in 1974 and an opinion leader in the field of value-based brand management, Interbrand was the first brand consultancy to recognize the significance of a brand as a business asset and introduce the brand valuation concept.
Having 33 offices in 27 countries, the company’s combination of rigorous strategy, analytics, and world-class design enables it to assist clients in creating and managing brand value effectively, across all touch points, in all market dynamics.
Its clients include HSBC, American Express, Credit Suisse, Barclays, Swiss Re, Allstate, and Bank of America in financial services; GE, Shell, IBM, KPMG and Godrej in diversified sectors; FedEx, UPS, DHL, British Airways, KLM, Thai, Iberia, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines and Maersk in logistics and transportation; Unilever, P&G, Nestle.
Interbrand also created the first Korean Top 100 brand, Samsung, by introducing the brand value concept to the conglomerate and propelling it to the 7th most valuable brand ranking in the Best Global Brands table, worth over $45bn in 2015.