Branding for the Public Sector: Creating, Building and Managing Brands People Will Value

Chapter 10 The Future of Public Sector Branding

As with the private sector, the public sector is faced with intense competition for investment, talent, business and trade, tourism, favourable government policies, or membership that shares a similar cause or set of beliefs.

The public sector is using the same techniques of branding as those used by private sector companies, and branding has been recognized as a strategic activity that must be backed up by strong brand management.

National brands and emerging markets

There is no doubt at all that nations are going to become even more involved in branding activities in order to achieve strategic national objectives. There will always be the need for increasing exports and developing international trade, the promotion of tourism and national culture, the attraction of foreign direct investment, and the acquisition of talent. These four main objectives are not only relevant to developed economies but also for developing countries trying to achieve developed nation status. The push on branding from developing countries is indicated in the BrandFinance® Nation Brands 2013 report, where we see some examples of them in the “top movers” lists for the four categories of Tourism (Sri Lanka and Estonia), Goods and Services (Pakistan and Indonesia), Investment (Philippines and Lithuania), and People and Skills (Bangladesh and Cambodia).

A second reason why branding in the public sector will become more prominent is because of the need ...