Small, mad and creative? Or just dark and cold?

Branding project seeks to improve Finland’s weak but broadly positive image abroad

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Dark, cold, and distant. Nokia, Pisa* success, and Lordi. These are some of the images that leap to foreigners’ minds when they are asked about Finland.
      And this, of course, only applies to those people that have anything at all leaping to mind when hearing the F-word.
      A study of Finland as a brand by two PhDs Teemu Moilanen and Seppo Rainisto tells its familiar and somewhat bleak truth: the images of Finland are weak, but fortunately at least they are mostly positive.
     
In addition to the most stereotypical associations, Finland has also managed to ram onto the world an image of itself as a top nation of well-being, equality, and education with clean nature, high technology, and the ability to solve social problems.
      And in some foreigners’ view we are a bit... well... weird, too.
      It's probably all those odd competitions we have each summer, and our earnest desire to get into the Guinness Book of Records for doing strange things en masse.
     
But that is not enough. Finland craves for more.
      The purpose of the study commissioned by the Finland Promotion Board working under the Ministry for Foreign Affairs is to develop for Finland its own, strong brand-image.
      Apart from attracting tourists, the country brand’s aim is to support export industries, attract capable foreign workers, increase investments into Finland, promote international visibility in the field of foreign politics, and of course to strengthen the Finns’ national identity and occasionally faltering self-esteem.
      In other words, the country brand is something that, when seen or heard, makes people think of Finland and want to go to Finland.
     
Researchers Moilanen and Rainisto have put together a book, which explains how to move forward with the issue step by step.
      In their opinion the aims of the project have to be crystal-clear even before the start of the planning phase, various parties have to work together, roles and distribution of responsibilities have to be unambiguous, the message has to be common, and the financing even and long-lasting.
     
Moilanen and Rainisto mention a couple of nations that have managed to create a strong country brand for themselves in a short space of time.
      Spain quickly shook off its image as poor and backward, and is now considered a modern stronghold of culture.
      Croatia has morphed from a warzone to a holiday paradise with clean waters - "the Mediterranean as it once was", and Ireland from a fringe haunt of bodhrán-playing boozers to an IT powerhouse, at least until the recent economic meltdown.
      There is an example of failure, too: Norway spent tens of millions of euros to develop its country brand, but the effort failed and sank to the bottom of a deep fjord, because decisions were made in small circles and everybody bustled about by themselves with no coordination or common direction.
     
Finland is determined not to repeat Norway’s mistakes.
      In addition to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, for example the Finnish Tourist Board MEK, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation TEKES, Finpro, and the Economic Information Bureau TAT are taking part in the branding-of-Finland project.
      The venture is naturally led by a branding committee, headed by the former Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila.
     
So, what then is the message, the brand, that Finland wants to communicate to the world?
      Moilanen and Rainisto do not want to say anything, for to find out the answer is the very purpose of the project. When pressed, Moilanen agrees to reveal his own opinion. In his mind the message could be “creative madness”.
      “Perhaps we could be the world’s most unique small nation”, he says.
     
     
     
*No, not the leaning tower place. The OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies have consistently shown Finland at or very near the top of the pile in mathematics, reading literacy, science, and problem-solving. Hordes of educators from countries that have bombed in the Pisa comparisons turn up at our schools every year to find out what the secret is.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Guardians of our national reputation (23.9.2008)

Links:
  Finnish Tourist Board Press Release 17.9.2008

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