Arts & Ideas: U.S. burned in branding survey
Q: Were you surprised by America's brand rating on your index? If so, why?
A: I guessed that America wouldn't come out on top, but I thought it would be in second place, not fourth. (I strongly suspect that it will come in considerably lower now that the NBI has been expanded to cover 25 countries. Several of those additional countries—such as Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Ireland, South Africa—carry many of the same basic brand attributes that Sweden, the winner in the first NBI, carries.) Sweden's coming first was more of a surprise. But the NBI is designed to measure what's in people's hearts, and Sweden has a virtually untarnished reputation. I was expecting America's score on "governance" to drag down its ratings—which it did—but I wasn't expecting the dismal showing in culture.
Q: Based on your survey, what should America do to improve its brand rating?
A: Most U.S. public diplomacy appears to be based on two fallacies: one, the "to know us is to love us" fallacy; and two, the fallacy that brand image can be improved through messaging. It is perfectly clear that the world knows a great deal about America and American life and values—and doesn't like what it knows. The problem isn't a shortage of information but a lack of sympathy. Furthermore, it is important to remember that people are generally quite warmly attached to their prejudices and will not abandon them just because the object of those prejudices spends a lot of money telling them that they're wrong. No, if you want somebody to believe new things about you, you have to prove those things. America doesn't concentrate enough on proving things. But first and foremost, it is essential for America to really understand how it is seen in other cultures, and this is one of the hardest things for a country to do: to see itself through the cultural lenses and filters that each country adopts. Only by understanding this can America begin to devise a proper strategy for how it could be, and should be, seen.
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