Nation Branding: Using Books to Stimulate Renewed Interest in Africa - Research Proposal Example

ALCHEMY RESEARCH PROPOSAL Number: Nation Branding – Using Books/Novels to Stimulate Renewed Interest in Africa BACKGROUND The concept of nation branding involves how to sell the unique features of a larger nation or continent to the outside world. Branding is typically a marketing term which places emphasis on attractive packaging. No matter how resourceful a nation may be internally, if those resources are not packaged at par with global standards, chances are very slim for the world to know. Advertising helps revealing the wealth and how it can be utilised productively for the wellbeing of a nation. While tapping the raw human talent is one of the main objectives of branding, other sources of wealth also need to be processed and cast homogeneously. The South African government’s initiative to generate awareness among its people about their national identity and aboriginal culture can be seen as a branding technique which promises to pay off in the long run. This is especially valid for a continent like Africa which remained in the dark for many years due to apartheid. Anecdotal evidences of nation branding in the subsequent years of transformation go to show how the nation has been steadily inching toward establishing meaningful and productive international relationship with other nations around the world. Literature on this topic is of paramount importance, for it makes the objectives clear. Several authors have highlighted the unique selling points of the country, particularly the abundance of natural resources and how they can be utilised to resolve economic and other issues that have been throttling the developmental aspects of the continent in general. The purpose of this study is to identify some of the crucial factors of branding, both from the private as well as from the public sector departments, which can underpin the significance of knowledge-based and economic reformations in relation with promoting nations. From the vast number of developing and underdeveloped countries in the African continent, the paper investigates into the nation branding aspects of The Republic of Zambia. RATIONALE Out of a massive pool of African countries, I have chosen Zambia for my alchemy research for a number of reasons. It qualifies as an ideal resource base for the preliminary components of my research. In many ways Zambia is the epitome of African culture and natural heritage. Geographically, it is positioned right at the heart of the continent, making it accessible from all parts. Moreover, the nation is home to one of the fascinating natural spectacles on earth – the Victoria Falls. The South Luangwa National Park, which is rated among the treasure troves of Africa’s indigenous wildlife, is located here as well. Majority of the developmental steps taken by the tourist authorities and the government of Zambia are aligned to projecting Zambia as a popular tourist destination in the whole of Africa. The Tourism Act of 1979 made the objectives clear as to how the image of the country should be sold to other African nations and to the rest of the world (ed. Belda 2008: 231). Augmented by congenial weather conditions and friendly people, Zambia has a unique set of social, cultural and religious traits that can be promoted as the nation’s signatory signs of prosperity. The fact that Zambia has been fighting poverty and other political pressures for a long time has prompted me to believe in its redemptive future, both economically and as an integrated nation-body. The basic rationale behind my research is to find prospective ways that can contribute to Zambia’s international status-quo. As a student of marketing disciplines, I see no reason why the nation branding phenomenon cannot be applied for Zambia. In this paper, I shall be proposing the key strategy-making procedures that would involve and incite the brand practitioners from all corners of the globe. The techniques purported in this proposal would create enthusiasm and active means to critically review the commonly held concepts about an underdeveloped nation like The Republic of Zambia. I strongly feel that by altering those perceptions, it is very much possible to endow with new rays of hope to the metaphorically darker continent of Africa. PRELIMINARY LITERATURE STUDY Literature studies on this area have revealed a distinct lack of synthesis and correlation between the reality and the probable futuristic endeavors. The basic obstacle has been the government’s ineptitude in foreseeing better ways to ameliorate the current conditions of the nation. What seems to be lacking is the vision that would underline the long-term requirements of development. The patterns of developments adopted by the government do not comply with their end purposes. In other words, the cardinal rules of marketing a territory for its own good are missing from the agenda of the Zambian government. This is best manifested in dealing with refugees who thronged Zambia from other parts of the continent. In the 1990s, a huge stream of refugees was met with inadequate funding in places such as Malawi and Mauputo. The administrative approaches were lackluster and disorganized in providing shelter and food to the repatriated people (Allen and Morsink 1994: 245). While the economic unsettlement it caused can be held as a probable reason, it alone is not an alibi for failing to set up sound infrastructures that would accommodate for the incoming tides of people into the nation. Such instances have not been isolated in the recent history of Zambia either. Politicization of the Zambian press in the 1970s led to widespread disintegration of civil and religious rights. The impositions hamstringed freedom of speech to a great extent, and also had detrimental effects on capital circulation across various public and private units (Bourgault 1995: 215). These occurrences portray a negative image of the country in general, thereby making the task of progressive transformation and branding an extremely difficult one to accomplish. Again, as I browsed the Zambian Embassy web portals, I found the designing to be rather mediocre and restricted. The websites do not link the relevant policies and activities associated with the welfare mechanisms of the country. It seemed to me that the concerned authorities had no planning in deploying the perquisites of corporate branding, which is an integral element of nation-branding (Dinnie 2007: 20). I was also surprised to notice that the domain names weren’t even concentrated to the sole proprietorship of the Zambian government. RESEARCH PROBLEM & OBJECTIVES Taking into consideration all the aforementioned shortcomings, it is clear that there are major areas of improvement to look into, with regards to branding the nation and rejuvenating global interests. It is worth taking a cue out of the South African public policies regarding how to induct smart marketing objectives into a country’s developmental dockets. The line of business is quite clear with a distinctive goal in vision. That goal is to reach as many target customers as possible, preferably from the international marketplaces, and to promote the essence of the country by encouraging direct foreign investments. The country has also made provisions for retaining the indigenous pool of young talents. As far as effective nation branding is concerned, there is nothing like employing the domestic manpower to produce rewarding outcomes that will only contribute to the growth and development of the homeland. Talented students serving their own nation entail an instant campaign in favor of domestic integrity and loyalty. At the same time, it sends forth a promising signal to other competing countries to guard against brainpower trading. South Africa’s adoption of similar marketing strategies creates the right brand image of the country not only to non-citizens but also to the inmates who feel it obligatory to reciprocate the responsibilities asked of them (Dorrian 2005: 175). Likewise in Zambia, there has to be clear-cut government policies consistent with the nation’s economic strongholds. One of the areas that can be identified as Zambia’s forte is tourism. The government web portals and other mediums of public interaction should aim at promoting tourism as vigorously as possible, thus assisting the target audience in locating the potential benefits of tourism. RESEARCH DESIGN In order to ensure sustainable nation branding for Zambia, I propose to focus on the tourism sector and its development. The entire process of branding should revolve around funding the tourism sector to bring out the optimum scope it holds. Under the prescribed design, the role of the government is of indisputable significance because only the government has the power and authority to directly interfere into the logistics and other divisions of tourism. There are ways in which the public and the private organizations can work in tandem. The marketing departments under the aegis of the government will have to share bulk of the responsibilities for securing corporate understanding across various levels and blocks. Additionally, proper customer service still remains to be one of the basics of marketing. Pride and Ferrell (2004) argue that the marketing strategies should prioritize the workers’ cause. To put it differently, companies must pay attention to the workers’ wants and demands. ‘Pay as you perform’ can be a genuinely good motivating factor for the workers. Moreover, it is also imperative to engage as many staffs as possible in management briefings. Since the fundamental premise of tourism hinges on professionalism and corporate culture, the staffs need to behave themselves in a manner consistent with international norms and protocols (585). Relationship marketing plays an important role in this regard. Since tourism involves long-term bonding based on mutual trust, the target consumers need to be given the assurance of a well integrated and sober business model which does not just guarantee quality products and services, but also extends good hospitality. Nation branding encompasses the tracts of combined marketing elements, including product, price, promotion and place. The first two implicitly involve technical aspects of marketing while the remaining two deal with branding conceptualizations. Another facet which is mentionable in this context is the value of one-to-one marketing. I would like to suggest this technique as a value addition to tourism business in particular. Irrespective of whether it is an online interaction or real-time one, meeting each customer’s personalised requirements goes a long way in forging a unique brand image of a highly sought after nation like Zambia. The market oriented approach is rather general and limited to producing results on a gross scale. On the contrary, this method is far more potent than the traditional marketing tools from functional and strategic perspectives. It is recommended that the Zambian authority should build a coordinated unit of marketing strategists to figure out the key information processing and retrieving systems that would help building customer touch points. Data warehousing technologies can be used for this purpose (Hennig-Thurau and Hansen 2000: 319). The following figure gives an idea of how relationship marketing works: Figure 1. The transition to relationship marketing (Hennig-Thurau and Hansen 2000: 320) It is quite apparent from the above figure that the Zambian authorities can adopt this methodology for marketing proactively both across vertical and horizontal offshoots of business. On one hand, relationship marketing will bring more tourists to the country, thus increasing the annual revenue. On the other hand, the government can spend the earnings on revamping the damaged or derelict places of tourist interest in the nation. Internal marketing through e-Governance is another promising methodology I would like to purport. This can be achieved by blending the external modes of business with the internal ones, with support from joint partnership ventures. In a nation like Zambia, it is important for private enterprises to step into the public sectors of work. What internal marketing does is it encourages large companies to ascribe key roles to relatively smaller domestic markets. Any given firm, when encouraged to take part within a business zone which is less competitive, is bound to excel to its optimum capacity. Hence, the nation branding would constitute of smaller, compact packets of branding (Sheth and Sisodia 2006: 177). If I relate to the website issue of the Zambian government to internal marketing, it is possible to arrive at an intelligible understanding of services branding and how it pertains to the developmental attributes of Zambia. Giving the onus of website building to specialized firms would not only enhance the selling points of the portals, but would also encourage the tendered firms to sharpen their skills. Quite naturally, the ambit of domestic business will expand enormously, much to the benefit of the overall economy of the nation. TIMELINE Having delineated the research design, it is now important to estimate a timeline for completion. As it is, my proposal comprises six phases – correspondence with the government and public organizations, management recommendations, devising relationship marketing strategies, convincing the authorities of one-to-one marketing and data warehousing, refurbishing of dilapidated tourist spots, and advertising for internal marketing. Among these, it is expected that the renovation of dilapidated tourist spots will consume bulk of the time in the entire project cycle. Besides, the general red-tapism prevalent in public sector will also eat up a lot of time. So I would suggest the project will take about one year before the tourism department of The Republic of Zambia starts experiencing the fruition of my project. I would sincerely hope that this proposal will be of help in renewing tourist involvements in Zambia. List of References Allen, T., and Morsink, H. (1994) When refugees go home: African experiments. Oxford: James Currey Publishers Belda, P. (ed.) (2008) Zambia. Madrid: MTH Multimedia S. L. Bourgault, L. M. (1995) Mass media in sub-Saharan Africa. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press Dinnie, K. (2007) Nation Branding: Concepts, Issues, Practices. Oxford: Butterworth- Heinemann Dorrian, A. P. (2005) The making of South Africa Inc: unlocking South Africa’s global potential. Cape Town: Zebra Hennig-Thurau, T., and Hansen, U. (2000) Relationship marketing: gaining competitive advantage through customer satisfaction and customer retention. Berlin: Springer Pride, W. M., and Ferrell, O. C. (2004) Marketing: Concepts & Strategies (12Th Ed.). New Delhi: Dreamtech Press Sheth, J. N., and Sisodia, R. S. (2006) Does Marketing Need Reform?: Fresh Perspectives on the Future. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe Read More