engleski

Country Branding as a Competitive Marketing Strategy

It has been accepted recently that consumers, making positive attitudes toward products from developed countries have at the same time positive image of the country of product origin. These images indicate set of beliefs about dimensions that represent important product features. On the other hand, country image have significant influence on consumers’ existing product evaluation, as well as new products evaluation. However, in studying the country image it is necessary to decide on country image dimensions. Then one should research influence of country image on existing and new product and product categories. However, if country image is not acceptable, then marketers should use positive values and concepts and communicate them to selected market segments. For small countries umbrella strategy has been proposed in order to combine all positive concepts into scheme which will communicate country as a desirable brand. For the purpose of testing these concepts, we used a geographical zone sampling procedure of domestic and foreign tourists along Adriatic coast during the summer 2003. We attempted to verify the hypothesis that for small countries country image is more important than brand image in forming total competitive advantage. On the basis of theoretical and empirical notions related to country image formation, and on the basis of a detailed comparative analysis of previous scientific research results, we proposed an image management model for the Republic of Croatia. The proposed model will serve as a basis for future scientific research on the possibility of transferring the image of the Republic of Croatia to the image of Croatian products, people, services and all other concepts and values that comprise desired brand image of Croatia.

image; country image; product brand image; dimensions of image; image transfer; country branding; image strategy

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