"Dynamic Korea" - "Wonderful Copenhagen" :: branding of nations

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Branding is about creating values and transferring those values to the consumer via the product. The tranferring of values are often more alluring and of greater sales value than the actual product. And with globalisation and an ongoing emphasis on the theory of the experience economy, we buy not only values but an experience where the item is the entrance fee.

When I buy ecological vegetables, I buy the value of an environmentally friendly farmer, who grows vegetables without exploiting the soil as opposed to the non-ecological discount substitute salad leaf, which has been grown artificially without sunlight in a non-natural environment.

When I choose to go to Korea or start business in Korea - I get..let's see the video again, 'fascinating people, thousands of years of arts tradition, technological innovation, martial arts, beautiful and servile women(?).. anyway, the point is, we are living in a world where nations have to actively brand themselves. And - when branding - of course no need to show off the other side of the coin.

In Denmark the industry as well as several right-winged politicians have worked on branding Copenhagen and Denmark in various ways, some via Danish design for increased export (right now the Danish crown prince and princess is in N.Y. in the name of branding), some via music to get MTV Awards in Copenhagen and then again some to get OL in Copenhagen..to give some examples.

But this short tv-commercial for Korea - oh no, "Dynamic Korea!" is still light-years ahead. I can only wonder which branding Denmark would go for...last time branding of Denmark was succesful was "Wonderful Copenhagen", which (for those who remember) portrayed a police officer stopping traffic to give space for a mother duck to pass the street with her ducklings.

In my point of view, the nostalgia of this poster is somewhat similar to the effects used in some of the North Korean art works, which of course cannot really be compared since those belong to a rather different category of "branding" of a nation..