A cocreational approach to nation branding: The case of Chile

Abstract

This case study examines Marca Chile’s nation branding campaign “Chile Que te Quiero” (Chile, I Really Love You). The campaign, that ran between 2016 and 2018, aimed to facilitate dialogue among Chileans around their shared national symbols, traditions, and cultural artifacts to cocreate meaning around their nation brand. In this article, we propose that professionals working in nation branding campaigns should act as facilitators of dialogue among different publics within a country to find points of convergence and divergence around what constitutes the identity of their nation. The key role of dialogue and cocreation of meaning within public relations scholarship is explored.

“Dream Now, Travel Tomorrow”: Communicating the Nation Branding of Indonesia through Tourism-Based Social Media

“…However, the dominant images then are problematics because these do not offer the imbuing authenticity of Indonesia landscape (Li & Feng, 2022) in the postmodern world with cities and vibrant development. The pattern only accommodates the western elites of "transnational-promotional class" (Aronczyk, 2013) to project the creation and execution of nation branding campaigns but not yet offer the facilitators of dialogue among different publics within a country to find points of convergence and divergence around what constitutes the identity of their nation (Miño & Austin, 2022). The pattern in social media has not developed the facilitative, reflective, and co-creating process through social media's participatory culture.…”

“…This concept explores how people learn to associate, expect, feel, and remember a nation by using images and written texts from tourism and heritage (Anholt, 2007). Another research project emphasizes the need for shared national symbols, traditions, and cultural artifacts to co-create meaning around their nation brand (Miño & Austin, 2022). At many levels of analysis, nation branding campaigns can be used as a way to show how government can act as the facilitators of dialogue among different publics within a country to find points of convergence and divergence around what constitutes the identity of their nation (Miño & Austin, 2022).…”

“…Another research project emphasizes the need for shared national symbols, traditions, and cultural artifacts to co-create meaning around their nation brand (Miño & Austin, 2022). At many levels of analysis, nation branding campaigns can be used as a way to show how government can act as the facilitators of dialogue among different publics within a country to find points of convergence and divergence around what constitutes the identity of their nation (Miño & Austin, 2022). This perspective of the study is crucial since many critics have identified the one-way approach in which the governments started hiring the services of a group of branding and marketing experts as Aronczyk (2013) called the elites of "transnational-promotional class" to aid them in the creation and execution of nation branding campaigns.…”