Brand SA: marketing the nation through inspiration

Established in 2002 to create a positive and compelling brand image for the country, Brand South Africa is the country’s marketing agency, tasked with building a unified nation brand domestically and internationally.

“Having a consolidated brand image with a consistent message creates strategic advantages in terms of trade and tourism in an increasingly competitive marketplace,” says Sithembile Ntombela, acting chief marketing officer at Brand SA. “One only has to look at campaigns like ‘Incredible India’, ‘Discover America’ and ‘Australia Unlimited’ to see how effective the nuances of communicating a nation brand on multiple platforms can be.”

Ntombela says developing and articulating a nation brand identity advances SA’s positive, long-term reputation and global competitiveness, and builds pride and patriotism among South Africans. The latter being the raison détre for Brand SA’s “Play Your Part” initiative, where all South Africans are encouraged to become active citizens in their communities.

“A nation of people who care deeply for each other, their environment and their communities is good for everyone,” says Ntombela. “With Play Your Part, and our Play Your Part Ambassadors, we want to empower and celebrate active citizenship in SA, by inspiring all South Africans to contribute to positive change, become involved and start doing.”

In addition to the Play Your Part Initiative, Brand SA also offers resources and skills to its stakeholders through a collection of resources it has at its disposal.

These resources include:

• Online research resources that track a wide variety of competitiveness, reputation, and related global studies and indices that can inform organisational strategy development and provide feedback to stakeholders on the performance and perceptions of the nation brand.
• A free online toolkit that includes the country logo, guidelines for marketing, event branding and various other elements to ensure a consistent and distinctive image for the South African brand as well as over 3 000 high-quality images. 
• The Brand SA Knowledge Hub where stakeholders can use the information available for their planning, stakeholder engagements, communications and marketing strategies and briefings to international delegations.
• A free nation brand master class for stakeholders on how to build a strong country brand that includes an in-depth understanding of the country brand strengths, reputation and image drivers, as well as the country’s performance when paired with peer countries.

“All these resources are available to empower all South Africans to demonstrate how they can play a role in building our nation brand and we encourage them to be active citizens whether at home or away,” says Ntombela.

For more information on Brand SA, visit www.brandsouthafrica.com or follow on Facebook,  Twitter and Instagram for regular updates.

For more information on Play Your Part, visit www.playyourpart.co.za or follow on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates.

This article was paid for by Brand South Africa.