Branding the Nation,

the Place, the Product

Branding is a profoundly geographical type of commodification process. Many

things become commodities that are compared and valuated on markets around
the globe. Places such as cities or regions, countries and nations attempt to acquire
visibility through branding. Geographical imaginations are evoked to brand goods
and places as commodities in order to show or create connections and add value.
Yet, not all that is branded was originally intended and created for markets.
This volume aims to broaden current understanding of branding through a
series of contributions from geography, history, political studies, cultural, and
media studies, offering insight into how ordinary places, objects and practices
become commodities through branding. In so doing, the contributions show how
nation, place and product as targets of branding can be seen as intertwined. To
discuss these forms of branding, book chapters refer to nation states, cities, holiday
destinations, food malls, movies, dances, post stamps and other items that serve
as brands and/or are branded.
The book will be of interest to students and scholars in geography, sociology,
history, cultural studies and business studies who would like to gain an
understanding of the intricate and surprising ways in which things, places and
cultural practices become brands.

Ulrich Ermann is a professor in human geography at the University of Graz. His

research interests lie at the intersection between economic and cultural geography,
exploring geographies of consumption and production, and commodities and
brands. He conducted research on local food in Germany and Austria and fashion
brands in Bulgaria.

Klaus-Jürgen Hermanik, Priv.-Doz. Mag. PhD, University of Graz, is an associate

senior researcher at the Centre for Southeast European Studies and at the Institute
of History. In the larger frame of cultural studies, his research and teaching focus
on identity-management, minorities, nation branding, and memory studies.
Routledge Studies in Human Geography

This series provides a forum for innovative, vibrant, and critical debate within
Human Geography. Titles will reflect the wealth of research which is taking place
in this diverse and ever-expanding field. Contributions will be drawn from the
main sub-disciplines and from innovative areas of work which have no particular
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For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/series/
SE0514
68 Carceral Mobilities
Interrogating movement in incarceration
Edited by Jennifer Turner and Kimberley Peters

69 Mobilising Design
Edited by Justin Spinney, Suzanne Reimer
and Philip Pinch

70 Place, Diversity and Solidarity

Edited by Stijn Oosterlynck, Nick Schuermans
and Maarten Loopmans

71 Towards A Political Economy of

Resource-dependent Regions
Greg Halseth and Laura Ryser

72 Crisis Spaces
Structures, struggles and solidarity in Southern Europe
Costis Hadjimichalis

73 Branding the Nation, the Place, the Product

Edited by Ulrich Ermann and Klaus-Jürgen Hermanik

74 Geographical Gerontology
Edited by Mark Skinner, Gavin Andrews, and
Malcolm Cutchin
Branding the Nation,
the Place, the Product

Edited by Ulrich Ermann and

Klaus-Jürgen Hermanik
First published 2018
by Routledge
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© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Ulrich Ermann and Klaus-Jürgen
Hermanik; individual chapters, the contributors
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the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
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Contents

List of illustrations vii

List of contributors ix

Introduction: branding the nation, the place, the product 1

U L R I C H E R MANN, KL AUS - JÜRGE N HE RMANI K

1 Origination: the geographies of brands and branding 15

ANDY PIKE

2 The state branding of US postage stamps for state

commemorative years: from heritage, iconography and
place to placelessness 29
S TA N L E Y D . BRUNN

3 Ghostly cities: some notes on urban branding and

the imagining of places 53
A L B E RTO VANOL O

4 Becoming Eataly: the magic of the mall and

the magic of the brand 67
A N N A L I S A COL OMBI NO

5 The on-screen branding and rebranding of

identity politics in Cyprus 91
C O S TA S C O NS TANDI NI DE S

6 Tango Argentino as nation brand 111

R I TA R I E G E R
vi Contents
7 Tourism, nation branding and the commercial
hegemony of nation building in the post-Yugoslav states 125
FLORIAN BIEBER

8 Promoting the nation in Austria and Switzerland:

a pre-history of nation branding 143
O L I V E R K Ü H S C HE L M

Index 161
Illustrations

Tables
1.1 Brand and branding actors 18
1.2 Scales of geographical associations in brands and branding 21
2.1 Examples of categories of US stamps with a place theme 34
2.2 Examples of images on state centennial, bicentennial issues 36

Figures
2.1 Early colonies and territories: 1930s 38
2.2 Heritage landmarks and iconographies: 1940s 39
2.3 Maps and familiar features: 1950s–1990s 39
2.4 Generic landscapes: 2000 and beyond 40
4.1 Eataly Dubai: Eat Shop Learn 68
4.2 Eataly Dubai: bread is the most important food in the world 69
4.3 Fresh mozzarella in Dubai Eataly 74
4.4 Eataly’s cellars in Turin cheese hanging and Parmigiano 75
4.5 Parents and children learning how to make fresh pasta in
Eataly Dubai, Festival City Mall 76
4.6 Old scale and market and restaurants Eataly Turin 78
4.7 Water and beverage bottles: ordinary/extraordinary food,
Dubai Eataly 81
8.1 Austrian and Swiss merchandise trade in percent of GDP,
1900–2010 148
Contributors

Florian Bieber, Prof. PhD, director of the Centre for Southeast European Stud-
ies, University of Graz, studied at Trinity College (USA), the University of
Vienna and Central European University in Budapest, and received his PhD in
political science from the University of Vienna. He is visiting professor at the
Nationalism Studies Program at Central European University and has taught at
the University of Kent, Cornell University, the University of Bologna and the
University of Sarajevo.
Stanley D. Brunn, PhD, is professor emeritus, Department of Geography at the
University of Kentucky. He has lifetime interests that explore the intersec-
tions of social, political, and economic geography and also geography futures,
technology and innovative time/space cartographies. He has written and edited
many books and chapters on a wide variety of topics, has taught in twenty
countries and has travelled in more than 100.
Annalisa Colombino, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Institute of Geography
and Regional Sciences, University of Graz; she focuses on food and consump-
tion, urban studies and tourism.
Costas Constandinides, PhD, is an assistant professor of film and digital media
studies in the Department of Communications at the University of Nicosia.
He is a member of the European Film Academy and the Artistic Committee of
Cyprus Film Days IFF.
Ulrich Ermann, PhD, is a professor in human geography at the University of
Graz. His research interests lie at the intersection between economic and cul-
tural geography, exploring geographies of consumption and production and
commodities and brands. He has conducted research on local food in Germany
and Austria and fashion brands in Bulgaria.
Klaus-Jürgen Hermanik, Priv.-Doz. Mag. PhD, University of Graz, is an asso-
ciate senior researcher at the Centre for Southeast European Studies and at
the Institute of History. In the larger frame of cultural studies, his research
and teaching focus on identity-management, minorities, nation branding, and
memory studies.
x Contributors
Oliver Kühschelm, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Economy
and Social History, University of Vienna; he focuses on the history of consump-
tion and advertising. He is the coordinator of the research area Economy and
Society from a Historic Cultural Science Perspective.
Andy Pike, PhD, is a professor of local and regional development, and director of
the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS), Newcastle
University. He is the editor of Brands and Branding Geographies (2011, Elgar).
Rita Rieger, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Centre for Cultural Studies,
University of Graz; she focuses on cultural and aesthetic implications of dance
in literature and film from modernism until today, on emotion and writing.
Alberto Vanolo, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department for Culture,
Politics and Society, University of Torino. He focuses on urban political geog-
raphies as well as on cultural and emotional geography. He is the author of City
Branding: The Politics of Representation in Globalizing Cities (forthcoming).
Introduction
Branding the nation, the place,
the product
Ulrich Ermann, Klaus-Jürgen Hermanik

Branding is an increasingly adopted marketing tool to promote and shape the

identity of products, places and nations.1 In this volume, we argue that these three
common objects of branding – product, place and nation – are substantially inter-
woven. The chapters presented in this volume negotiate, explore and discuss how
places and nations tend to be increasingly branded as if they were products in
recent times. Simultaneously, they examine the ways in which branding evokes
and creates a multiplicity of associations with nations and places at different scales.
In focussing on how place, products and nations are interrelated through branding,
this book questions the commonly accepted idea that branding is only put into
practice by marketers and brand managers. To introduce these arguments to the
reader, we begin by discussing the example of a product from Austria, the country
where we live and work.
The Mozartkugel is a small, round sugar confection made of pistachio, marzipan
and nougat, covered with dark chocolate, and wrapped in an aluminium foil por-
traying the effigy of the world-renowned composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Tourists visiting Austria often end up buying Mozartkugel chocolate as a sweet
souvenir to bring back home. Mozart’s portrait works in this context as the symbol
and brand identifying both the confection and Austria. Tourists who specifically
visit Salzburg quickly learn that Mozart and the Mozartkugel are strongly con-
nected to this city. Salzburg is in fact the place where Mozart was born in 1756,
where he composed his early music and where the Mozartkugel was originally
invented in 1890. This narrative contributes to strengthening the role of Mozart
as the symbolic icon for Salzburg. However, the connections between the com-
poser, the confection, the city and Austria as a nation are unclear, confusing and
contested, as they provoke some odd contradictions.
First, the debate around Mozart’s nationality gives rise to controversies in
the Austrian and German yellow press. Austrians felt offended when they heard
that their composer was shortlisted in the German popular TV-show, Greatest
Germans, amongst the most prominent historical personalities of Germany. Yet,
the idea of the nation-state, which underlies how we commonly understand the
nation and nationality today, did not exist in Mozart’s era. Germany and Austria,
as nation-states, were formed after Mozart’s death. Second, if we look at produc-
tion details, the Mozartkugel – branded as a typical specialty from Austria, and
2 Ulrich Ermann, Klaus-Jürgen Hermanik
originally invented and produced by the confectionary Fürst in Salzburg – is, to
a large extent, produced in Bad Reichenhall by the German company Reber. For
this reason, a number of lawsuits have been filed, focussing on the question of
which producers and trademarks, exactly, had to be protected. The name of the
product was at the core of the lawsuits. Eventually, Fürst successfully obtained the
right to be the only producer which is allowed to sell the confection as “Original
Salzburger Mozartkugel”, i.e., original Mozartkugel from Salzburg. Yet, other pro-
ducers from Salzburg’s area, and particularly Mirabell, were entitled to call their
product “Echte Salzburger Mozartkugel”; that is, real Mozartkugel from Salzburg.
On the other side of the border, the Bavarian company Reber was allowed to call
its product “Echte Reber Mozart-Kugeln”, real Reber’s Mozartkugel. A sub-brand
of Nestlé also tried to commercialise the “Original Austrian Mozartkugel”, yet the
attempt to use this name was not successful.
Further contradictions emerge if we examine the Mozartkugel through the con-
ceptual lens of branding. We could ask, in fact, whether the commercialisation of
this confection is contributing to transforming the name of Mozart, or even the
composer himself, into an Austrian brand. On the one hand, the Mozartkugel, its
inventors, producers, marketers and customers contribute to creating the Austrian
brand ‘Mozart’. On the other hand, other actors have intervened in strengthening
the connection between Austria and Mozart. For example, the Austrian pop-star
Falco performed as the famous composer in his international hit “Rock me Ama-
deus”, thus further shaping the Austrian brand ‘Mozart’; i.e., a brand emerging
from the international recognition and success of Mozart’s classic music. It must
be reemphasised that there is no real historical connection between Mozart and
the Mozartkugel. Technically, Mozart is a surname, not a brand. In a narrow sense,
brand names of the confection are ‘Fürst’ and ‘Mirabell’, produced in Austria, and
‘Reber’, produced in Germany. Even Mozartkugel is not a brand, but a trademark,
a proprietary term to ensure its exclusive use by its owners. What exactly is the
brand then? And who is branding what and whom? Is Mozart’s name used as a
brand for the confection, the city of Salzburg and Austria? Or vice versa, is the
product helping to enhance the visibility and strengthen the identity of Austria and
Salzburg as brands? Or is the composer Mozart branded through the commerciali-
sation of the product named after him?
The example of the Mozartkugel illustrates well the complex entanglements
and associations of nation, place and product branding (see Pike, 2009). It brings
to light the multiple historical and geographical connections and contradictions,
which branding processes involve and provoke. Finally, it emphasises the chal-
lenges involved in distinguishing what is a brand, what or who gets branded, and
who sets branding in motion and puts it into practice. Furthermore, perhaps more
fundamentally, what is a brand, and what is branding?
Let’s begin by having a look at popular business and marketing literature to
glean the common understanding of brands. Kotler and Armstrong argue that

a brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of these,

that identifies the maker or seller of a product or service. Consumers view a
 Introduction 3
brand as an important part of a product, and branding can add value to a prod-
uct. Customers attach meanings to brands and develop brand relationships.
(2012: 255)

Foley and Kendrick (2006: 3) define a brand as “a set of promises, associations,

images, and emotions that companies create to build loyalty with their custom-
ers”. A popular definition frequently found on the Internet states that “a brand is
any name, design, style, words or symbols used singularly or in combination that
distinguish one product from another in the eyes of the customer” (see also Fahy &
Jobber, 2015).
A brand, therefore, appears to be broadly understood as a sign, where the term
“sign” comprises names, designs, styles, words and symbols. It is commonly under-
stood as something which represents something else – a lifestyle, for example –
and which typically develops a kind of autonomy and self-reference (Foster, 2008:
8ff.; Manning, 2010: 42ff.), as we discuss in the following paragraphs. Brands are
visualised through logos that attempt to incorporate and communicate with a single
simple sign the philosophy and identity of the company it stands for. Brands are also
created to epitomise and immediately identify the entire portfolio of commodities
that a company commercialises.
More generally, the broad purpose of creating a brand is to make ordinary prod-
ucts and services unique and distinct from innumerable other, similar products.
Brands are used to represent what academics and practitioners interested in mar-
keting call ‘unique selling propositions’ (USP), or they are even designed to create
products’ USP. The USP of a product serves to singularise it in order to make it
unique, and clearly different from other similar products on the market. To put it
simply, brands are those entities that creates a company’s egg or mineral water,
for example, unique and different from other eggs and mineral water bottles com-
mercialised by other companies. Brands thus serve the purpose of transforming
an ordinary product, such as eggs or water, into an extraordinary and unique com-
modity – namely, into a commodity that incorporates all the qualities for which
the brand stands.
Brands, essentially, are created to show consumers that what they are buying
incorporates a range of qualities (freshness, healthiness, style, etc.), which are guar-
anteed by the very presence of the brand itself – coupled with the reputation of the
company owning the brand and the risk of losing that reputation. For example,
when customers decide to eat in a fast-food chain, they know that they will be quickly
served food and drinks, which have a specific, similar and familiar taste. When con-
sumers buy Nutella, they expect to have this smooth and sweet chocolate-hazelnut
spread that they are used to having for breakfast. Visiting a shop branded with the
name of a world-wide known fashion designer, people presume to find high-quality,
trendy clothes and accessories. The brand, in other words, serves the purpose of
reassuring consumers that what they buy will not surprise them. By sticking to a
brand with which they are familiar, customers know what to expect.
Furthermore, all popular definitions of what a brand is, as those mentioned at
the beginning of this section, always refer back to consumers’ perceptions and/or
4 Ulrich Ermann, Klaus-Jürgen Hermanik
their relationships with the brand. Including in the definition of what a brand is the
relationship that customers establish with the brand itself points to the intention
behind and the effects of branding. That is, to sell something special and unique,
keep selling it in the long-term and create economic value. The possibility for
brands to create, rather than only to add value, may be seen as having much to do
with their ability to authenticate products, as we will discuss below. Brands are
designed to assure customers that the qualities and origins of their products are
genuine and truthful.
Traditionally, brands indicate the geographical origin of the product (see Pike,
2015). The origin of a branded product is frequently linked to its presumed good
qualities. For example, people usually assume that watches made in Switzerland
are of high quality. Knives from Solingen, Germany, are known in Europe to
be good knives. Clothes and shoes from Italy are considered to be stylish, very
fashionable and made with good-quality materials. All the positive qualities that
specific products are perceived to incorporate are the effects of their declared
origination. Belgian beer is not simply good per se, but it is perceived to be good
because it comes from Belgium. Attaching the name of the area of origin of
production – a geographical area which has come to acquire a reputation for the
good quality of the products made there – adds value to a product. Yet, brands do
not simply add value to a product. If successful, they also create value through
their ability to state that a product is authentic. Authenticity here becomes a quality
performed by a successful brand.
Moreover, brands present some social or cultural values, which seem to be
group-oriented. Sharing the same brand works successfully as another pull effect
for wearing a specific fashion-brand, or driving a specific car-brand to be part of
a group. People tend to follow this tendency of ‘groupism’ (Brubaker, 2006), and
this particular framing in the branding process uses routines similar to the forma-
tion of ethnic- or national-groups.
If we understand marketing as a performative discipline (see Lury, 2004: 17ff.,
2011; Cochoy, 1998; Araujo et al., 2010), then branding may be seen as a performa-
tive process whose effect is to make a commodity authentic. The authenticity of
brands, in turn, acquires an economic value per se. To understand how authenticity,
value and branding are interrelated, it is useful to think about counterfeit products.
There are factories and workshops that are in the illegal business of producing copies
of branded products, such as fake Nike shoes, Prada bags, iPhones, Rolex watches
and so on. These counterfeit products may be very similar, if not even identical,
to the real branded commodity. Yet, talking about fake products only makes sense
when their authentic, branded, legally commercialised counterparts are perceived
by consumers as incorporating a higher value than the counterfeit product; namely,
the value and qualities symbolised and incorporated by the real, authentic brand.
This performative process involved in branding, whose effects are to authenticate
to add value and even create new value, does not happen in isolation. Brands are
created and mobilised in the attempt to meet consumers’ demands for a specific
lifestyle with a range of products (e.g. to be healthy and environmentally conscious
by eating organic and local food; to be elegant and fashionable by dressing with
branded trendy apparels). The creation and circulation of brands occurs through an
 Introduction 5
elaborate apparatus that enrols and associates the product, through various media,
celebrities, lifestyles, landscapes, certain genres of music and specifically designed
environments. This apparatus involves the work of brand and product managers,
artists and creatives, marketers and VIPs, and is mobilised to imbue a brand (and
its portfolio of products) with a range of coherent meanings and a specific identity.
If brands prove to be successful, as previously mentioned, they come to represent
much more than just added value to a product. They become economic values in
themselves. This new, self-referent value is the effect of the emergence of a kind of
aura, surrounding and imbuing the product, produced by the branding apparatus in
the attempt to seduce and persuade consumers of the qualities that the brand attaches
to the products it sells. Let’s consider another example from Austria: Red Bull, a
company and a brand that produces and sells energy drinks all over the world.
With more than 6 billion cans sold in 2016, Red Bull has the highest share in the
market for energy drinks worldwide. The production of the drink itself represents
only a minor cost for the company. The creation of the brand, symbolising a specific
lifestyle that combines sport, adventure and risk, represents Red Bull’s major invest-
ment to create added value to the energy drink. To forge the brand, the company
invests funds to acquire several sport teams (including highly expensive football
and Formula One teams), sponsor mega-events and, in particular, very dangerous
and extreme sports events. Although some of these events have tragically resulted
in the death of some of their participants, the company has been able to dissociate
its image from the incidents occurred during its sponsored events. Red Bull remains
a company that sells energy-drinks that “gives you wings”, as it claims. Red Bull
is a good example of massive investments injected to produce brands as symbolic
capital and new economic value. The value of the company consists primarily of the
value of the brand. And, rather obviously, the recognition of the brand did not grow
spontaneously. Yet, it was and is supported by on-going campaigns and efforts to
consolidate the Red Bull brand. Although a number of rather anonymous companies
entered the market of energy drinks with comparable products – yet, sold at a much
cheaper price – inexpensiveness has not succeeded in dissuading loyal Red Bull cus-
tomers. The sales numbers and market share of Red Bull is, in fact, still increasing.
As noted before, branding is put into motion to perform distinctions between
similar products, between a can of Coca Cola and one of Pepsi Cola, for example,
or between a bottle of Evian or Perrier. Yet, making distinctions in branding is an
ambivalent process, not devoid of contradictions. On the one hand, branding frames
products as unique and distinct, it singularises them. On the other hand, it fosters their
standardisation. For commodities to circulate on the market and reach consumers to
turn them into loyal customers, the process of branding needs to make sure that those
commodities are homogenous and standardised. Gille (2016) discusses the linkage
between the consumers’ trust in brands on the basis of their stability and safety:

While we of course may still trust a certain store or brand, the reason a brand
has come to be trusted more than other brands – and unbranded generic
goods – is because the brand only accrues to products that follow a specified
set of operations.
(29)
6 Ulrich Ermann, Klaus-Jürgen Hermanik
A wedge of Parmigiano Reggiano, a slice of Parma ham or an iPhone are strictly
standardised not only because their production is guided by precise EU regula-
tions, but also in terms of their organoleptic qualities, in the case of foods, and of
design, functionality and performance in the case of branded smartphones. And
for brands to succeed, maintaining high standards for specific qualities and char-
acteristics is key to success. A branded product should never surprise its custom-
ers. Therefore, on the one hand, branding is a process of singularisation. It makes
commodities unique and distinct from other similar commodities. On the other
hand, the trust it builds with consumers is based on processes of standardisation:
Standardisation is a process that focuses on the conformity of products, which
seems to be at odds with the USP that brands incorporate. Branding, therefore, is
about making a product into a coherent, unsurprising, yet singular and distinct,
extraordinary commodity.
Branding can thus be understood as a tool for abstraction and simplification on
the one hand, and as a tool for making associations and connections, on the other
hand. Michel Callon’s (1998, 1999) concepts of framing and of the double process
of entanglement and disentanglement are helpful here to clarify how branding
simultaneously simplifies and creates complexities. As mentioned above, brands
serve to encapsulate and instantaneously communicate entirely, yet succinctly,
what a company sells (e.g., its complete product basket; its customer service; the
lifestyle it proposes). Brands commonly emerge as logos, often accompanied with
slogans, which can be much more easily remembered than the sum of all the het-
erogeneous associations they represent. Think, for example, of Amazon’s logo, in
which the orange arrow that originates under the A ends up to point to the Z, sug-
gesting customers that on the webstore anything can be bought with the swipe of
a credit card. It is basically impossible to exactly know, not to mention remember,
what Amazon sells. Yet this company has a reputation of being a reliable seller of
almost anything. At the same time, branding can also be seen as a form of decon-
textualisation and dissociation as a precondition for commodification:

to construct a market transaction, that is to say to transform something into a

commodity, it is necessary to cut the ties between this thing and other objects
or human beings one by one. It must be decontextualized, dissociated and
detached.
(Callon, 1999: 189)

Only through cutting the ties and simplifying what should be compared, valu-
ated and sold on markets can things be transformed into commodities. Whilst, on
the one hand, Amazon presents itself as a trusted brand able to dispatch within a
day whatever commodity we want to buy; on the other hand, the company does
not simply hide the conditions under which its workers and related contractors
operate for dispatching parcels to our doors. The brand, with its online store, serves
to silence the working conditions under which all the items it sells are produced.
The brand Amazon, in fact, is very successful in presenting itself by associat-
ing the company with images and narratives that focus on goods’ abundance and
 Introduction 7
especially on the speed of their delivery. Yet, the ways in which Amazon’s com-
modities arrive to our doors is never actually disclosed. At best, it is narrated via
science-fiction accounts incorporated in viral marketing campaigns that circulate
videos about drones delivering parcels to our doors.
This idea of branding, inspired by Callon’s work, can also be applied to nation
branding, and place branding more generally, as we will discuss in the following
paragraphs. Nowadays, cities, regions and countries are preoccupied with enhanc-
ing their visibility and recognition through promoting a positive image of them-
selves. They are competing with other places, countries, regions and destinations
for a variety of customers, including investors, new residents and tourists. Places,
at different scales, today seem to brand themselves as if they were commodities.
They appear to be preoccupied with positioning themselves as unique destinations,
with specific USP condensed in logos, slogans and specific attractive narratives.
One of the most famous example of city branding is “I♥NY”, where a love declara-
tion to a city is composed with the simple, yet efficient, use of three letters and the
symbol of the heart, notably designed by Milton Glaser in the process to change
New York’s negative image in the late 1970s and attract tourists to the Big Apple.
Yet, slogans and logos are not the only tools used to brand places. Also, market-
ing concepts such as ‘brand awareness’ and ‘brand loyalty’, normally used to refer
to the commercialisation of products and services, might work well in the context
of place and nation branding. The goals of these place-marketing strategies are in
fact to bring attention and recognition and strengthen a place’s identity and the loy-
alty of visitors, residents and investors. According to the logics of place branding,
similar to how consumers may be attracted by and loyal to a brand like Adidas or
Nike, residents, visitors and investors should create a special relation to the place
being branded: to identify with the place where they live and be proud of it; come
back to visit that place; and invest and keep investing in that place.
As noted above, following Callon’s work, the branding of places, at different
scales, involves cutting ties and making new links and associations in space and
time. It involves a reframing of the place’s identity based on a process that entails
connections and disconnections. Notably, place branding presupposes the selec-
tion of specific narratives and images about the place being branded, which in turn
get condensed into logos, slogans and sanitised images displayed and circulated
through various media and events (brochures, websites, magazine articles, cul-
tural and sport events, etc.). It involves the presentation of simple, but enticing,
accounts of cities, regions and nations that are built by drawing on uncomplicated
and linear narratives about their natural, cultural, artistic, historical heritages. In
turn, these images are created by making disconnections with all those aspects,
which do not contribute to present a positive place representation and which are
deemed to discourage visitors and investors to come to that place. To put it simply,
in branding cities, promotional campaigns focus on portraying images that depict
their cultural, artistic and gastronomic offerings, and hide, for example, scenes
of pollution, poverty, homelessness or crime. In branding nations – similar to the
processes of nation building as those notably discussed by Anderson (2006 [1983])
and Hobsbawm and Ranger (1992) – connections with their invented traditions
8 Ulrich Ermann, Klaus-Jürgen Hermanik
are commonly invoked, whilst controversial aspects of their pasts are strategi-
cally silenced. Brands simultaneously cut off complex associations and connec-
tions; codify and simplify the images and narratives of nations and places (often
in a stereotypical manner); and reinvent these geographical formations through
the creation of spatial framings and temporal continuities. In other words, brands
shape geographical and historical imaginations as they replace complicated or
unpleasant associations with other, simpler, more positive associations, which, in
turn, emphasise specific items, actors and/or events in space and time.
Furthermore, place brands are often presented with slogans that aim to frame
the identity of that place and associate it with a dynamic and sexy image. These
slogans are often created by drawing connections between the place being branded,
and other more or less distant geographies and histories. For example, Egypt is
currently marketed as the place “where all begins”, thus hinting at its glorious past
as the country where the Egyptian civilisation flourished and produced the pyra-
mids, one of the seventh wonders of the world. Aragon, a region in North-eastern
Spain, with its main capital is Saragoza, has recently started to be branded as “the
kingdom of dreams” to promote itself both as an enchanted historical area and as
destination for birdwatching.2 Budapest is frequently labelled and also branded as
“The little Paris of Middle Europe”, where the capital of France is evoked presum-
ably to highlight the beauty of the Hungarian city’s architecture. New Zealand’s
recent branding strategies included the evocation of the fantastic geography of the
Middle Earth, inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, to attract tourists,
after the movies were shot in the country. This last example points to how fiction is
used as a source, and sometimes also as one of the USPs, for branding places and
sometimes even nations, as in the case of New Zealand. Tourists enjoy visiting the
actual places where a novel, movie or TV series was originally set.
The chapters in this book point to how a multiplicity of geographies and his-
tories are intertwined into processes of branding a different variety of products
and geographical formations: food, cities, countries, holiday destinations, malls,
stamps, dances and several other elements which are used and mobilised through
branding processes. The interventions collected in this volume specifically high-
light how places, nations and products – the main targets of branding – blur the
one into the other, throughout the process through which they either enhance their
reputation, or strengthen their images and uniqueness. Importantly, most of the
chapters challenge the idea that the branding of places, and of nations in particular,
is an intentional process triggered by practitioners. These chapters suggest that a
place can acquire a reputation, as if it were a brand, in unintended ways; that is,
without the direct input of professionals and policy-makers. Many forms of brand-
ing nations and places, discussed in this volume, are not the outcome of strategies
devised to sell these places and nations to a broad audience of visitors and inves-
tors. Symbols and narratives associated to places and nations (which circulate as
slogans, logos and stories and via various media and testimonials), even when one
assumes that they were created by the hand of the professional brand manager,
were not originally created for being unique selling propositions or as part of actual
and planned branding campaigns. For example, the expression “poor, but sexy”
 Introduction 9
(arm, aber sexy), referred to Berlin by its former mayor Klaus Wowereit, became a
successful slogan for the German city immediately. It was reproduced in the media
several times and became a well-known and frequently used slogan to brand Ber-
lin. The phrase caught the attention of people. It drew recognition and presented a
USP of the city. Even if it was not conceived as an official marketing tool to make
Berlin more visible, the slogan apparently succeeded in attracting members of the
creative class, hipsters and other alternative cultures, and in contributing to shape
Berlin’s urban lifestyle. Most of the chapters of the book thus challenge common
business definitions of branding that confine this practice to the realm of market-
ing, as they suggest that branding might occur otherwise. Often, as an effect of
another bundle of socio-cultural practices and events that have nothing to do with
branding understood as a marketing tool intentionally mobilised by professionals,
who are in the business of enhancing a place’s visibility and its attractiveness.
In thinking through branding and its possible different articulations, we should
keep in mind that the term “brand” derives from the ancient practice of marking
the skin of the single bodies of animals with a red-hot iron tool to indicate their
ownership. More generally, religious or ancestor worship, cults of personality or
places could be seen as archetypes of (commercial) branding strategies. Further-
more, spiritual and mystical terminologies are often evoked in well-known cri-
tiques of brands and of capitalism more broadly. For instance, Karl Marx borrowed
the notion of fetishism from Charles de Brosses, who used it to explain ancient
religious practices, which focussed on the cult, ritual and symbolic meaning of
material artefacts. Marx’s description of the commodity fetishism may be also
read as a text about brands, when he writes that commodity is a “very strange
thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties” (Marx, 1990
[1867]: 163). More recently, Naomi Klein, writing critically about the (negative)
power of brands, has used religious expressions and terminologies such as: “the
selling of the brand acquired an extra component that can only be described as
spiritual . . .. Branding, in its truest and most advanced incarnations, is about
corporate transcendence” (Klein 2000: 43). Today, ‘marketing gurus’ often speak
about brands using terms from the world of spirituality, such as ‘myth’, ‘aura’, or
‘icon’. Furthermore, as in the work of the jurist Beebe, it seems to be obvious that
branding involves the evocation of myths, inventions and diverse imaginations:
“The modern trademark does not function to identify the true origin of goods.
It functions to obscure that origin, to cover it with a myth of origin” (2008: 52).
Beebe describes the process of branding in a way similar to how Marx and Marxist
scholars explain commodity fetishism: commodification works like a veil, which
can be lifted to see the real world behind the commodity itself. However, it must be
noted that myths, magic and auras are not making things unreal. On the contrary,
they represent the expressions of certain perceptions, valuations and connections.
In this introduction, we have described the novel value that brands incorporate
and perform as the effect of an aura that the branding apparatus is able to create
and instil into brands. In this volume, in the chapter that analyses the brand Eataly,
Colombino draws on Jon Goss’ notable metaphor of the “magic of the mall” (1993)
to draw attention to how brands may be seen as entities that ‘magically’ enchant
10 Ulrich Ermann, Klaus-Jürgen Hermanik
customer to shop ‘beyond reason’. Vanolo, also in this book, evokes the social
figure of the ghost to discuss how unpleasant – uncanny – associations with places
are made invisible though branding strategies. In his chapter, Brunn explores how
nation branding may occur via the use of postal stamps, displaying and circulating
symbolic sites, monuments and landscapes. These examples serve to suggest that,
perhaps, branding may also be seen as a mundane and banal set of practices that
dwells on events, things and more-than-economic practices, which are not exactly
part of marketers’ professional toolbox. Most of the chapters within this volume
suggest that the practices that add (commercial and non-commercial) values and
meanings to places, objects and practices, and which singularise them by making
them simultaneously more attractive, and distinguishing them from other similar
comparable items, might not be unique to the realm of marketing. The authors of
the chapters write about branding in a very broad sense by examining trademarks
and cultural icons, visible and non-visible forms of branding, intended and unin-
tended branding processes. The brands they discuss are the effects of processes
that involve products, places and nations in various ways, emerge as individuals,
political ideas and strategies, movies, postage stamps, dances, ghosts, food malls,
tourist promotion and much more.
The book is articulated through eight chapters and is structured as follows: fol-
lowing this introduction, in Chapter One, Origination: the geographies of brands
and branding, Andy Pike suggests an analytical framework for exploring brands
from a geographical perspective, starting with an account of the geographies of
the ‘American Apparel’ fashion brand. He raises fundamental questions about the
essence and function of brands as he explains their spatial registers. In particular,
Pike emphasises brands’ function of visualising the origins of products and creat-
ing spatial associations. His concept of origination is useful to explain the geo-
graphical associations that stabilise brand’s meanings and values in space and time.
In Chapter Two, The state branding of U.S. postage stamps for state commemo-
rative years: from heritage, iconography and place to placelessness, Stanley D.
Brunn refers explicitly to Pike’s origination approach and utilises it for his analysis
of US postal stamps from the 1930s until today. Adopting a historical-geographical
approach, Brunn demonstrates how states brand themselves also via the circula-
tion of national symbols displayed on the mundane surfaces of stamps. States
brand themselves and their cultures, events, heritage and environments through
their stamps. Brunn’s analysis of U.S. postage stamps, specifically issued to com-
memorate centennials, sesquicentennials and bicentennials, identifies four evi-
dent changes in the ways in which states in the U.S. have represented themselves
through recent history.
In Chapter Three, Ghostly cities: some notes on urban branding and the imag-
ining of places, Alberto Vanolo mobilises the metaphor of the “ghost” to concep-
tualise city branding as a “ghostly play”, dealing with the interplay between the
visible and invisible. Referring to works in political philosophy, he conceptualises
branding as a form of politics of representation, which points to the visibility
and invisibility of urban issues, landscapes and subjects, and which is targeted to
shape the gazes of investors, tourists, residents. Drawing on geographic literature
 Introduction 11
on spectres, Vanolo develops a critical perspective on city branding, which sees
urban brands as complex co-productions of a multitude of actors, rather than as an
outcome of top-down policies.
Annalisa Colombino discusses in Chapter Four, Becoming Eataly: the magic
of the mall and the magic of the brand, the coming into being of Eataly, a brand
that is increasingly expanding its geographical reach through the opening of food
malls in Japan, Turkey, Brazil, the USA and United Arab Emirates. She points to
how Eataly is not simply a supermarket that sells food. Its malls, she argues, sell
a ‘taste’ of and a travel to an imaginary Italy by seducing their customers to spend
time and money to see, smell, touch, hear, eat and – nearly literally – incorporate
the brand and its branded products and services. Colombino’s analysis focusses
on showing the intricate interplay of place, product and nation as she examines
the geographies of this brand, which draws on a specific visceral register of com-
munication to ‘magically’ seduce its customers to shop beyond reason.
In Chapter Five, The on-screen branding and rebranding of identity politics in
Cyprus, Costas Constandinides’s analysis is focussed in the field of film studies
whilst it is deeply connected to the wider frame of identity politics. It researches
the construction of identity politics in Greek-Cypriot films as a clear aspect of
branding. His examples derive from Greek-Cypriot films, telling stories about the
1974 historical events of the island of Cyprus. The narratives in these films take
local Cypriot stereotypes into consideration, perform them and simultaneously
deconstruct them. More precisely, Cyprus is known as an idyllic tourist destination
in the Eastern Mediterranean as well as an example of historical ethnic conflict and
division. The narratives in the films oscillate between these contradictory spec-
trums. These could be made possible in films because of the frame of fictionality
in historical storytelling. With regard to the concept of our volume, Constandinides
takes a deeper look into intentional branding issues within identity politics that
stand behind the narratives of the exemplary Greek-Cypriot films.
Rita Rieger’s Chapter Six, Tango Argentino as nation brand is embedded in the
theoretical framework of cultural studies. First and foremost, it refers to a shared
cultural value that has become a brand. In this regard, the Tango Argentino is
far more than another national costume. And it has become a significant cultural
marker of the nation branding of Argentina. The author shows explicit branding
strategies that originated from the specific nature of the Tango Argentino that com-
bines local cultural codes with iconic elements within the music, the clothing and
attitudes towards life. The cultural studies perspective of the chapter permits the
inclusion of related discourses on emotions with branding strategies that clearly
show how brands are more successful when they are fuelled by emotions. To bring
her theoretical inputs to the foreground, Rita Rieger includes specific examples
from music documentaries, namely, 12 Tangos – Adiós Buenos Aires and Midsum-
mer Night’s Tango.
Chapter Seven, Tourism, nation branding and the commercial hegemony of nation
building in the post-Yugoslav states, written by Florian Bieber, exemplifies the coac-
tion and overlapping of nation branding and tourism in many ways. It brings nation
branding significantly close to product branding because the tourist industry started
12 Ulrich Ermann, Klaus-Jürgen Hermanik
advertising the cultural and historical values of nations just like any other products.
With special regard to countries in the Balkans, nation branding has become an
overall important instrument to encourage tourism. Thus, the chapter gives impor-
tant insights to nation-branding strategies in the post-Yugoslav region by exploring
both historical patterns and dominant themes of nation branding over the past two
decades. Both the sequences clearly show the economic backbone of branding the
nation, similar to any other product. Moreover, the study on nation branding in the
Balkans elaborates the tensions between the self-perception of nations, and the inter-
national demands for both authentic and yet accessible otherness.
In Chapter Eight, Promoting the nation in Austria and Switzerland: a pre-
history of nation branding, Oliver Kühschelm points to how the term ‘nation
brand’ made its appearance only in the 1990s. It then addresses how attempts at
reputation management, which build on institutional networks and promotional
practices, have older origins. These can be traced back to the late 19th and early
20th centuries when the nation state took its modern shape. The “governmentality”
(Michel Foucault), of the nation state included persuasive communication, which
as an area of expertise integrated the concern of promoting the nation, its goods
and services. This last chapter of this volume investigates two small industrialised
nation-states; namely, Austria and Switzerland and shows how they have been
quite successful and rank high on current nation brand indices.

Notes
1 Regarding the increasing significance of brands, see Arvidsson (2006) and Moor (2007).
2 See www.egypt.travel/ and http://cdn2.n-stream.tv/mot/new/index.php [Accessed
19 April 2017].

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1 Origination
The geographies of brands
and branding
Andy Pike

Introduction
For US-based clothing company American Apparel, “Made in Downtown LA”
is integral to its business ethos and brand, and this claim to origin and prov-
enance is used to mark its products and retail outlets. Central to its differentia-
tion strategy, the actors involved have constructed the brand as “Sweatshop-Free”
and vertically integrated in the US in competition against the low-cost, vertically
dis-integrated and international sub-contracted business models prevalent in the
clothing industry. Integral to the brand’s value and meaning is its representation as
an American-based “Industrial Revolution”. Seeking to buck the trend of interna-
tional outsourcing, American Apparel has located its headquarters, R&D, market-
ing, and manufacturing activities in downtown Los Angeles. This home-grown
narrative is articulated in the brand’s circulation, consumption in its retail outlets
and regulation in its intellectual property. On the American Apparel website, visi-
tors are invited to “Explore our Factory”. The actors involved in the brand and its
branding have originated its clothing commodities in a nationally framed brand
name (‘American Apparel’) and articulated a ‘Made in . . . ’ claim that is located
in specific territories at certain scales within a particular city and state – the down-
town area of Los Angeles, California, in the US (Pike, 2015). Meaning and value
is appropriated by the actors involved from geographical associations with the city
of LA as a centre of innovation, style and buzz in global fashion circles with reso-
nance amongst consumers in differing spatial and temporal contexts worldwide.
A financial crisis has engulfed American Apparel following the competitive rise
of the ‘fast fashion’ retail groups – such as H&M, Uniqlo and Zara – focused upon
low prices and highly responsive rapid stock turnaround (Gapper, 2015). Despite
being organised on a vertically integrated manufacturing and retailing model based
in the US, American Apparel’s supply chain had grown inefficient and slow to
adapt in refreshing its inventory regularly enough for consumers in a market set-
ting where innovation and speed has become more critical to competitiveness. It
was claimed that:

American Apparel is a traditional enterprise. It made great play of manu-

facturing in the US, rather than outsourcing to China and other low-wage
16 Andy Pike
countries as Gap and other US speciality clothing retailers do. But it did not
take advantage of this proximity – it was as slow-moving and conservative
as any of them.
(Gapper, 2015: 1)

Disruptive shifts in the geographical and temporal market settings for American
Apparel have been further reinforced by ongoing turbulence and contestation in
its governance and ownership related to legal disputes with its founder and former
shareholder Dov Charney. The financial meltdown has been manifest in a pre-tax
loss of $44.8m, collapse in its share price to 11 cents, accumulated debts of $300m,
downgrading of its credit rating into junk territory, and a cash flow and liquidity
squeeze that culminated in American Apparel’s listing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection in 2015 (Indap, 2015; Whipp, 2015; Felsted, 2015). Following the
installation of new senior management, the turnaround plan for American Apparel
seeks to reach $1bn in revenue from $600m in 2015, reduce annual costs by $30m
through retail outlet closures and cutting jobs, improve its productivity, expand and
double the number of outlets in its global retail network outside the US in new
and expanding markets such as the Middle East, China and South Korea, refine its
advertising messages and spend, and make its supply chain more responsive and
agile to get faster changing ranges of popular products and collections into retail
outlets more quickly and reducing dated inventory (Whipp, 2015). Specifically,
American Apparel (2015: 26) has identified that “The current supply chain is not
properly aligned to support the diverse business needs and increase flexibility and
innovation”. In terms of production, the new and more global strategic orientation
is leading to questions about American Apparel’s home grown US-based model
given its view that:

We’re not a total fashion house. We don’t have to follow every trend. We have the
wind at our back because there is a lot of logo fatigue out there. We have
the basics, which is what everybody needs. What you can’t do is manufacture in
the US and be one of the more expensive manufacturers and be slow.
(Paula Schneider, Chief Executive, American Apparel,
quoted in Indap, 2015: 1)

The new production strategy aims to “Develop proper manufacturing balance” to

service the needs of its distribution channels and customers in retail, e-commerce
and wholesale in more innovative and responsive ways in the wake of rapidly shift-
ing fashion trends (American Apparel, 2015: 26). What implications this evolving
strategy will have upon its manufacturing in downtown LA and the strong geo-
graphical associations this spatial reference has in the meaning and value of the
brand and its branding remains to be seen.
As this instance of a brand and its actors grappling with geographical associa-
tions demonstrates, where branded goods and services commodities are from and
are associated with is integral to their meaning and value. Brand and branding
actors – producers, circulators, consumers and regulators – are constantly wrestling
 Origination: geographies of brands 17
with issues of origin(s), provenance and authenticity. Longstanding research in
marketing, though, has been fixated with the ‘country of origin’ effect on consumer
behaviour. Less attention has been given to thinking about how the geographies of
brands and branding include and extend beyond the national frame. Brands and
branding geographies are an under-researched area. What constitutes their value
and meaning? How do they relate to their geographical associations and dynamics
in spatial circuits of combined and uneven development?
Addressing the relatively neglected geographies of brands and branding, this
contribution defines what is meant by brands and branding, explains their geog-
raphies, and accounts for the roles of inter-related actors – producers, circulators,
consumers and regulators – in spatial circuits of meaning and value. The idea of
origination is introduced to explain the geographical associations constructed by
actors in spatial circuits in their efforts to cohere and stabilise meaning and value in
goods and services commodities brands and their branding in the times and spaces
of particular market settings.
Addressing David Harvey’s (1990: 422) call to “get behind the veil, the fetish-
ism of the market and the commodity, in order to tell the full story of social repro-
duction”, origination provides a way of lifting the “mystical veils” (Greenberg,
2008: 31) woven around branded goods and services commodities by the increas-
ingly sophisticated activities of the actors involved. The strategies, techniques
and practices of actors seek carefully to create, manage, rework and sometimes
hide where goods are made and/or services are delivered from, and the economic,
social, political, cultural and ecological conditions where and under which they
are organised.

What are brands and what is branding?

In the socially and spatially uneven transition from a producer to a consumer-dom-
inated economy, society, culture, ecology and polity, the brands and branding of
goods and services commodities have proliferated dramatically (Arvidsson, 2006;
Lury, 2004; Moor, 2007). Some claim the emergence of a “brand society” wherein
brands are “the most ubiquitous and pervasive cultural form” and are “rapidly
becoming one of the most powerful of the phenomena transforming the way we
manage organizations and live our lives” (Kornberger, 2010: xi–xii, 23). This rapid
growth, evolving sophistication and widespread use of the term brand has been
accompanied by an increase in the sheer number of definitions from academic,
business, consulting and practitioner sources. Such endeavours have fragmented
rather than integrated understanding and explanation. There is no single or gener-
ally accepted model of the tangible (e.g., design, function, quality) and increasingly
important intangible (e.g., feel, look, style) attributes and characteristics of brands
and their relative importance and relationships. One important view sees the brand
as the characteristic kind of a particular good or service (de Chernatony, 2010). A
more developed and enduring account utilises the concept of ‘brand equity’, defined
as the “set of assets (and liabilities) linked to a brand’s name and symbol that adds
to (or subtracts from) the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or to
18 Andy Pike
a firm’s customers” (Aaker, 1996: 7). In this view, brand equity is constituted by the
tangible and intangible assets of brand loyalty, awareness, perceived quality, asso-
ciations and other proprietary resources. Together these assets provide meaning and
value through their creation, articulation and enhancement by brand and branding
actors. Such elements include associations (e.g., with particular people, periods and
places), identities (e.g., image, look, style), origins (e.g., where it is designed, made,
connected with or perceived to come from), qualities (e.g., feel, form, function) and
values (e.g., efficiency, reliability, reputation). Remedying the longstanding focus
upon consumers, actors comprise those involved in the production, circulation,
consumption and regulation of brands and branding in spatial circuits of meaning
and value (Table 1.1). This social and spatial approach to brand equity addresses
the critique of Aaker’s (1996) “managerial” approach and its focus upon corpo-
rate brand ownership and control by producers rather than consumers, its relative
neglect of the social construction and consumption of brands by multiple actors,
and the inherent inter-relations between meaning and value (Kornberger, 2010: 35).
Understanding the brand as the object, branding can be interpreted as the pro-
cess of adding value to goods and services commodities by providing meaning.
Branding ensures that goods and services are defined by their “symbolic powers
and associations” (Kornberger, 2010: 13) rather than just their material basis and
functionality. However, branding too suffers from the same proliferation and diver-
sity of definitions and conceptualisations from different kinds of sources that make
defining the brand complicated. For Peter Jackson et al. (2011: 59) branding is the
“manufacture of meaning”. It is the work that actors do in attempts meaningfully
to articulate, enhance and represent the facets and cues of the assets and liabilities
in brands in ways that create value in particular temporal and spatial market set-
tings. As a process branding is used by actors in their efforts to construct consumer
trust and goodwill. It is designed to create distinctive associations in the brand –
such as authenticity, quality and style – that directly and positively influence the
purchasing decisions of consumers (de Chernatony, 2010). Compared to and in
distinction from more commodified or generic goods and services, actors seeking
configurations of product/image and price differentiation utilise the object of the
brand and the process of branding.

Table 1.1 Brand and branding actors

Actor Examples
Producers Brand owners, designers, manufacturers,
‘place-makers’, residents
Circulators Advertisers, bloggers, journalists, marketers,
media
Consumers Shoppers, residents, tourists, users, visitors
Regulators Government departments, trademark
authorities, local councils, export agencies,
intellectual property advisers, business
associations
Source: Adapted from Pike (2015)
 Origination: geographies of brands 19
What’s geographical about brands and branding?
Brands and branding are geographical in at least three inter-related ways (Pike,
2015). Conceptualised as an identifiable kind of good or service commodity, the
brand is made up of characteristics that intertwine to differing degrees and in
varying ways with geographical connections and connotations. Brands have an
“inherent spatiality” (Power & Hauge, 2008: 138). Elements of brand equity –
such as loyalty, awareness, perceived quality, attributes and associations – are
inextricably connected with geographically inflected considerations of who makes
the good or delivers the service and from where, as well as their particular identi-
ties, histories and other socio-spatial markers. The commercial value and meaning
of brands emerged amidst the industrialisation and mass production in advanced
economies in the late 19th century: “Through industrialization the production of
many household items, such as soap, moved from local production to centralized
factories. As the distance between buyer and supplier widened the communication
of origin and quality became more important” (Lindemann, 2010: 3). In common
with brands, branding too is similarly wrapped up in geographical associations
and contexts. Actors often seek to articulate such attributes and characteristics in
brands in meaningful and valuable ways within wider spatial circuits of produc-
tion, circulation, consumption and regulation. Such actors utilise the meaning-
making of branding to identify, articulate and represent the signs and symbols that
are inescapably associated with the geographical contexts and connotations of
particular goods and services brands.
Second, brands and branding are geographical because their utilisation by actors
serves to (re)produce spatial differentiation over space and time. Adapting Michael
Watts’ (2005: 527) claim for the more deeply branded world of contemporary “cog-
nitive-cultural capitalism” (Scott, 2007: 1466): “The life of the [branded] com-
modity typically involves movement through space and time, during which it adds
values and meanings of various forms. [Branded] Commodities are therefore pre-
eminently geographical objects”. Yet, some claim ‘global’ brands and branding are
placeless vehicles of globalisation and homogenisation that are “super-territorial
and super-organic, floating free” (Urry, 2003: 60, 68), crossing borders as a “global
fluid”. Sceptical of such claims and attenuating their views are more geographically
sensitive readings of heterogeneity, diversity and variety that seek to understand and
explain how brands and branding are utilised by actors to (re)produce geographical
differentiation in a spiky and sticky world (Pike, 2015). In such accounts, branded
commodities travel and communicate differing meanings and values across space
and time. Brands and their branding find spatially differentiated kinds and degrees
of meaning and value in commercial, social, cultural, ecological and political terms
in different times and spaces. Amongst the agency of actors trying to shape and
respond to different geographical and temporal market circumstances, branding too
is used in spatially attenuated and heterogeneous ways.
Last, brands and branding are geographical because their inescapable and spa-
tially differentiated geographies reproduce combined and “uneven geographical
development” (Harvey, 1990: 432). The roles of brands and branding in marketing
20 Andy Pike
strategies are underpinned and driven by accumulation imperatives. Actors involved
in brands and branding are compelled by the rationales of accumulation, competi-
tion, differentiation and innovation to search for, create, exploit and (re)produce
economic and social disparities and inequalities over space and time. The raison
d’etre of brand owners is to construct, define, segment and exploit lucrative and
profitable parts of goods and services commodity markets in particular geographi-
cal and temporal market contexts. Central to the work of brand actors are the
investments of time, effort and resource spent identifying and exploiting social and
geographical differences, and working out how such differentials can be utilised
and perpetuated to create and realise meaning and value in wider spatial circuits.
Geographical expressions and manifestations of economic and social differences
and inequalities fuel the market construction and segmentation work of brand
and branding actors because “[w]ide disparities between rich and poor . . . bring
into being more luxurious types of goods than would otherwise exist” (Molotch,
2002: 682). Social hierarchy and stratification underpin the restless search by elite
groups for distinction through consumption, demonstrating discernment and taste
and propelling the continuous refinement and construction of new individual and
social desires and wants beyond needs. The differentiation imperative hardwired
into brands and branding compels actors actively to seek out, perpetuate and
(re)produce such social and spatial inequalities, fostering divides and polarisation.
The spatial in brands and branding can be understood as geographical associa-
tions (Pike, 2015). Geographical associations are the characteristic elements of the
branded commodity and branding process that connect and/or connote particular
“geographical imaginaries” (Jackson, 2002: 3). Geographical associations are of
different kinds, varying in their extents and natures over space and time (Pike,
2015). Material geographical associations include specific spatial connections,
for example to authentic and traditional methods and particular places of produc-
tion and consumption of the brand and its branding. Symbolic geographical asso-
ciations imbue and suggest spatial references through the use of brand identities
and logos as proprietary markers that are created and circulated to draw attention
from potential consumers. Discursive geographical associations seek to articulate
and narrate brands and their branding with aspirational and desirable spaces and
places through stories. Visual geographical associations utilise “origin . . . recall-
ing to consumers a rich set of associations” to surround brands and infuse brand-
ing concepts and messages (Thakor & Kohli, 1996: 33). Aural associations try to
signify geographical connections and connotations through music, songs, poetry,
language, slang, accents and dialects.
Actors actively design and utilise existing geographical associations in con-
structing their brands and articulating their branding. Such work is evident across
a range of domains. In economic terms, the characteristics invoked include qual-
ity, tradition and reputation. Actors try to use these and other attributes in their
articulations of brands and their branding practices and elements through design,
name and labelling. For the financial services brand Scottish Widows, for instance,
actors have sought deliberately to articulate the attributes of frugality, integrity,
prudence and trustworthiness that are geographically associated with the national
 Origination: geographies of brands 21
territory of Scotland. Symbolised in the brand name and its advertising, such val-
ues are material in the functional financial and branded products and services that
are sold to consumers.
Great care and selectivity are exercised by brand and branding actors in con-
structing geographical associations in branded goods and services commodities
for particular spatial and temporal market contexts. Shaped by particular inter-
pretations and judgements about certain market settings, actors try to capture and
amplify particular attributes and qualities of branded commodities while discard-
ing and obscuring others. On the one hand, actors emphasise desirable and valued
meanings such as the history, quality and reputation suggested by particular places.
On the other, actors mask meaningful but less commercially valuable elements or
even hide damaging and toxic linkages. Brand and branding actors are afforded a
rich and pliable palette by the diversity and variety of the different types, degrees
and characteristics of geographical associations. Brands and their branding are not
just empty vessels into which actors can simply drop content afresh, however. With
the exception of entirely new market entrants, brands and branding are marked by
their social and spatial histories (Pike, 2015).
Geographical associations encompass sometimes uneasy accommodations and
tensions between relational and territorial, bounded and unbounded, fluid and
fixed, territorialising and de-territorialising tendencies (Pike, 2015). Moving on
from the constraints of the nationally framed ‘country of origin’ approach domi-
nant in marketing (e.g., Bilkey & Ness, 1982) to engage other geographical scales,
geographical associations in brands and branding can be framed in scalar and ter-
ritorial terms at different spatial levels (Table 1.2). In this perspective, actors seek
to construct geographical associations to delineated, even jurisdictional, spatial
entities in establishing, representing and regulating the connections and conno-
tations of particular branded goods and services commodities. Importantly, the
national is one but not the only territorial scale at which geographical associations
are articulated and framed by the actors involved. Geographical associations in
brands and branding are relational and networked as well as scalar and territo-
rial. In contrast to bounded, fixed and territorialised understandings, unbounded,

Table 1.2 Scales of geographical associations in brands and branding

Scale Examples
Supra-national European, Latin American
National Brazilian, Japanese
Sub-national administrative Bavarian, Californian
‘National’ Catalan, Scottish
Pan-regional Northern, Southern
Regional North Eastern, South Western
Sub-regional or local Bay Area, Downtown
Urban Milanese, Parisian
Neighbourhood Upper East Side, Knightsbridge
Street Saville Row, Madison Avenue
Source: Adapted from Pike (2015)
22 Andy Pike
fluid and de-territorialising spaces and places are evident in the geographical asso-
ciations of brands and branding too. Such geographies stretch through circuits
and networks in and beyond clearly defined and delineated territories and spatial
scales. Combining territorial and relational understandings, actors deploy brands
and branding to create differentiated meaning and value. They select and attempt
to transcend, hybridise and mix the geographical associations of the territories
and networks of specific spaces and particular places. The actors involved in the
modernisation of the luxury fashion brand Gucci, for example, drew upon and
articulated geographical associations based upon the look, style and sensibility of
the city of Los Angeles, California (Tokatli, 2013). Yet this representation mixed
and hybridised a set of diverse spatial connections and connotations: the American
designer Tom Ford was from Austin, Texas, and worked in Paris, France; the brand
is headquartered in Florence, Italy; and, Gucci branded clothing is manufactured
in Italy as well as, increasingly, internationally.

Brands and branding in spatial circuits

of meaning and value
The agency of inter-related brand and branding actors – producers, circulators, con-
sumers and regulators – create, circulate and valorise differentiated meaning and value
in spatial circuits. Such actors seek selectively to construct, cohere and stabilise geo-
graphical associations in commodity brands and their branding in commercially valu-
able and meaningful ways in particular spatial and temporal market contexts. Together
with branding, “the creation and promotion of brands are . . . pivotal in realising the
surplus value embodied in commodities and so in helping assure the smooth flow of
value and expansion of capital” (Hudson, 2005: 76). Actors utilise the object of the
brand and the process of branding in their attempts to create and fix the geographical
associations constituting meaning and value in spatial circuits. A brand provides the
required kind of an at least temporarily stable frame because “particular objects need to
maintain a degree of stability of meaning in order that they can perform as commodities
and so enable markets to be (re)produced” (Hudson, 2008: 430).
Brands provide an object and branding a process for the attempts of actors to
construct and stabilise the meaning and value of branded commodities in particular
market times and spaces. Meaning and value are inextricably related to each other,
and they are not only and simply reducible to the brand’s geographical associa-
tions. Any coherence, fixity and stability that actors are able to accomplish are
always unstable and makeshift achievements. The restless rationales of accumula-
tion, competition, differentiation and innovation constantly disrupt the meaning
and value in a brand and its branding in particular spatial and temporal market
settings. The work of brand and branding actors is never finished and complete.
An inherent instability and vulnerability adheres to commodity brands and their
branding. Constant struggle is evident with actors ceaselessly trying to create and
extract value and meaning from such unruly and intangible things and convert
them into stable and tradeable commodities and assets that they can own and
charge consumers for in the form of prices and rents.
 Origination: geographies of brands 23
The definitions and relationships between meaning and value have not been suf-
ficiently unpacked or examined. This is because brands and branding are awkward to
conceptualise. They incorporate and intertwine tangible and intangible characteristics
with political-economic attributes that fit with conceptions such as asset, commodity,
price, property, rent and value as well as cultural-economic dimensions understood in
notions of affect, emotions, ethics, identity, meaning and representation. Each of these
ideas is not entirely settled and contains longstanding conundrums, for example the
relations between value and rents in political economy and the connections between
the material and non-material in cultural economy. In linking political and cultural
economy in a geographical frame, this complexity makes conceptualising and theoris-
ing brands and branding difficult. Resolution can be achieved by adopting narrower
rather than wider perspectives. But this risks flattening and reducing the richness and
grasp of our conceptual and theoretical frameworks. Helpful is Bob Jessop’s (2008)
reading of brands as ‘sign values’ capable of reaping ‘symbolic rents’ by means of
‘reputational monopoly’ to appropriate temporary super-profits. Influential too is Har-
vey’s (1990) and earlier political-economic geography work (Hudson, 2005; Smith
et al., 2002) conceptualising branded commodities and their travels in spatial circuits
of meaning and value as ways of researching, analysing and writing geographies
of political and cultural economy. In these views, rather than just instrumental and
superficial wrapping around goods and services commodities, brands and branding
are seen as integral: the concepts, theories and frameworks of brand and branding
deeply inflect and influence actors involved in spatial circuits of meaning and value.
Critically, meaning and value are created ‘beyond the point of production’ in circula-
tion, consumption and regulation too, for example “where the labour of unwaged
user-consumers is seen to participate in providing content, and thereby building brand
equity” (Willmott, 2010: 518). Geographical associations marked by territorial scales
and relational networks in spatial circuits can be used to understand and explain the
unfolding and shifting geographies of meaning and value in brands and branding.
Emphasising the creation of meaning and value beyond the point of produc-
tion, Hugh Willmott (2010: 526) argues that “there is often greater potential for
generating surplus from intangibles like branding – even allowing for the vulner-
ability of brand equity to displacement by innovation, shifts in fashion or risk of
its destruction by consumer activists”. Rationales embedded in cognitive-cultural
capitalism risk disrupting the coherence and stability of brands and branding as
devices for continued value flow and capital expansion in spatial circuits. Meaning
and value are not simply fixed or given by brand owners. Nor are they stamped
or marked on goods and services commodities as they leave the factory or are
communicated from the office. Brands are economic, social, cultural, ecological
and political. This makes them inherently fluid, unstable, “socially negotiated”
(Power & Hauge, 2008: 130) and “fragile things” (Kornberger, 2010: 53). Some
are actively contested over space and time through market rivalry and consumer
activist dissent. While some high-profile cases of rebellious consumer agency
affecting how brands are (re)defined are evident, such as the sub-cultural appro-
priation of Burberry in the 1990s (Pike, 2015), the instability and disruption of the
commercial coherence of brands and branding are generated by a wider range of
24 Andy Pike
actors: producers cannibalising their existing brand markets through innovation;
insurgent circulators fomenting anti-brand campaigns; and, regulators denying
proprietary intellectual rights and brand enclosure of common property. Various
actors in the wider spatial circuit – including but not only consumers – may in cer-
tain times and spaces acquire the power to appropriate, rework and damage brands
and their branding in unpredictable and unforeseen ways. The fixing, cohering and
stabilising efforts of brand and branding actors are only ever partial and temporary.
While brand meaning and value can sometimes be enduring in particular times and
spaces, the work of brand and branding actors is always unfinished and on-going.

Origination
Origination provides a way to understand and explain the ways in which actors –
producers, circulators, consumers and regulators inter-related in spatial circuits of
meaning and value – try to construct geographical associations for branded goods
and services commodities (Pike, 2015). Geographical associations are selected by
brand and branding actors to connote, suggest and/or appeal to particular geographi-
cal imaginaries in attempts to create, cohere and stabilise meaning and value in spe-
cific brands and their branding in the particular contexts of certain market times and
spaces. At particular moments in spatial circuits, actors seek to originate branded
commodities, using strategies, frameworks, techniques and practices of branding to
articulate and communicate geographical associations that are both meaningful and
valuable. Such agency produces, circulates, consumes and regulates “geographical
imaginaries” (Jackson, 2002: 3) in diverse and varied ways. Actors both consti-
tute and are compelled by logics of accumulation, competition, differentiation and
innovation that continually disturb the spatial and temporal fixes of geographical
associations, risking the collapse of the commercial coherence and competitiveness
of their branded commodities. Origination is a highly selective process given the
different interests of the producers, circulators, consumers and regulators involved.
Certain geographical associations providing branded commodities with particular
kinds of meaning and value in specific market contexts can be highlighted and
underlined, while those that threaten to undermine meaning and value are obscured.
The longstanding ‘Country of Origin’ or ‘Made in . . . ’ effect is evident in consumer
views of the geographically differentiated capabilities and historical reputations of
countries for particular goods and services (Bilkey & Nes, 1982). The enduring
meaning and value of ‘Made in Germany’, for example, reflects its historical engi-
neering capability and reputation as a manufacturing nation of high-quality goods,
despite globalisation and European integration pressures (Harding & Paterson, 2000)
(Figure 1.1). While extended to encompass “country-of-origin of brand” (Phau &
Prendergast, 2000: 159), this research has remained focused on the national level
(Pike, 2015). But this national framing has been disturbed by recent changes. For
increasingly complex manufactures with multiple component parts and sub-systems,
assigning a single and definitive national geographical origin to the finished branded
good provided for sale in a particular market has been rendered more complicated.
Second, the rise in importance of services, facilitated by advances in information and
 Origination: geographies of brands 25
communication technologies, has posed questions. The relational nature and geo-
graphical reach of services has stretched economic activities across national contexts
and complicated any designation of their ‘country of origin’. In addition, the growing
significance of intangibles, including design, branding and styling, is blurring the
distinction between branded manufacturing and services as manufacturing products
encompass higher levels of associated service activities. Third, the ‘national’ identi-
fiers that were central to the ‘Country of Origin’ effect have increasingly been played
down, reworked or even eradicated. Actors now seek to obscure historical associa-
tions or dissociate brands from specific national territories in the context of globalisa-
tion and make efforts to reach beyond particular national markets and escape certain
commercially dated or damaging national perceptions and stereotypes. Amidst such
changes, a belated and growing recognition has emerged in marketing that origin is
more than just a nationally framed ‘Country of origin’.
As a result, the origin category relating to the provenance of brands and brand-
ing has been opened up and questioned. It is now being actively extended and
articulated by actors to reflect more closely – as well as in some cases obscure –
which activities are undertaken, by whom and where. Driven by brand owners’
differentiation strategies, the ingenuity of circulators, consumer tastes and regula-
tory standards, new forms of communication and labelling formats are emerging.
‘Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China’ (Apple), ‘Designed by
Kawada in Japan. Made in Thailand’ (Nanoblocks) and ‘Born in Britain. At Home
Anywhere in the World’ (Berghaus) are several from an array of such originations
constructed by the actors involved for manufactured products (Pike, 2015). In
services too, the origination of where actual tasks are undertaken and services
delivered from has become more complex in the context of tele-mediation and
the provision of services on-line and over the wire. The UK bank NatWest, for
example, used a recent advertising campaign to bolster its brand’s reputation for
“Helpful Banking” by asking: “We have award-winning 24/7 UK call centres.
Does your bank?” (emphasis added) (Figure 2.2). Its branding actors have explic-
itly sought to construct their services as higher quality and accessible because of
their origination in ‘UK call centres’ rather than those outsourced beyond the UK
(see e.g., “Just returning your call . . . to the UK” available from http://news.bbc.
co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6353491.stm [Accessed: 14 May 2013]).
These brand and branding practices by the actors involved are grappling with
the idea of multiple and connected – even ‘global’ – origins for the particular pro-
duction and service activities constitutive of specific branded commodities. New
and reworked markers of origin(s) are being used by brand and branding actors to
reference and represent the places of different functions and activities, including
assembly, design, delivery, engineering, component sourcing and manufacture.
The origin category is fragmenting and splintering. Analytically, branding actors
in spatial circuits are working with numerous potential categories of origination:

i) where the brand was originally born

ii) where the brand was innovated or thought up
iii) where the brand is designed and developed
26 Andy Pike
iv) where the brand is tested and refined
v) where the brand is headquartered (or indirectly where the brand owner is
headquartered)
vi) where the branded good or service is delivered or provided from (physical,
virtual)
vii) where the brand is made (manufactured and/or assembled)
viii) where the brand is sold (wholesale or retail channels)
ix) where the branded good or service is serviced or supported from (e.g., after-
sales services, maintenance)
x) where the brand is recycled and/or disassembled.

The order of importance of these forms of origination has changed too. In the con-
text of complex and internationalised global value chains, “there remain product
categories where it pays marketers to ensure that superior expertise is still widely
associated with a particular place” and

the power of brand trust is expected to override any doubts customers might
have as a result of products being sourced from multiple countries. Consumers
are more concerned about the country or place of design and quality oversight
than the country of place of manufacture.
(Quelch & Jocz, 2012: 44)

Importantly for origination, the multiplicity and complexity in origin(s) and their
geographies provides enhanced degrees of flexibility for actors in (re)working the
geographical associations of brands and branding. Shaped by specific connotations
in particular spatial and temporal market contexts, a singular origin or plural ori-
gins can be promoted or obscured by the brand and branding actors involved and
rendered less easily or obviously discernable. The ascendancy of on-line services in
the digital era has further extended and reinforced the flexibility of origins in virtual
spaces and times. Constructing, locating and situating origin(s) can still encompass
the national scale and notions of ‘country of origin’, but the national frame is only
one spatial level amongst other territorial constructs that need to be articulated in
accommodation and tension with understandings of relational networks.

Conclusion: originating brands and

branding geographies
Interpreting how the meaning and value of branded goods and services commodi-
ties are entangled with where they are from, and are associated with explains their
geographies. Addressing the dramatic rise, importance and pervasiveness of brands
and branding in contemporary economy, society, culture, ecology and polity, this
contribution sought to focus attention on their relatively neglected and under-
researched geographies. It has explained what brands and branding constitute, why
and how they are geographical, what geographical associations are and how they
 Origination: geographies of brands 27
work, and underlined the integral agency of actors in spatial circuits of meaning and
value. Origination provides a way of understanding and explaining the geographical
associations constructed by brand and branding actors related in spatial circuits –
producers, circulators, consumers and regulators – in their attempts to construct and
stabilise meaning and value in spatial and temporal market contexts. Connecting
geographical political and cultural economy, origination affords a way to engage
critical questions about how, why, where and by whom goods and services brands
are associated with specific and particular spaces and places.
Several potential paths emerge for future research to challenge and develop the
conceptual, theoretical and analytical reach and grasp of origination. Further con-
ceptual, theoretical and empirical investigation is key to ensure origination demon-
strates its worth and avoids being seen only as a descriptive metaphor. This research
effort might focus on several potential paths. First, further studies are needed of
different kinds of branded goods and services commodities across the full circuit
of meaning and value. Especially challenging would be studies of the origination
of brands and branding with potentially less interesting or promising geographi-
cal associations such as headache tablets, supermarket own-brands and washing
powder or those with deliberately placeless and ubiquitous global intent, such as
credit cards, mobile phone and travel services. Second, comparative research is
important focused on the same branded commodities in different spatial and tem-
poral market settings internationally. Examination of how and why actors seek to
(re)construct geographical associations with positive meaning and value as well as
dissociate and distance themselves from more negative attributes in varied contexts
while coping with disruptive processes of accumulation, competition, differentia-
tion and innovation would be revealing and substantive. Last, enquiries would be
welcome into how origination and the geographical associations of specific brands
within broader corporate portfolios of different brands are conceived, managed and
effected by producers, circulators, consumers and regulators in different spatial and
temporal market contexts. Little is known about how the relations and dynamics
between brands and their originations and geographical associations are handled by
the brand and branding actors in spatial circuits of meaning and value.

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2 The state branding of US
postage stamps for state
commemorative years
From heritage, iconography and
place to placelessness
Stanley D. Brunn

The ways in which the geographies of space and place are inescapably intertwined
with brands and branding have been unevenly recognized and under-researched.
(Pike, 2011: 4–5)
Brands can provide symbols, images and narratives of prosperity, success and
vibrancy for actors with interests in territorial development.
(Pike, 2015: 175)
Branding is much more than a name or logo. Brand is everything, and everything
is branding.
(Pallota, 2011: 1)
Specific brands and their branding are inescapably imbued by meanings and val-
ues in particular settings, shaped by their histories and geographies.
(Pike, 2015: 27)

Introduction
The world political map is profuse with images, symbols, labels and colors. Offi-
cial state documents may include maps portraying supporters with words such as
“ally” or “close friend”, or opponents in some “adversary” or demeaning way.
Colors may be used to indicate close friendships and also enemies and those hostile
to its form of government. Light greens and blues may portray friends and dark
reds and browns those who are unfriendly. The state “branding” language and color
schemes can be extended to the words and images used to present and represent its
various states, territories or other major administrative units. Postage stamps are
seen in this light as they are state products that contain visual information about
regional populations, cultures and territories. These popular culture images will
be observed by those within the state’s political boundaries and by those outside.
This study builds on two major bodies of literature, the first being brands and
branding and the second on stamp issues, which are also the product of branding.
There are many intersections as designing, producing and marketing products are
important for the private sector as well as states themselves. Both are using “knowl-
edge” or information ingredients to attract, inform and expand their clientele to
30 Stanley D. Brunn
retain their markets and populations. The similarities arise when exploring specific
marketing strategies of the corporate world and states. Just as corporations engage
in marketing products, so does the state in its “promotion” of a state’s centennial
or some other event. The consumers also play a crucial role in what is purchased.
Supervision and regulatory issues also play a role in both the private and public
sector. Designs and themes of a state’s stamp program are approved by some
bureau or agency or perhaps a single individual; their roles are to ensure that
marketing the topic or theme will be successful to the state’s leaders, heritage and
wider public and also result in increased revenues. In the United States, the role of
the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee is to make recommendations about issues
to the head of the US Postal Service. This committee is comprised of members of
the general public who are appointed and who have interests in the nation’s arts,
sciences, histories and education. Decisions about stamp issues vary by country.
I use the term “state branding” to refer to efforts by the state to brand and pro-
mote itself. Stamps are but one way that states “brand” themselves; they also brand
themselves through capital cities, trade fairs, national museums, tourist destinations
(parks and monuments) and museums. Stamps are issued about regions, places and
landscapes and represent a visual information source used by the state (others are
through the World Wide Web pages, trade fairs, recreation and tourist commercials
and scheduling events) to attract local, national and international clientele. Brand-
ing can also be used to describe programs and decisions for its internal population.
Stamps are visible products produced by and for the state and for visible consump-
tion. The words, designs, images, symbols and phrases that appear on US postage
stamps are part of the branding. A state’s official Web page, maps, photos and sym-
bols are additional examples of visible representations (Brunn & Cottle, 1997; Jack-
son & Purcell, 1997; Steinberg & McDowell, 2003; Wilson, 2001; Zook, 2000).
In many cases the promotion of state products is not unlike the promotion of
foods, drinks, furniture, clothing, sporting equipment, music and also theme parks
and vacation holidays. Pike (2011) discusses the concept of state branding under
the heading of “nation branding”. He notes:

‘Nation branding’ refers to the application of sophisticated marketing expertise

and branding techniques to cultivate understandings of the nation. Its aim is to
market the national as a destination for tourism and inward investment, to add
value to the final products; to stimulate interest, attach values and regulatory prac-
tices along value chains; to build reputations; and to reconstitute economic and
political subjectivities domestically. Nation branding connects the traditions and
aspirations of place marketing: destination branding and events marketing
and place of origin branding of products to national politico-legal aspirations.
(Pike, 2011: 269)

Major objectives
The major focus is to explore how a state, in this case, the United States, through its
postal service, portrays and “brands” states with commemorative issues. Initially
I look at the themes of place, region, territory and landscape on stamp issues in a
 State branding of US postage stamps 31
wide context. Then I focus specifically on centennial, sesquicentennial and bicen-
tennial (hereafter referred to only as “centennial”) celebrations of states them-
selves. To this end I examine the visual content of these centennial commemorative
issues for all 50 states and territories that became states. In this context, I ask five
specific questions:

(1) How is the state’s celebration year captured on this small piece of colorful
“political” paper that informs the user and viewer about what the US postal
authorities considered important to depict?
(2) What are the dominant themes? Are they some historical event, a major
political leader or cultural group or some specific feature, such as a land-
scape, that is depicted?
(3) Many states have been honored with more than one stamp in the past nearly
two centuries since the first centennial stamp was issued in 1927. What are
the major differences in content or subject matter? For example, is the
content similar for stamps issued in the 1940s, the 1980s and the early 21st
century?
(4) What are the major themes represented and also the major themes not rep-
resented on these state centennial stamps?
(5) What can we conclude from this inquiry in state centennial stamp issues?
Are they portraying stereotypes, for example, images that are associated
with a state nickname or slogan, such as Kansas “the sunflower state” or
New Jersey “the garden state”?

Answers to these and related questions are couched in the context of the two
extant literatures reviewed below – that is, the intersecting place-branding lit-
erature which looks at the economic/cultural/political intersections of branding
in the postindustrial worlds of information production, consumption, regulation
and manipulation and the interdisciplinary literatures on stamp images, themes,
histories and representations at national and regional levels.
Following this section, I will discuss the methodology and the datasets. In the
following sections, I will discuss the emerging interdisciplinary and transdisci-
plinary areas of branding, place-making and regulation. Then I will discuss how
this study, the first to my knowledge, focuses on the state as a branding agent in
the arena of stamp issues. The results are followed by an analysis of the findings.
I conclude by summarising the results and suggesting future lines of research
that explore those state/branding/image worlds for nationally and internationally
viewed consumers.

Literature reviews
The two corporate bodies of literature regarding this research relate to branding
and stamps as political products. The pioneering branding work by Andy Pike
(2009, 2011, 2015) and others provides a sound conceptual and theoretical frame-
work. The lion’s share of this work has focused on the economic sector, specifi-
cally the names and branding of products in the emerging information society,
32 Stanley D. Brunn
including these components: production, dissemination, consumption and regula-
tion. Pioneering studies by geographers and others that examine political issues
of marketing, innovation, merchandising and regulation include Anholt (2003,
2004); Castree (2004); Cook and Harrison (2003); Harvey (1990); Jackson (2002,
2004); Jackson et al. (2007); Lewis et al. (2008); Power and Hauge (2008); and
Power and Jansson (2011). Pike’s (2009) article in Progress in Human Geog-
raphy provides a solid literature review of the topic plus a challenging research
agenda for social and policy scientists interested in economic and cultural pro-
duction, networks, regulators and consumers. The impact of Pike’s thinking is
evident in his Brands and Branding Geographies (2011) where nineteen chapters
are devoted to the concept itself (Jackson, Russell & Ward; Lury; Moor; Papado-
poulos; Power & Jansson) plus original case studies about fashion (Ermann), the
fragrance industry (Kubartz), Scandinavian furniture (Power & Jansson), sporting
equipment (Hauge), tourism (Lewis) and cities (Arvidsson; Harris; Therkelsen &
Halkier). The political dimensions have been a lesser focus in much of the brands
and branding literature. State and nation issues related to brand have also been
addressed by (Anholt 2003, 2010, 2011); Anholt and Hildreath (2005); Aronc-
zyk (2013); Askegaard (2006); Ind (2013); Jordan (2013, 2015); Lewis (2011);
Surowiec (2016); and Ugesh (2013). Pike’s (2015) edited volume, Originations,
focuses on territorial (local, national and global) issues related to branding. In his
concluding chapter, he again calls for more international and interdisciplinary
research, empirical as well as theoretical, that intersects the economic, cultural
and political spheres at local and global levels; he addresses promising agendas
for political and cultural economy research (Pike, 2015: 194–206). He also admits
that much more work remains to be studied on branding, not only on topics, but on
conceptual frameworks as well. A similar point has been made by Pallota (2011)
and Chevalier and Mazzolovo (2004). Pike acknowledges that his Originations:

addresses the relative lack of research on the geographies of brands and brand-
ing. It provides the conceptualization and theorization capable of engaging
the spatial dimensions of the brands and branding of goods and services com-
modities in more critical and geographically sensitive ways.
(Pike, 2015: 17)

Un-researched by scholars looking at brands and branding, as noted by Pike in

the quote at the start of this paper, are the images and themes of a state’s stamp
program, which in themselves are efforts to bolster, promote, inform and appease
the visually oriented customer. However, the branding of “information econo-
mies” and conceptual framework presented above suggests that many of the same
components of branding in the commercial sector can/might be applied to the
state through its increased use of knowledge economies. These could and would
include the intersecting fields of cyberspace, political culture, representation, visu-
alisation and national identity (Bronnenberg et al., 2007; Brown, 2016; Brunn,
2015a; Campbell & Power, 2010; Der Derien, 2010; Ettenson & Knowles, 2006;
Keller & Lehman, 2006; Mirzoeff, 1998; Panofsky, 1982; Rose, 2007; Rosenau,
 State branding of US postage stamps 33
2002; Schroeder, 2002, 2015; Singh, 2002). These sources and others have been
used by geographers, historians, educations, language professionals and others
looking at the visual images and themes in the presentations and representations
of stamps. Postage stamp issues fall into this conceptual framework.
Examples of historical and contemporary contributions about political images
and representation are several major themes: nationalism and imagined communi-
ties (Anderson, 1991; Billig, 1998; Bushnell, 1982; Flusty et al., 2008; Mukerji &
Schudson, 1991; Raento, 2006), nation building and geopolitics (Anholt, 2011;
Lewis, 2011; Reid, 1984), maps (Davis, 1985; Marshall, 2000; Stamp, 1966),
the natural sciences (Yardley, 2014), semiotics (Child, 2005; Peirce, 1902; Scott,
1995, 2002), language (Walker, 1969), national identity and popular culture (Alt-
man, 1991; Boulding, 1959; Child, 2009; Covington & Brunn, 2006; Gottman,
1952; Williams & Williams, 1956), teaching social studies and language through
stamps (Calver et al., 2011; Finlay, 1968; Moffat & Roth, 1950; Nuessel, 1984,
1986; O’Sullivan, 1988; Wood, 1979), propaganda (Davis, 1985; Dobson, 2002;
Lauritzen, 1988; Stoetzer, 1953), new countries (Brunn, 2000), and the stamp
issues of individual countries and regions (Adedze, 2004; Brunn, 2002, 2011,
2015b; Cusick, 2005; Deans & Dobson, 2005; Dobson, 2002; Di Napoli, 1980;
Grant, 1995; Hensley, 1974; Hoya, 2002; Johnson, 2005; Jones, 2000; Kevane,
2008; Leith, 1971; Marshall, 2000; Raento & Brunn, 2005, 2008; Reid, 1984,
1993; Rowley, 2002; Scott, 1995; Siemond, 2008; Timothy, 2001; Toth & Hillger,
2013; Yardley, 2014). Scholarly inquiries into US stamps include Davidson and
Diamant (1990) and Ogletree et al. (1994).
The above reviews suggest several useful and important questions about stamp
products that could be examined within the context of state branding. First, what
do these reveal about the state, specifically its “visual” messages to those inside
and outside its territorial borders? Second, what do the stamp issues reveal about
a country’s internal histories, that is, what topics or themes are most popular and
favored? Third, what do stamps reveal about political changes occurring in a coun-
try’s history? That is, do they reveal or depict the changes in focus, leadership,
internal and external policies or even in how these celebrations and themes are
presented and represented? Stamps are but one way that states present and identify
themselves to those within and outside their borders. It is the intersections of the
branding and postage stamp literature that are useful in analysing the research
questions posed above.

Data set and methodology

The stamps used in this study are listed in the 2015 Scott Standard Postage Stamp
Catalogue (2015), a database used by most scholars when tackling research ques-
tions about the stamp issues of countries, and in current issues of Linn’s Stamp
News, which provides monthly catalogue entries and numbers of recent stamps.
The catalogue lists all postage stamps issued by existing country, dead country or
territory by year. Each stamp is assigned a given catalogue number, a number that
dealers and collectors use when ordering a stamp or obtaining its value in mint
34 Stanley D. Brunn
(unused) or used condition. Also, the catalogue notes when the stamp was issued
as well as its color.
In the stamp catalogue, pages 1–122 illustrate US stamps. I went through each
page and identified stamps about states and territories. I looked at place references
(states, cities, regions) for the issues. As of late 2016 there were almost 5,150
regular stamps issued, that is, not counting air mail, postage due, special delivery,
etc., all topics of early issues. There were 547 sets that had some regional or place
theme; some sets were a single stamp, others were in a set of 4 or 20 or 50. About
20 percent (1,071 stamps) had a place, landscape or regional setting or theme. The
number in major categories are as follows: Centennials (115), Greetings (50, one
for each state), Flags (50, one for each state), Nature (51 for 24 states), Wonders
of America (40 stamps), Monuments and Memorials (41 in 18 states) and Place
Events (68 in 26 states). Excluded from this analysis are the birthplaces of political
and military leaders, musicians, dramatists, artists, inventors, science and literary
figures or other individuals and stamps issued for certain industries, professional
societies and overseas treaties. Also excluded were stamps for battlefield anniver-
saries, battles/military events, monuments, expositions, flags, sports (including
Olympics), nature/environment (parks, scenic landscapes), cities and architecture,
international themes, expeditions and discoveries, engineering projects (railroads,
dams, historical roads, canals, etc.), the site of some convention, a major city, a
sporting event, major exhibition, national landmark or historical battlefield. Many
more stamps have been issued over nearly the past two centuries about individuals,
including presidents, military leaders, authors, musicians, scientists, noted women
and men, religious holidays and more recently Hollywood celebrities, cartoons and
popular culture themes (Table 2.1).
Images of states were also on other sets. The US issued a stamp for each state
in a Greetings Series in 2002 that looked like colorful postcard images from the
1930s and 1940s. I made note of the topics on each of these 50 stamps and also
the images for the 50 flag stamps issued in 2008. The state flag was the dominant
feature of each stamp. At the base of each stamp was a depiction of some generic
landscape feature of that state. I do not investigate these here, nor the Wonders

Table 2.1 Examples of categories of US stamps with a place theme

Centennials, bicentennials, etc., of states and territories

Greetings (set of 5 stamps issued in 2000)
Wonders (tallest mountains, biggest deserts, etc. 2006)
Flags (each state flag on an issue 2008)
States ratifying the U.S. Constitution (bicentennial issue 1987)
Nature (parks, seashores, forests, landmarks, etc.)
Places
Events (expositions, Olympic games, treaties, etc.)
Military (battlefields, academies, etc.)
Memorials and monuments
Scenic landscapes (parks, forests, coasts, deserts, etc. 1999–2013)
 State branding of US postage stamps 35
of America set (40 stamps) issued in 2006, which had “superlative” topics, such
as oldest trees, largest desert, etc. I state the above because it is important to note
that there have been other stamp series which depict states as a major theme, such
as the Greetings (2002) and Flags (2008) series, but also where state places and
landscapes are integral parts of the stamp design.
In most years, one or two stamps were issued. One stamp was issued in 30
separate years; two were issued in 15 separate years. Only four stamps were issued
from 1979 to 1985. The most stamps (25) were issued from 1936 to 1948. Five
were issued in 1948 and 4 each in 1936 and 1989. If we looked at the issues by
decades, there was a fair degree of evenness: 1930s (16), 1940s (17), 1950s (14),
1960s (14), 1970s (only 6), 1980s (23 including 13 for the original colonies), 1990s
(14), 2000s (6) and since 2010 (7).
I counted 124 stamps that celebrated centennials of states and territories. They
are the focus of this study. This number amounts to only about 2 percent of all US
regular stamp issues or about 11 percent of all place, landscape and region stamps.
The number of stamps issued about each state varies significantly. Not surprising,
there are many more for New York, California and Pennsylvania (more than 30)
and fewer than ten for nearly three dozen states. Few are from the Dakotas and
low-population states.
The centennial stamps issued for states and territories were single issues, that is,
not part of a set. Most states in the years considered had at least two stamps issued.
For some, including Texas and Oklahoma, there were several stamps issued, some-
times for a territory and then for a state. Some states had no specific centennial
stamps; these include New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia. How-
ever, these states had many other “place” stamp issues about important historical
events associated with the Revolutionary War, Declaration of Independence and
the celebration of the US Bicentennial in 1976, as well as early and contemporary
historical events, battlefields, expositions and historical buildings. Twelve states
have issued a single stamp, and 15 have issued two stamps for centennial events.
Another 12 states have issued three stamps. Four or more stamps have been issued
by Alaska, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas. Stamps were issued for Alaska,
Hawaii, Oklahoma and Oregon to commemorate their territorial status. Territorial
stamps for Nebraska and Louisiana were also issued.
In the large Place and Region database, I entered the year of the issue for each
stamp or set of stamps with the rows being states and territories and the columns
for centennials, nature places and landmarks, place events, military events, memo-
rials and monuments, the name of the country or territory and a brief description of
the stamp itself. This table provided me the total number of US stamps issued by
the federal government since the first one was issued in 1847 through news issues
planned for 2016. The stamps in this study, as noted above, represent a state or
territory’s centennial, sesquicentennial or bicentennial event. When appropriate,
I also included stamps related to that state that was previously part of a territory.
Examples of Place and Region stamps excluded from this study are the follow-
ing: place images on the 1892 Columbian Exposition set (the first US stamp with a
place theme: the 2-cent stamp a popular textbook image of Columbus landing and
36 Stanley D. Brunn
Table 2.2 Examples of images on state centennial, bicentennial issues

Alaska – 1967: Century of Purchase from Russia (Tlingat totem)

Arizona – 1953: Century of Purchase of Gadsden Purchase from Mexico (map and pioneers)
California – 1950: Statehood Centennial (gold miners, pioneers, Steamship Oregon)
Florida – 1965: 400th Anniversary of Settlement (Spanish explorer, flag, ships)
Hawaii – 1989: 25th Anniversary of Statehood (early Polynesian canoe, flower, volcano)
Nebraska – 1967: Centennial issue (Ft. Kearney and Pioneer Group)
New Jersey – 1964: 300th Anniversary of English Colonization (map and landing)
Oklahoma – 1948: Centennial of Indian Territory (seals of five tribes)
South Carolina – 1950: 300th Anniversary of Settlement (church, capital, flag, Ft. Sumter)
Utah – 1947: Settlement Century in the Valley of Great Salt Lake (wagon train, landscape)
Wisconsin – 1945: 300th Anniversary of Nicolet’s Landing at Green Bay (landing)

a 10-cent issue of Columbus greeting Native Americans), the Alaska-Yukon Pacific

Exposition in (1909), Ohio River Canal system (1929), National Park issues (1934),
Transcontinental Railroad 75th Anniversary (1944), United Nations Conference in
San Francisco (1945), Huguenot-Walloon territory (1964), California’s Gold Rush
Centenary (1948), Indian Centennial in the Territory of Oklahoma (1945), Chero-
kee Strip (1968), Stone Mountain Monument (1970), Peace Bridge (1977), TVA
(1983), Knoxville World Fair (1982), Wolf Farm Trap Festival (1982), Great Lakes
Lighthouses (1995), Rural Free Delivery (1996), California Gold Rush (1999),
Great Plains Prairie (2000), Korean War Veterans Memorial (2003), New Orleans
World Exposition (1984) and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (2004). In short, place
themes represent a very small percentage of all US stamps issued.
For each stamp entered into my database, I also noted the dominant themes on
the stamp itself (Table 2.2). For example, did it include a map of the state or ter-
ritory, the capital building, some monument of an important historical figure, the
state flag, some distinguishing natural feature or a scenic landscape? With these
data entries, I would examine if there were any differences in the visual content
or subject matter between the early stamps issued for territories and states and the
later ones, aside from the obvious technological differences in color between the
early issues, which were often one color (usually green, brown and light blue) and
those issued in the past couple of decades when there is often a striking profusion
of colors, enough to make even the casual reader stop and take notice of what was
portrayed on these small pieces of “political branding”.

Results and analysis

The first state or territory commemorative issue was the set of five stamps for
the Louisiana Purchase centennial in 1904; the highest value had a map of the
territory. Second was the 1927 issue for Vermont’s sesquicentennial; the third
was for Maryland’s centennial in 1934; and the fourth for Wisconsin’s centennial,
also in 1934. The last stamp considered in this analysis was issued for Indiana’s
 State branding of US postage stamps 37
sesquicentennial in 2016. In addition to state stamps, stamps were issued for these
US territories: Hawaii (1934) and Alaska (1937) before they became states and
also Puerto Rico’s election in 1949, Micronesia and Marshall Islands in 1990,
Mariana Island in 1993, the Republic of Palau in 1999 and American Samoa in
2000. The US also issued stamps for the Panama Canal in 1939 and its control of
the Philippines in 1944. The District of Columbia was the subject of a stamp issued
in 1991 for its bicentennial celebration.
The US Postal Administration issued 17 stamps in a Scenic Landscape Series
from 1999 to 2013. These are very attractive and colorful stamps of national
parks (Acadia, Great Smoky Mountains, Yosemite, Bryce Canyon, Glacier, Voya-
geurs) and also other popular scenic landscapes (Niagara Falls, Rio Grande River,
Nebraska’s 9 Mile Prairie, Okefenokee Swamp, Mt. McKinley, 13 Mile Woods
(New Hampshire) and Trump Bay (St. John, Virgin Islands)). One stamp in 2012
illustrated an Amish Horse and Buggy Road in Lancaster Count, Pennsylvania.
The same year an attractive set of 15 stamps depicted Earthscape scenes.
A number of stamps were issued to commemorate the founding of US territo-
ries. Examples include Oregon Territory (1836–1936), the Northwest Territories
(1787–1937), Mississippi Territory (1798–1948), Fort Kearney’s significance in
Nebraska’s history (1848–1948), Minnesota Territory (1849–1949), Indiana Ter-
ritory (1800–1950), Washington Territory (1853–1953), the Louisiana Purchase
(1803–1953 and 2003), Gadsden Purchase (1853–1953), Kansas and Nebraska
Territories (1854–1954), The Carolina Charter (1663–1963), New Jersey Terri-
tory (1964), the Settlement of Florida (1965), California settlement (1769–1969),
Kentucky settlement (1774–1974) and a 1957 celebration stamp was issued for
the Indian nations that became part of the state of Oklahoma. These are important
territories in US history from which other states were carved out.
When states were admitted, their anniversaries were celebrated with separate
stamp issues. Examples include Oklahoma (1907–1957), Nevada (1864–1964),
Nebraska (1867–1967), Kentucky (1792–1992), Texas (1845–1995), Florida
(1845–1995) and California (1850–2000).

Major periods
A content analysis of these state issues revealed four major themes. Each theme
is depicted with stamps from that period (Figures 2.1–2.4). First were those that
depicted Early Colonies and State Heritage. These were the first state centennial
stamps and were issued in the early 1930s, especially with themes centered around
early heritage themes and founders (Figure 2.1). Among these were depictions
of the seal of the Vermont issue of the Green Mountain Boys (issued 1927), the
300th anniversary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1930), James Oglethorpe and
the founding of Georgia (1933), the Charter Oak on a Connecticut stamp (1935),
Nicolet’s landing on Green Bay, Wisconsin (1934), Michigan’s centennial (1935)
and the founding of three states: Rhode Island and Arkansas and Texas (1936) and
four territories: Alaska and Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (1937). In
1938 a map stamp was issued for the centennial of the opening of the Northwest
38 Stanley D. Brunn

Figure 2.1 Early colonies and territories: 1930s. (Top row) Founding of the territory of
Hawaii (1837–1937); founding of Texas (1836–1936); 50th anniversary of
North and South Dakota, Montana and Washington (1889–1939); Maryland’s
300th anniversary (1634–1934). (Middle row) 300th anniversary of the Mas-
sachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1930); James Oglethorpe and the 200th anni-
versary of the founding of Georgia (1733–1933); seal of the Vermont issue
of the Green Mountain Boys (1777–1927); Louisiana Purchase (1803–1904).
(Bottom row) The founding of Rhode Island (1836–1936); centennial of the
opening of the Oregon Trail (1836–1936); Northwest Ordinance (1787); Con-
necticut’s 300th anniversary (1635–1935).

Territory; also a map stamp was issued for Iowa’s centennial. In the following year,
a single map stamp celebrated the 50th anniversary of North and South Dakota,
Montana and Washington.
The second period ran during the 1940s when nearly two dozen stamps were
issued; I labeled this Heritage Landmarks and Iconographies. Some individuals
appeared on stamps, but there were many more that included state seals, flags,
state capital buildings and some early settlement/pioneering efforts (Figure 2.2).
Examples of these features on specific states were: explorers (Colorado 1940),
state capitals (Iowa 1935, Arkansas 1936, Idaho 1940, Vermont 1941, Kentucky
1942, Wisconsin 1948), seals (Wyoming 1940), seals and flags (Florida 1945),
flags (Texas 1945) and pioneering efforts (Minnesota 1940, Nebraska 1948). Maps
appeared on a few stamps, Oregon Territory 1938, Iowa 1946, Utah 1947 and
Mississippi 1948.
The third period, from the 1950s through the 1990s, I labeled Maps and Famil-
iar Features, included about 50 stamps (Figure 2.3). Maps were a common feature;
in fact, nine states had a map as a central feature (Indiana 1960, Nevada 1960,
New Jersey 1964, Ohio 1953, Hawaii 1959, Alaska 1959, Arizona 1953 and Okla-
homa 1957). Historical settlement places continued to be a central theme: Kansas
1953, Kentucky 1974, Oregon 1959 and South Carolina 1959), Arizona (Gadsden
Figure 2.2 Heritage landmarks and iconographies: 1940s. (Top row) Mississippi map
and seal (1798–1948); Kentucky explorers (1792–1942); Iowa map and flag
(1846–1936). (Middle row) Minnesota “Land of 10,000 Lakes” landscape
(1858–1958); Indiana capitol (1800–1950); Colorado state capitol and seal
(1876–1951); Ohio map and seal (1803–1953). (Bottom row) Florida map, seal,
capitol (1845–194); Indian Centennial seal (1848–1948); Nebraska Territory
showing “The Sower”, Mitchell Pass and Scotts Bluff (1854–1954); California
gold miners (1850–1950).

Figure 2.3 Maps and familiar features: 1950s–1990s. (Top two) Texas horseman carrying
the state flag (1845–1995); founding of Charleston, South Carolina (1670–1970).
(Second row) Colorado Columbine flower and Rocky Mountain landscape
(1876–1976); Mississippi magnolia blossom (1817–1967); Louisiana Paddle
steamer (1812–1962); Kentucky’s first settlement (1774–1974). (Third row)
Florida alligator (1845); New Mexico’s Shiprock (1912–1962); Hawaiian Alii
(chief ) with a lei and a map of the islands (1954); Indiana’s capitol and state map
(1816–1966). (Bottom row) Nebraska corn and beef cattle (1867–1967); Alas-
ka’s state map (1959); and West Virginia’s capitol and state map (1863–1963).
40 Stanley D. Brunn
Purchase and map) 1961 and the Alaska purchase 1967). Another common theme
was a familiar landscape image or some stereotype or topic or product associated
with that state. Examples include a sunflower (Kansas 1961), corn and beef cattle
(Nebraska 1967), Shiprock Mountain (New Mexico 1987), a Polynesian canoe and
Mauna Loa volcano (Hawaii 1954), reindeer (Alaska 1954), pine tree (Michigan
1987), an Iowa rural scene (1996), the Cimarron Land Run (Oklahoma 1973) and
an alligator (Florida 1994). These stamps probably reinforced in many viewers’
minds their word associations with certain states.
The fourth theme I labeled Generic Landscapes because these stamps, issued
mostly since 2000, portray colorful landscapes that some reviewers/readers might
associate with more than one state (Figure 2.4). That is, the rural landscapes on
these stamps could be in many other nearby locations: Wisconsin (1998 – dairy
farm), Illinois (1968 – rural landscape), Ohio (2003 – aerial view of a farmstead),
Indiana (2016 – rural landscape) and Kansas (2011 – wind turbines and wind-
mills). There is nothing distinctive of the states they are representing. The same
generalisation could be applied to the Western states: Washington and Montana

Figure 2.4 Generic landscapes: 2000 and beyond. (Top row) Arizona’s Cathedral Rock in
Sedona (1912–2012); Ohio farm (1803–2003); Iowa farm (1846–1996); Wis-
consin farm (1848–1998); Wyoming wildflowers and the Grand Teton Moun-
tains (1890–1990). (Second row) Left: Nevada’s Fire Canyon (1864–2014); Far
right: Oregon landscape featuring the Columbia River (1859–2009). (Third row)
Indiana cornfields at sunset (1816–2016); Minnesota lake scene (1858–2008);
Vermont’s green rolling hills (1791–1991); Louisiana bayou (1812–2012);
Alaska’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race (1959–2009). (Bottom row) New Mexi-
co’s Cerro de Santa Clara and Cerro de Guadalupe peaks (1912–2012); Kansas
landscape with an old windmill and new wind turbines (1861–2011); Oklahoma
landscape (1907–2007).
 State branding of US postage stamps 41
1989, Wyoming 1990, Montana 2008, Hawaii and Oregon 2009, Kansas 2011,
New Mexico 2012 and Nevada 2014. Many of these colorful landscapes could
have been in a handful of other western states. The landscape scenes of four
states depicted a painting by a well-known artist: Nebraska’s 1954 issue was “The
Sower”, a painting by Lee Laurie, Iowa’s 1946 “Young Corn” was a rural scene by
the noted rural artist, Grant Wood, Wyoming’s 1990 stamp pictured “High Moun-
tain Meadows” by Conrad Schwiering and New Mexico’s 2006 issue was “Sanc-
tuary II” by Douglas West. It is clear that the landscapes that have appeared on
centennial stamps since the turn of the century have different themes and designs
than those issued 30 or 50 years earlier.

Analysis
Common themes that prevailed in the nearly 100 years since the first centennial
stamps have continued to surface. These include pioneering groups, early explorers
and government leaders, iconography themes (seals and flags) and maps. Most of
the centennial stamps include a mix of topics and themes. These themes continued
with some regularity until 2000, when generic landscape features became the most
popular images on centennial stamps. No stamps with state maps have appeared
since 1963 and 1964. Perhaps the reason is that those charged with approving
designs believe that the American public is familiar with the location of the 50
states, a conclusion that may be a bit of an exaggeration. Or it might be that “place-
less” themes are a preferred and effective way of representing the American culture
and landscapes to the contemporary public that is, issuing stamps with no clear
state identity, except the name of the state appearing on the stamp.
A careful and critical reading of the nearly 100 commemorative stamps that have
been issued shows that there have been some themes not represented or poorly rep-
resented on centennial issues. These include urban images, for example, skylines
or noted features in the largest cities (other than state capitol buildings), ethnic and
racial diversity (people, in fact, are notably absent except for some generic early
pioneering groups), women leaders, Native Americans (save for Oklahoma) and
treaties, and other historical memorials and monuments.
This project leads one to contemplate the future themes and designs of US cen-
tennial commemorative stamp issues. The following states will celebrate major
anniversaries in the next four years: Mississippi and Nebraska (2017), Illinois
(2018), Alabama (2019) and South Carolina (2020). If the most recent centennial
issues are any indication, we can look forward to stamps issued that have some
generic (or even stereotypical) physical landscape scenes that are colorful and
eye-pleasing, but also illustrating a landscape that might equally fit surrounding
states. The Illinois stamp would have some attractive rural landscape that would
be similar to Iowa and Indiana, the Mississippi and Alabama stamps would depict
scenic rural landscapes (much different from the state tree on Mississippi’s issue
in 1967 and Alabama’s state flower in 1967). South Carolina’s tricentennial stamp
in 1970 depicted many themes in the state’s history, but one can envision the 2020
stamp to depict some attractive coastal landscape devoid of any people.
42 Stanley D. Brunn
This research offers additional opportunities for those interested in the politi-
cal branding of places, territories and regions. While few US stamps have been
issued specifically about cities, cities have been the sites of exhibitions, conven-
tions, conferences and also sporting events, musical events, drama, etc. It would
be interesting to note how many cities have actually been the subject of events
and what kind. Another common place theme of US stamps is associated with
national parks, seashores, forests, historical monuments and memorials. If one
explored this topic over a 100- to 150-year period, what would the results show?
Would they favor certain states and regions? Or would there be an effort to issue
stamps that cover the entire nation? A third theme would be to explore the themes
on the 2002 Greetings stamps and Flag set (2008). Do these display historical
sites, famous physical landscapes, tourist attractions? The analysis again would
reveal something about the nation’s stamp issuing policies vis-à-vis regional vs.
national coverage.
State branding could also be used as a concept to explore stamps issued by other
countries and especially countries that have had changes in government. One can
think of colonial stamp issues of British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch,
Belgian and other governments in Africa, Latin America and South and Southeast
Asia. When colonial powers made stamp decisions for distant possessions, what
were familiar themes? Where they exotic animals and plants, indigenous cultural
features, colonial events and heritage? Once the territory became independent,
what were the topics and themes of the first several issues? One would expect
there would be some effort to promote the new state identity with familiar themes
about its culture, heritage and environment, not repeating those of colonial years.
Comparing the “transition year stamp issues” of different colonial and postcolonial
issues would be a very worthwhile research project for those interested in repre-
sentations of historical or contemporary human geography.
An examination of the centennial stamps issued in the past 80 years reveals
some changes in focus in the four time periods discussed above. But there are
also differences in the designs and topics of some states, especially those that
have had three or more different issues. For some states, the stamp images have
changed. Examples include Indiana’s issues. Its 1950 issue showed its first gov-
ernor, William Henry Harrison, and the first capital in Vincennes. The colorful
1966 issue had a map and state seal, and the 2016 stamp showed a generic colorful
rural landscape. Florida’s issues also showed sharp differences. The 1945 issue
showed a map, the state seal and gates of St. Augustine, the state’s oldest city. The
1965 stamp showed the flag of Spain and Spanish explorers. The 1995 issue, in a
sharp departure, showed an alligator, which some might consider the official state
animal. Other states continued a similar theme. Kentucky’s 1942 issue depicted
Daniel Boone and frontier explorers, the 1974 stamp showed the settlement at
Fort Harrod, and the 1992 issue showed My Old Kentucky Home, which is also
the title of the state song.
It appears that the US Postal authorities have no problem issuing a stamp to
commemorate a state’s centennial, bicentennial or tricentennial anniversary. The
regularity of these state issues can be seen by outsiders and insiders as efforts
 State branding of US postage stamps 43
by the national government to promote a state’s existence with images about the
country’s heritage or contemporary place on the national scene. However, there
were also some surprises.
Commemorating cities with issues is not a regular feature of US stamp issues. If
there is some major event scheduled there, a stamp may appear. Recent examples
are important Civil War battles in Vicksburg and Gettysburg in 2013 and the Ver-
razano-Narrows Bridge in New York in 2014. The result of this omission may be
that the country’s major cities as important cultural, economic and political centers
are not considered important places worthy of stamp issues.
Maps are considered a minor element of how states and territories are repre-
sented. Less than 50 stamps have been issued with a map or globe. Less than 50
regular and air mail stamps have been issued that depict a state outline or a global
theme. There has been no state map outlined on a stamp since 1993, and that
was for the Oregon Trail. The last regional map was honoring the Marshall Plan;
it was issued in 1997. A globe showing increased sea-surface temperature increases
was issued in 2014. Note that maps are not a common feature of most recent issues.
Perhaps the absence of maps tells us something about the decisions by the Citizen
Stamp Advisory Committee thinking that maps are not important in conveying
information about the state. Or it might be that the committee believes that “every-
one knows where the state is” on a map, a statement that is hard to justify. One
might assume that a “map or location test” of the wider public would not be that
different from map tests given as US college and university tests in recent years,
viz., that their place name ignorance is pervasive, especially confusing Nebraska,
Kansas and Iowa, or Vermont and New Hampshire, or Wyoming and Colorado
among others. It does merit mention that there have been other stamps issued by
the US government that contain maps of US historical trails, including the Pony
Express (1960), Overland 19th-century mail route (1958), Cabrilla’s Map of San
Diego Bay (1972), the 25th Anniversary of the St. Lawrence Seaway (1984), the
Oregon Trail (1993), the St. Lawrence Seaway (1959), the Everglades National
Park (1947), major river systems (Mississippi River in 1966), US-Canada migra-
tory bird treaty (1966), historical monuments and battlefields (Fort Ticonderoga
1952), US.higher education (1962) and urban planning (1969). The eight airmail
stamps with maps depict Alaskan and Hawaiian statehood (both 1959), settlers
of New Sweden (a world map), Father Junipero Serra for California missionary
activity (1985), and earlier issues: a map of the US (1926), Lindbergh (1927), Graf
Zeppelin set (1930), and a globe and dove (1949).
Finally, a point needs to be made about the importance of color on stamps. In
early issues, because of limited printing technologies, stamps were often mono-
chrome. The stamps in Figure 2.1 are mostly light purples, blues and reds, colors
that would be appealing to many users and viewers. In the second series, that is,
stamps issued in the 1940s, the stamps were single bright colors, especially yel-
lows, blues, purples, browns and greens (Figure 2.2). Those issued from the 1950s
to the 1990s were more colorful than in the previous period; many stamps had a
mix of blues, yellows, reds, browns and greens (Figure 2.3). Finally, the stamps
issued after 2000 have more colors and are a mix of colors of different scenic
44 Stanley D. Brunn
and rural landscapes (Figure 2.4). Many other stamps issued in the past couple of
decades feature plants, animals, nature preserves as well as Hollywood actors and
actresses, cartoons and sporting events and are also multicolored.

Future research
Based on this research, I can identify a number of important and useful topics worth
pursuing where state branding can be the focus. Since all stamps are products of the
state, in this case, the national government, it is understandable that “politics” enters
the picture in some ways. Celebrating centennials or bicentennials of becoming part
of the nation is one way. But undoubtedly “politics” enters in other, perhaps more
subtle ways. These decisions may range from considering a potential stamp issue
and inviting artists and others to submit designs to approving a design and deciding
on the date and place of issue. These decisions are likely taken seriously by states
who want “their brand” and “their product” to be accepted, welcomed and approved
of by the viewing audiences within and outside their state and national borders.
Exactly how much “politics” is involved in the issuing of a specific stamp or a
set of stamps will call for more in-depth research of the Citizens Stamp Advisory
Committee and its records of requests for topics, discussions, designs and its recom-
mendations to the Postmaster General, who makes the final decision. Such in-depth
archival research examining contemporary and even historical stamp issues would
shed light on the products (viz., the stamps) that are issued and their acceptance by
the stamp-using public.
Some unexpected (or perhaps they were expected) surprises emerged on com-
paring place branding for the stamps discussed above. For example, why were the
state flowers for Alabama (the camellia) and Mississippi (the magnolia) shown
on 1968 and 1969 issues? These were tumultuous racial years in both states, and
perhaps the decision was made to issue a stamp that was non-political and non-
controversial. Was the white pine the most representative centennial issue image
the committee could think of for Michigan’s 1987 issue? If landscapes were con-
sidered, why not colorful and scenic ones in the Upper and Lower Peninsulas?
Why was the alligator shown on Florida’s 1995 issue? Was it because a stereotype
image was desired or because the intent was to publicise the University of Florida’s
successful athletic teams (the Gators)? Why were a bird and mountain selected for
Idaho’s centennial in 1993?
One striking feature that emerges comparing centennial designs in the 1940s and
1950s with the past ten years is a decline in the uniqueness of a state’s image. As
noted above, there were many more stamps issued for states’ parks and historical
and contemporary place events in the early and middle part of last century; these
stamps branded states with some unique quality of representation. But the numbers
of stamps with these themes have declined in the past 25 years to be vastly over-
taken by stamps about Hollywood stars and films, professional athletes, comics,
cartoons and cars, and other topics one would consider in a popular culture vein.
One might question the meaning of these topics in a postmodern society. Perhaps
the committee looking at and making recommendations for stamp issues believe
 State branding of US postage stamps 45
these designs and themes are wanted by the consuming public and by collectors.
Another reason might be that popular culture seems to be emerging into the visual
and political worlds. Or it might also be that “place” itself is losing its significance
among the American public and society, so much so that “placelessness” is more
observed these days than previously. One might even argue that the “place” brand
has been replaced by a “placeless” brand, to the extent that a stamp celebrating
one state’s centennial could just as easily be issued for a neighboring state. In this
reasoning, the celebration of historical or contemporary events loses its meaning
and becomes more associated with a deep past. Along these lines, Pike (2015:
138) raises the tantalising question of whether a Britishness label is losing its
importance to consumers, who may not be that interested in where a product is
made. A similar question was raised by Sheth (1998). Both comments may reflect
a globalisation dimension of consumption where region or country labels are less
important to consumers.
Two final notes on recent issues are worth sharing. One is that they are almost
devoid of people. Early issues would show some important figure in the explora-
tion of that state or an early political leader. Few people have appeared on any state
centennial issue in the past 40 years. Second, maps have disappeared as integral
in any centennial or bicentennial design. The last stamp with a map was Oregon’s
1993 issue for its territory. Are maps excluded because Americans are sufficiently
knowledgeable of the geographic locations of states? Or is it because in a virtual
world images places and landscapes within states and of states are more important
than geographic location?
It will be interesting to observe the state stamp issues in the next decade and
beyond. A number of states will be celebrating anniversaries: the 150th anniver-
sary for Nebraska (2017), the 175th anniversaries for Florida and Texas (2020),
and bicentennials for Mississippi (2017), Illinois (2018), Alabama (2019), Maine
(2020) and Missouri (2021). It is certain there will be stamps for these years. Will
the designs be some generic landscape that could easily belong to a surround-
ing state? For example, will Mississippi’s stamp depict a rural landscape scene
similar to what one might observe in neighboring Alabama and Louisiana? Will
the Illinois stamp show a rural (not urban) landscape similar to Indiana and Mis-
souri, or will Maine’s be similar to Massachusetts and Vermont? The past nearly
two decades of stamps suggest that future state celebration stamps could be in
multiple locations in the region in which the state is located. Certainly, depicting
an attractive coastline or river or mountain scene in states X, Y and Z would not
be that totally different from one used to celebrate a bordering state’s anniversary.
Perhaps the stamp-viewing public prefers “placeless” themes over unique ones.
There is also a major void in celebrating cities as places where most people live
and which have attractive landscapes and fascinating histories with diverse mixes
of cultures, religions and ethnic groups. An outsider looking at a US stamp issue
carefully and critically would note, quite correctly, that very few stamps are issued
about cities and for cities. Examples of city stamps, not those associated with a
festival or exposition, are rare; they include San Francisco (1913), Chicago (1933),
Annapolis (1949), Detroit (1951), New York (1942 and 1953), San Francisco again
46 Stanley D. Brunn
(1947) and three as part of 1979 architecture cities (Boston, Philadelphia and
Baltimore). Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and Atlanta are among others that are
missing. I am not discussing a place event, such as a sporting event or festival or
conference, but about life and living in cities, places where most people live. While
New York, Washington, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco are not infrequently
the subject of stamp issues, other major cities have been avoided completely or
only lightly included in the “urban mix”. These would include Charlotte, Detroit,
Cleveland, Phoenix, Seattle, Dallas-Fort Worth and even medium-sized cities such
as the Twin Cities, Cincinnati, Omaha, Denver and Nashville. Including stamp
issues with urban topics would dispel what some critics would view as an “anti-
urban bias” in the selection of place topics.
Pike (2015: 206) concludes his recent book with this timely quote:

The context of material challenges to existing forms of economic, social,

cultural, political and ecological originations through climate change, finan-
cialization, resource shortages and social inequality underlines this need for
dialogue and deliberation about the origination of brands and branding in
territorial development.

What is noteworthy about this quote is not only that it underlines the importance
of addressing the politics and geopolitics of society, politics and environment
in a wide context, but that it also addresses the importance of how states per-
ceive or view their position in local and global contexts. These broad themes were
addressed with respect to how members of the international community inform
their citizens and promote their policies with respect to climate change, one of the
planet’s most pressing visual, economic, environmental and political problems
(Toth & Hillger, 2013; Brunn, 2016).

Acknowledgments
I want to thank Donna Gilbreath for preparing the manuscript and the stamp pages,
Janet Klug for information on the role of the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee
and Wayne Gnatuk and Linda Lawrence of the Henry Clay Philatelic Society in
Lexington, Kentucky for their support for this project.

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3 Ghostly cities
Some notes on urban branding
and the imagining of places
Alberto Vanolo

Introduction
The encounter with a city is, obviously, to some degree, an emotional encounter,
involving expectations and imaginations. Consider, for example, when you visit a
city where you have not been in the past: sitting on a plane while approaching the
destination, you are probably crowded with mixed ideas, stereotyped beliefs, plans
and dreams about what to do, what to see, what to experience during your stay in
the place. Put it differently, the unexplored city is a mental object characterised by
huge amounts of imagination: it may be unexplored, but not wholly unknown, as
the urban destination is most probably populated by layers of meanings, images
and expectations. City branding is, essentially, the practice of governing, produc-
ing, promoting and shaping these imaginary and emotional elements in order to
attract desired global flows, including wealthy tourists, investments, rich residents,
members of the creative class, global events, etc.
This book chapter develops an understanding of branding by working on the
metaphor of the ghost, or the spectre (the two terms are synonymously used here).
The main thesis proposed here is that many urban imaginaries have an ambigu-
ous status, between the visible and the invisible; they are palpable and powerful
presences, despite being by and large immaterial and shadowy. City branding may
be hence conceptualised as ghostly play, involving managing the visibility and
invisibility of urban elements, also by the exercise of summoning, concealing,
exorcising and domesticating urban spectres.
In order to develop the argument, the next section provides an overview of litera-
ture on ghosts and spectres in human geography and in urban studies. The following
section briefly discusses the notion of branding as a politics of representation shap-
ing the relation between the visible and the invisible. Then, the chapter develops
the metaphor of branding as a spectral play, and the concluding section presents
some final comments and potential lines for further researches and speculations.

The ghost in cultural geographies and in urban studies

The notion that the city and the urban experience are, by and large, connected to
the production and circulation of peculiar imaginaries is a core idea of cultural
geography, urban sociology and urban studies in general: it is possible to mention,
54 Alberto Vanolo
among the many possible works in the field, the classic contributions of Simmel
(1903); Benjamin (1927–1940); Wirth (1938); and Lefebvre (1974). Cities, in
fact, are not just physical or lived spaces, but also spaces of the imagination and
representation, and – as argued in the introduction of this chapter – the different
ways in which cities are imagined produce real and tangible social and political
effects (Bridge & Watson, 2003). For example, urbanists, planners and architects
have often developed specific visions about how cities are supposed to look, func-
tion and develop, visions which have been crucial in shaping plans, buildings and
development strategies. Still, representations of the city also circulate through
fictional and artistic products such as novels, films, songs and pictures – be they
complex and accurate representations, or rather simple and caricatured ones –
influencing, as argued, the conscious and unconscious expectations, desires and
imaginations of people, from inhabitants to tourists. It is not a coincidence that
cities have been often associated to very different feelings, emotions and attitudes:
from spaces of creativity and innovation to spaces of alienation; from landscapes
of solitude and individualism, to spaces of freedom and possibility; from spaces
of anxiety and fear to scenes of exciting and erotic encounters. In this sense, urban
spaces are also, to a certain degree, fantastic spaces, or rather – to use an expression
that is central in urban studies and in the logics of this article – they are spaces of
phantasmagoria.
The expression phantasmagoria has been originally introduced by Walter Ben-
jamin (1927–1940) in order to describe the experience of the modern city, which,
due to the use of new technology, assumed sometimes spectacular, sometimes
alienating contours, very much like a dream or a ghost. The concept of phantas-
magoria emphasises the importance not only of the sphere of the visible and the
experience, but also of what that cannot be directly represented, as dreams and –
in a metaphorical sense – ghosts (Pile, 2003, 2005; see also Thrift, 2008). The
phantasmagoria was originally a form of popular spectacle, which has begun to
diffuse in the latter part of the eighteenth century that emphasised the principle of
deception or concealment, particularly in association with the presentation of the
figure of the ghost (Hetherington, 2005). The phantasmagoria was basically a mix
of lantern shows, Chinese shadow play and magic displays, involving the back
projection of ghostly images onto smoke or onto a translucent screen hung in the
middle of a darkened room around which an audience sat. Hetherington (2005)
provides a vivid description of the phantasmagoria: assistants sometimes moved
around the audience dressed as skeletons, and the ghostly images of dead histori-
cal figures appeared. Projectors were hidden from view, as images were intended
to appear as if they just emerged and had a life of their own, independent of any
mechanical apparatus for projecting them as images.
The spectacle of the phantasmagoria influenced and inspired a number of theo-
retical reflections, speculations and development in urban and cultural studies.
Walter Benjamin originally mobilised the metaphor of the phantasmagoria in order
to provide insights into the modern urban experience, characterised by peculiar
forms of commodity fetishism and myth. Drawing on his writings, and mobilising
Marxian perspectives, authors such as Lukács (1971); Adorno (1981); Derrida
 Ghostly cities 55
(1993); and Gordon (1997) used the concept of phantasmagoria to develop criti-
cal perspectives on commodities, capitalism, socio-political and cultural life (see
also Hetherington, 2005, discussing consumption and secondhandedness); Vidler
(1992) famously applied the phantasmagoria and the uncanny to the sphere of
architecture; and more recently, various authors have developed socio-cultural
analysis of ghosts and the meaning of spectres in contemporary societies and in
historical perspectives (see Buse & Stott, 1999; Davies, 2007; del Pilar Blanco &
Peeren, 2010, 2013).
There is a rich literature on the social meanings and social histories of ghosts in
social sciences and cultural studies (see for example, Finucane, 1982), and in this
sense some authors have theorised an ongoing ‘spectral turn’ in social sciences
(Luckhurst, 2003). Human geography, and cultural geographies, in particular,
have been partly touched by the diffusion of discourses and conceptualisations of
ghosts. Specifically, it is possible to classify debates along at least three strands of
contributions, and they sometimes overlap.
First, a limited number of works have analysed ghosts in a strict sense, particu-
larly by analysing rumours, stories and tales of ghosts using geographical perspec-
tives. Comaroff (2007) worked on ghostly rumours in Singapore (see also Pile,
2005); Cameron (2008) discussed indigenous ghost stories in Canadian culture;
Wylie (2007) and Matless (2008), analysed the works of Winfried Georg Sebald
and Mary Butts; Davies (2010) focused on the spatialities of the contact between
the physical and the spiritual worlds (see also the vast literature on the geogra-
phies of death and afterlife, and particularly Romanillos, 2015); Holloway (2010)
considered ghost tourism; Lipman (2014) worked on haunted houses; and various
contributions in Heholt and Downing (2016) analysed haunted landscapes.
Second, the concept of ghost has been used to analyse elements of the past
that are repositioned in the present (cf. Wyatt et al., 2016). For example, Edensor
(2005, 2008), Swanton (2012) and Hill (2013) have analysed industrial heritages,
abandoned factories, working-class spaces and other ruins and elements of the
industrial landscape by mobilising the concepts of ghost and spectre in Manches-
ter, in the Forest of Dean and in Dortmund; Maddern (2008) has analysed the
spectral presence of migrants in Ellis Island; McCormack (2010) has focused on
the remains of an expedition in Arctic island in 1930; Coddington (2011) has
discussed the ‘spectral’ connection between imaginaries of the past and everyday
practices in Alaska; Gibas (2013) has focused on spectral heritages of the in the
Prague metro; finally, Draus and Roddy (2016) have focused on representations
of Detroit, and Detroit’s problems, in terms of ghosts and monstrosity in general.
Third, the image of the ghost has been mobilised to highlight the role of
absences and invisible presences in the political space, and particularly in cit-
ies. This is the case, for example, of Appadurai (2000) and Roy (2013), who
discussed housing problems in Bombay and India in general (see also Mbembe,
2003, and the concept of necropolitics), and Pile (2005), who developed a rich
body of theoretical developments and research materials concerning ‘ghostly city’
(basically, Pile’s work touches all the three lines of research presented here; see
also Nagle, 2017).
56 Alberto Vanolo
This chapter intends to reflect on a political understanding of the ghost, mostly
in line with the third strand of the literature in the schematisation presented above.
Particularly, the idea of the ghost is mobilised here to emphasise some key fea-
tures of urban imaginaries and branding. Particularly, by drawing on popular ideas
about ghosts, and by taking inspiration by the literature on spectral geographies
discussed in this section, it is possible to emphasise some key characteristics of
ghostly presences.
First of all, ghosts are in-between the spheres of the visible and the invisible. It is
not a coincidence that they are often conceived as ‘transparent’ subjects, or ‘absent
presences’ belonging to a different time. In fact, ghosts have an indefinite relation
with time and history: on the one hand, they seem to belong to a past which is absent
today, but on the other hand they manifest their presence in the here-and-now. Put
it differently, they are sort of echoes of an absent past. Through their presence and
absence, i.e., by appearing and by vanishing, eidolons subvert the flow of time of
a place. At the same time, ghosts have a meaningful connection with spaces and
places: they apparently belong to specific locations, for example being bounded to
the buildings and places in which they once lived and experienced emotions.
Second, ghosts are in-between the reigns of the material and the immaterial.
Although they do not have a body in a strict sense, spectres are imagined as char-
acterised by bodily features, such as gender. At the same time, since they do not
occupy space in material terms, it is potentially possible to imagine that several
ghosts may be located in the same space at the same time, overlapping and visu-
ally mixing.
Third, ghosts may trigger very different and meaningful feelings and emotions.
They may be friendly, as well as intimidating. Apparently, they cannot hurt the
living in material terms, since they do not have a body, but at the same time
the encounter with a spectral presence may induce palpable emotional outcomes,
including sadness, anxiety, fear and desperation, as well as deep emotional feel-
ings, such as tenderness and nostalgia, and as a matter of fact spells and rituals
often aim at summoning specific ghosts.
Finally, ghosts are subjective and relational entities: different subjects may
approach and may have very different ideas and understandings of ghosts. In this
sense, spectres also destabilise and subvert conventional dichotomies opposing
the living and the dead, the material and the immaterial, the real and the unreal.
All these key characteristics of ghosts will be mobilised in the following part of
the chapter, in order to develop the metaphor of city branding as a spectral politics
of representations.

Branding and the politics of representation

The scientific literature on city branding and city marketing started developing
during the 1990s: ‘Selling the city’, by Ashworth and Voogd (1990), has been
probably the first book in the field, and surely one of the most influential and cited
works. The literature is now quite wide and multidisciplinary in nature, including
contributions from urban studies and planning, as well as managerial, business
 Ghostly cities 57
and tourist studies (for a review of the literature, see Vanolo, 2017). The variety
of different approaches at play is reflected in a multitude of different understand-
ings and definitions of place branding. Moreover, theoretical speculations on place
branding often overlap with other concepts and debates developed in the fields of
urban studies and human geography, such as contributions on the sense of place,
the image of the city, geographical imaginaries and urban representations. In this
sense, it is rather difficult to delimitate the concept, and it is worth mentioning that
place branding (as well as city marketing and other similar expressions) is not a
specific entry in popular encyclopaedias of urban studies, such as the ones edited
by Hutchinson (2010) and Gottdiener et al. (2013). In other words, city branding is
surely a relevant topic in urban studies, but still it is a concept lacking in rigorous
conceptualisations and definitions, at least when compared to other well-known
concepts developed in urban studies.
In a broad sense, the expression city branding refers to a heterogeneous field of
policies aiming at improving a city’s position and competitive edge in the market,
particularly by ‘targeting’ specific audiences. In the field of critical urban studies,
city branding, hence, has been often framed as a phenomenon related to the rise of
the ‘entrepreneurial city’, that is the tendency in privileging urban boosterism and
the pro-active search for economic growth strategies in the governance of cities
(Harvey, 1989; Hall & Hubbard, 1998).
The premise of most city branding approaches is the idea of a growing inter-
urban competition in the global scenario, which means that cities compete one with
each other in other to attract various global flows, including – among the others –
global flows of residents, tourists, economic activities, investments, hallmark
events, headquarters of world organisations, etc. (see Gordon, 1999; Evans, 2003;
Kavaratzis & Ashworth, 2005). In this scenario, cities are supposed to improve
their competitive edge through different kinds of interventions, which basically
implies producing urban landscapes that may look attractive and that may fit the
expectations of a transnational elite of managers, investors, tourists and members
of the creative class (Peck, 2005). City branding typically implies different forms
of interventions aimed at improving a city’s image, perception, visibility and repu-
tation. This does not mean that branding is mere image-production and to ‘sell’
the city: it is a much more complex sphere, which may involve infusing sense of
trust in the citizens; creating a strong local identity; building a logo; supporting a
sense of trust and loyalty regarding the city and improving the city’s reputation;
improving the local budget, or supporting partnerships between the public and
the private. Ultimately, some authors consider city brands as tools which provide
strategic guidance for place development, because of place brands’ potential to be
used as an instrument for visioning (see Ashworth et al., 2015).
This chapter will focus on one of the main components and strategies of city
branding – arguably the most popular – that is the construction and communication
of celebrative representations of a city (Kavaratzis & Ashworth, 2005). More spe-
cifically, it assumes a critical stance by conceptualising city branding as a politics
of representation (Rossi & Vanolo, 2012), i.e., by assuming that the production,
circulation and socialisation of optimistic and attractive representations of cities
58 Alberto Vanolo
is a highly political, controversial and contested phenomenon. In fact, by adopting
entrepreneurial styles of action and communication, urban elites mobilise cities’
images and icons in a way of echoing private companies, even with regard to
socially and environmentally relevant goals, such as ecological development and
social cohesion (Jessop & Sum, 2000). In this sense, the production of images,
discourses and urban representations offers a crucial point of observation for the
analysis of contemporary urban politics and related power relationships.

Branding: playing with the visible,

the invisible and the ghostly in-between
Of course, cities are composed of a number of different and overlapping images,
symbols, labels, and phantasmagorias. Many of these elements are personal and
subjective, but at the same time, urban elites enacting branding strategies often try
to compose and communicate simplified, univocal, linear and easy-to-communi-
cate representations of cities. To put it differently, the complexity of cities is sum-
marised, schematised, labelled and narrated by evoking and displaying a limited
number of iconic images, powerful symbols and celebrative keywords and slogans,
such as ‘innovative city’, ‘city of love’, ‘creative city’, ‘green city’, ‘exciting city’,
‘cultural city’ or ‘city of arts’. In this sense, city branding may be described as
a kind of selective storytelling (Jensen, 2007; Sandercock, 2003): only a limited
number of optimistic voices and images will conflate in the representations mobil-
ised in city branding. For example, urban branding campaigns may easily empha-
sise the presence of vibrant neighbourhoods offering exciting cultural experiences
and amenities in a city. However, there is no mention of urban problems such as
unemployment, urban decadence in the suburbs and the lack of welfare services.
In this sense, urban branding may be a highly controversial terrain: representing a
city as a place of pleasure may be offensive, or even violent, in the eyes of those
who do not fit into the optimistic picture, such as the unemployed, the homeless
or the elderly. City branding hence implies giving visibility and invisibility in a
very selective way to different urban issues, landscapes and subjects, ultimately
shaping gazes upon the city.
In theoretical terms, visibility is a complex phenomenon, which lies at the inter-
section of the domains of aesthetics, perception and politics, in relation to power
(Brighenti, 2010). The boundary between the visible and the invisible has been
theorised in political philosophy in the intricate and influential works of Jacques
Rancière (see particularly Rancière, 2000), which mobilise the concept of ‘parti-
tion of the sensible’. This is a dividing line, constantly on the move, who has both
aesthetic and political nature, since looking and interpreting the world are, from
the beginning, actions implicitly or explicitly transforming and reconfiguring it.
The partition of the sensible is influenced by geographical and temporal dimen-
sions: here, in this place, at this time, a certain subject may count as a problem to
be solved; but at another time and place, the same subject may just be invisible
(Panagia, 2010). What is considered an appropriate and understandable discourse
in one place may become inappropriate and unlistenable in another (Ruez, 2012).
 Ghostly cities 59
In the framework of the promotion of city images, it may be claimed that brand-
ing discourse enacts specific regimes of visibility and invisibility. However, it is
useful not to conceive the visible and the invisible as two distinct and separate
spheres. By mobilising the idea of the ghost, it is possible to think of a further plain
situated in an intermediate position between the visible and the invisible. A number
of objects, traces, legacies and stories in the city are in fact apparently non-visible,
but they are at the same time relevant and tangible, as kinds of ghosts. Symmetri-
cally, urban policies and branding strategies may metaphorically place specific
urban elements and city stories at the centre of people’s gazes, as kinds of luxury
items in the windows of shops, being actually, to a certain degree, meaningless,
ephemeral and phantasmagorical, like spectres. A number of different examples
may be proposed to develop the argument.
A controversial example of ‘invisible’ socio-spatial entities is the case involving
mosques in a number of Western cities. These religious buildings often originate
conflicts and debates between the local residents, which often look at these ‘diverse’
religious spaces with suspicion and fear. In addition, mosques are generally absent
in dominant promotional images in European and American cities. However, they
are obviously important landmarks for Muslim inhabitants. Using Stuttgart as a
case study, Petra Kuppinger (2014) has analysed the development of mosques in
Germany by Muslim migrants, commenting the fact that these religious spaces are
often ‘altered’ buildings, apparently destined to a different use, such as factories
and warehouses. The places of Islamic worship are made deliberately invisible,
thus reflecting the continued marginality of the Muslim community (see also Ruez,
2012; Chiodelli & Moroni, 2017). In contrast, mosques are key elements of city
images in other parts of the world, such as in many Arab cities, where the Muslim
religion is the majority. (Elsheshtawy, 2008). To put it differently, the partition of
the sensible originates different thresholds and spheres of visibility in different
cities, thereby producing different urban ghosts.
Another possible example may refer to undesired heritages of the past. Consider
the case of Soviet legacies in many European cities, often embodied in buildings
and material structures bearing the spectres of dark legacies (Czepczynski, 2008).
One example may be the ‘House of the People’ in Bucharest: the world’s second-
largest administrative building, realised in the 1980s because of the will of Nicolae
Ceausescu, which was a symbol of totalitarianism. In order to break the connec-
tions with the obscure past and to support the image of Bucharest as a democratic
and European city, the building has been at the centre of a meaningful re-branding
cultural strategy. As analysed by Light and Young (2015), contemporary guided
tours seek not to dwell on the past, but instead they focus on the contemporary
significance of the building: the palace is presented as the centre of a post-socialist
democracy and the meeting place of the Chamber of Deputies, parliamentary com-
mittees and the Constitutional Court. The interior design has been slightly modi-
fied in order to emphasise pre-socialist influences from Western Europe, to display
Romania’s historical links with ‘Europe’, and to present the building as symbol
of Romanian talent and creativity. Still, the ghosts of the past are still anchored
to the place: many tourists identify the building as ‘Ceausescu’s Palace’ and are
60 Alberto Vanolo
surprised, or even disappointed, by the lack of references to him. In an attempt to
conceal the ghosts of the Soviet regime, the circumstances of its construction and
the purpose for which it was originally built are not mentioned. However, ghosts
do not disappear: the palace is often visited by Romanians, sometimes encouraged
by a sense of nostalgia, and sometimes by the curiosity and fascination for a build-
ing that is definitely popular, if not infamous, within Romania.
A different and relevant example may refer to the geography of ghostly spaces
of poverty in many emerging global cities of the Global South. For instance, Leela
Fernandes (2006) and Pushpa Arabindoo (2011), using different case studies, have
examined the ways in which the rise of an urban middle class in India has been
accompanied by representations of the city focused on consumerism and cosmo-
politan lifestyles, for example through images of bars, clubs, discos, arts, cre-
ative spaces and fashionable shops in gentrifying areas. According to Fernandes,
the promotion of vibrant and apparently Westernised lifestyles has implied the
adoption of a noiseless politics of forgetting, which has tried to conceal the spaces
of the urban poor, and particularly the Indian slums. In many cases, the invisibility
of these spaces in mainstream representations – and not just the ones of branding –
may be linked to the violent desire of the ‘new’ and growing Indian middle class to
live urban experiences deprived of the contact with poverty and marginality, and
to celebrate a nation that is experiencing economic growth. The stereotyped aes-
thetics of idealised poverty alleviation and asceticism which characterised many
representations of Indian landscapes are more and more made ghostly, in order to
be substituted by the visibility of the emerging ‘new’ middle class.
Finally, it is possible to mention the case of the many forms of branding which
have been developed in relation to Rio de Janeiro in recent years. The ‘ciudad
maravillosa’, according to a popular slogan, has been recently rebranded as a
‘smart city’, and it has been awarded at the World Smart Cities Awards in 2013,
particularly thanks to spectacular interventions including a control centre for assur-
ing massive surveillance in every corner of the city, and the construction of a
‘smart’ gondola air elevator, opened in 2011, running just above the favelas of
Alemão, the poorest neighbourhood in the city. However, the technological inter-
ventions and the ‘smart’ landscapes which have been introduced in the city may
be seen as ghostly presences, as they are irrelevant and useless for a large part of
the population, and surely they do not have the power to subvert the imaginary
and the stigma of Alemão and other slums as spaces of desperation and marginal-
ity. More recently, the city hosted the 2016 Olympic Games, and other hallmark
events, which has been strategically mobilised also in order to present to the world
as a city that has largely changed, and has overcome many urban problems which
characterised and stigmatised the city. However, the ghosts of urban problems
are still highly visible to any observer. Everyone knows that Rio is not a smart,
technological city in the general sense of the term, that problems of poverty and
insecurity still characterise large parts of the urban space and that the Olympic
Games have been a spectacle only for a small quota of the locals. And ghosts of
these presences force the partition of the sensible by taking form and assuming
visibility in a number of different ways, for example in local graffiti and in protest
 Ghostly cities 61
messages appearing physically on city walls, or virtually in the internet (Maiello &
Pasquinelli, 2015).
Summing up, the elements and subjects that are ‘out of place’ in branding dis-
courses tend to be turned into urban spectres: the ostensible immediacy of their
presence is replaced by sorts of ghost that are neither present nor absent, neither
dead nor alive. But it has to be considered that social, affective and cultural rela-
tions are enacted not only around what is there, but also around the presence of
what is not, as subjects, buildings and histories may be destroyed and dispersed
but they may still persist in a number of forms, including traces, fragments and
memories. Their absence is tangible, but their presence is ephemeral, removed
from the gaze of the outsider, and sometimes even from the gaze of the many
inhabitants. In this sense, city branding does not only imply the production of
urban representations, but it also gives birth, summons or conceals urban ghosts.
The circulation of urban ghosts in city branding has surely become more com-
plex in the latest years, because of the proliferation of new technologies, and
specifically websites based on reviews of places and tourists’ comments. City
branding, in fact, is evidently not just produced by policy makers and branding
consultants, but it is a coproduction involving a number of social subjects, each
one producing discourses, images, shadows and ghosts. This socialisation of place
branding has been dramatically accelerated by the development of ‘2.0’ technolo-
gies, user-generated contents, crowdsourcing and the diffusion of smartphones,
tablets and other digital devices. Brands of course are largely shaped by feedback,
ideas, discourses and images generated by users and circulated though Facebook,
TripAdvisor, Yelp, Foursquare or Instagram. The so-called ‘shared economy’ is
evidently transforming place brands, as they are more and more ‘co-produced’
by ordinary people, arguably also by the means of the commodification of their
feelings, stories and social relations. This means that the time when city branding
campaigns were fully planned by powerful urban managers and communication
experts, closed inside their offices, is definitely over, if it ever existed. User-gen-
erated content, in fact, may powerfully challenge mainstream narratives. Consider,
for example, the case of a negative description of a place, such as a review portray-
ing an urban neighbourhood by emphasising sensations of danger and unsafety.
Such urban representation evokes a ghost that may scare some people. In this
sense, branding practitioners today have to communicate, shape, take into account
and influence the emotions, tastes, desires and dreams conveyed through new com-
munication technologies. The ultimate effect is a process of socialisation of brand-
ing that, evidently, does not imply democratisation, because of the obvious fact of
different actors that have different power in framing narratives and in producing
or concealing urban ghosts.

Conclusion
The metaphor of the ghost allows the development of some lines of reflection on
the politics of urban representation that will be briefly synthesised in this conclud-
ing section.
62 Alberto Vanolo
The core argument proposed in this chapter is that urban imaginaries are not just
made up of what is explicitly showed and displayed in representations, because
invisible, absent or ghostly presences may be significant in building and shaping
city brands. Specific images, identities, legacies and heritages may be concealed
by a promotional brand, but they can ultimately speak back and come to reality
like dreams emerging from the depth of the subconscious. For example, former
industrial buildings may be reconverted into artistic spaces or cultural icons in
order to tell stories of urban regeneration and renewal, but they will be arguably
crowded by the ghosts of the workers for a long time. These ghosts will be invisible
in the eyes of most visitors, but they will be visible for someone, for example for
former workers, and buildings will keep on telling an urban industrial story, for
those who are able to hear and see these ghosts. In this sense, urban ghosts make
a bridge across epochs, as they reverberate presences and absences of the past
(Edensor, 2005, 2008). These ghosts may cause problems, as in the example of
inconvenient memories, but they may also reveal helpful insights in order to brand
and to valorise the historical heritage of cities, for example by evoking memories
and feelings such as nostalgia. For example, old abandoned buildings, theatres,
theme parks or mines may look interesting, evocative and attractive in the eyes
of many people, including sophisticated members of the creative class or ‘dark’
tourists (see Lennon & Foley, 2000; Sharpley & Stone, 2009).
Second, it has been argued that ghosts are not univocal entities, but rather com-
plex, relational and situated processes. Some ghosts are invisible for someone, and
visible for someone else. In this sense, certain urban symbols evoke messages and
stories in the eyes of some subjects, and not in those of others. In this framework,
the eyes of tourists, investors, global elites and members of the creative class
seem to be more relevant that the eyes of other subjects (see Peck, 2005): urban
brands have to be coherent with their needs, desires and expectations, and disturb-
ing elements have to be removed or made invisible (see Jensen, 2007; Vanolo,
2015). In fact, uncanny ghosts may be inconvenient for brand developers. Poverty,
criminality, violence, lack of infrastructure, unemployment, deindustrialisation,
social sufferance or conflict, are all examples of objects which definitely disturb
mainstream celebrative storytelling about cities. In this sense, in a branding logic,
these inconvenient elements have to be made imperceptible and invisible, in order
not to trouble branding narratives.
At the same time, it has been mentioned that, on a metaphorical level, a number
of different ghosts may overlap at the very same space. In this sense, a number of
different and potentially conflicting stories, presences and projects cohabit, overlap
and sometimes clash in cities. Branding practices selectively display some of them,
those recognised as more attractive, thus obliterating the others. Sometimes, even
‘good’ ghosts are purposely left invisible: this may be the case of most ordinary
infrastructures. With the exclusion of ‘extraordinary’ and ‘spectacular’ ones, most
infrastructures are in fact banal urban elements. They are essential for the func-
tioning of cities, but their presence is useless in order to celebrate cities and to put
them on the global map. In fact, as analysed by Kaika and Swyngedouw (2000),
these infrastructures are usually made invisible by being buried underground. At
 Ghostly cities 63
the same time, their potential absence or shortage is definitely a problem, which
can be again intended as a kind of ghostly presence-absence that has to be man-
aged or concealed.
Although ghosts can be concealed or ignored, they cannot be strictly killed
or physically removed, since they belong to a different sphere of existence. In
analogy, some undesired elements feeding the image of a city may be made invis-
ible, but they hardly disappear. For example, the presence of slums, spaces at the
margins, urban problems, historical heritages, traumas or industrial relics may be
highly palpable in cities, despite their invisibility in promotional representations.
Branding has to manage these inconvenient ghosts, for example by including them
in credible narratives of the place. It is in fact important to avoid developing
patently fake representations of the city, which may ultimately promote social
discohesion and exclusion (see Garrido, 2013; Nagle, 2017).
Finally, the understanding or the perception of ghosts are the outcome of complex
social and cultural processes. The origins of many spectres – as well as the origins
of urban stereotypes, myths, imaginaries and stigmas – are definitely ungraspable
or unknown. It is just the case to mention that, in the current scenario characterised
by the growing diffusion of social media and user-generated content, city brands are
forged by a growing number of voices. We are observing a progressive (and uneven)
socialisation of city imaginaries: brands are relational social constructions, and
branding cities today does not mean building top-down promotional messages but
rather trying to establish a dialogue and to resonate positively with the many voices
and ghosts contributing to the formation of the brand. In this sense, the ultimate
idea suggested by the metaphor of the urban ghosts is that city brands are always
the result of processes of co-production, rather than powerful top-down processes.

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4 Becoming Eataly
The magic of the mall and the
magic of the brand
Annalisa Colombino

Introduction: the magic of the mall, the magic

of the brand
Eataly is, at the same time, a company, a brand and a high-quality food mall chain
that celebrates and capitalises on a form of culinary nationalism.1 In its malls,
Eataly offers the ‘essential toolkit’ to its customers to buy a commodified life
lifestyle, inspired to an imaginary, epicurean Italy – a country, which the brand
presents in its communication strategies as the Bel Paese, where one can live ‘la
dolce vita’, and enjoy life through the consumption of high-quality food. Eataly
provides to its “visitors” – as customers are called in the brand’s communication
strategies – the possibility of engaging in a range of activities, designed to persuade
them to become “Eatalians”; namely, sophisticated connoisseurs of high-quality
food and wine, gourmets who can afford and appreciate a ‘taste of’ la bella Italia.
Learning about good food – the process through which, ideally, an ‘ordinary eater’
becomes a gastronome – is an explicit activity which the brand communicates
to its clients: “Eat. Shop. Learn” (Figure 4.1), declares the tenth commandment
of Eataly’s Manifesto (i.e., the brand’s mission).2 And learning, in Eataly, is all
about knowing more about food’s geographical provenance and origination. Eataly
provides a striking example of how brands are profoundly geographical (Pike this
volume; Pike, 2015; see also Rabbiosi, 2016). More importantly for the argument
I develop here, Eataly offers the opportunity to discuss how brands, and the retail
spaces in which they may materialise, might have ‘magical effects’ not only on
their customers (i.e., the potential to turn them into gastronomes), but also – at
least in Eataly’s specific case – on their suppliers.
“The magic of the mall” is an expression notably introduced by Jon Goss (1993)
to indicate how malls are private spaces designed to make profit, which adopt spe-
cific spatio-temporal languages and strategies targeted to persuade consumers that,
while they stroll in the mall, something else other than shopping is going on. Via
the reproduction and disneyfication of spaces like the square, the main street, public
gardens, fountains, etc., malls are planned to bring signs of urban and public spaces
and of other, more or less exotic, ‘elsewheres’, inside their very private walls.
They provide a material and highly semiotic context where customers somehow
‘magically’ forget that what they are actually doing is spending money (Goss, 1999;
Mitchell, 2000: 129–135). Goss’s work has been criticised for assuming that malls
68 Annalisa Colombino

Figure 4.1 Eataly Dubai: Eat Shop Learn

Photo by Riccardo Iommi

are purely spaces of consumption, where people cannot but spend their money, and
that malls’ customers are passive objects of capitalism’s ‘invisible forces’, who are
easily distracted by the highly semiotic elsewheres, which the mall stages for its
clients (e.g., Allen, 2006; Degen et al., 2008; Rose et al., 2010; see also Degen &
Rose, 2012). Whilst it cannot be denied that malls are private spaces, it must be
pointed out that some of their visitors are able to ‘appropriate’ some parts of these
commercial surfaces and use them as if they were public spaces for spending time,
strolling and even socialising in a safe, comfortable environment. Visitors, in fact,
do not always leave the mall with their bags full of commodities. Furthermore, not
all costumers may enjoy going to the mall, as they might feel the artificial, crowded
atmosphere of the shopping centre uncomfortable, for example. Nevertheless, ‘the
magic of the mall’ may still provide a useful metaphor for analysing contemporary
retail spaces such as flagship stores and the brand they materialise.
In this chapter, I take Goss’s metaphor further as I explore the brand Eataly and
the format of its malls. I show how ‘the magic of Eataly’ does not only work through
 Becoming Eataly 69

Figure 4.2 Eataly Dubai: bread is the most important food in the world
Photo by Riccardo Iommi

the use of similar spatio-temporal languages and strategies incorporated within the
boundaries of ‘hyperreal’, thematised, profit-oriented, environmental bubbles like
shopping malls, theme parks, festival-market places, tourist resorts, world exhibi-
tions, Las Vegas and other “fantasy cities” (Hannigan, 1998; see also Minca, 2009;
Sorkin, 1992). I also, and primarily, discuss how Eataly works its magic to affect its
customers through the articulation of a specific mix of activities, which pivot around
the more-than-visceral consumption of food and which seem to be able to ‘speak to
the guts’ of its visitors (cf. Hayes-Conroy & Hayes-Conroy, 2010b, 2013; see also
Goodman, 2016) and, perhaps, to persuade them that they are doing much more than
mere shopping. Then, I turn to suggest how this brand extends its magic to affect
also the products it commercialises and even its suppliers.
Brands have been frequently criticised for hiding to consumers that the com-
modities they commercialise are produced in environmentally unfriendly ways
70 Annalisa Colombino
and, often, with the brutal exploitation of workers (notably, Klein, 2000). How-
ever, in this chapter, I discuss how Eataly is able to exert two kinds of profitable
‘magic’ on its suppliers. I first highlight how this brand seems to have the ability
to ‘magically’ turn ordinary, mass industrially produced food into ‘extraordinary’
commodities – i.e., authentic, original and Italian. Then, I point to how becoming
a supplier for Eataly might mean for some local, small, farms the possibility of
expanding their business or even escaping the clutches of retail giants, who impose
on suppliers the payment of very low prices. I start my account of the magic of
Eataly by offering a brief overview of how the brand was imagined and how it
materialised in brick and mortar in its first flagship store in Turin.

Becoming Eataly
Eataly is a relatively new brand that primarily commercialises high-quality Ital-
ian and local, fresh food in its malls, which are present in Italy and increasingly
overseas. The brand was imagined by the Italian entrepreneur Oscar Farinetti at
the beginning of the second millennium. The history of the brand has already been
accounted for in the official biography of its founder, entitled Il mercante di utopie,
litt. ‘The Merchant of Utopias’ (Sartorio, 2008), which celebrates how Farinetti
succeeded into transforming his dream of “democratising high-quality food” into
reality. Farinetti envisioned Eataly as a store celebrating Italy’s rich food culture.
According to official accounts, he asked his friend Carlo Petrini for Slow Food’s
support and consultancy to select the products to be included in Eataly’s first
store. As the brand started to expand in other Italian regions and then overseas,
the collaboration between Eataly and Slow Food faded away. Yet, Slow Food’s
mantra “buono, pulito e giusto” (Petrini, 2005) is still one of the pillars of Eataly’s
commercial mission. As Alex Saper, Eataly’s general manager in the USA, argues

our main goal – which goes back to . . .. Slow Food philosophy – is . . . ‘good,
clean and fair’ . . .. The product has to taste good. It has to be produced in
a clean, sustainable manner. And the people making the product have to be
paid a fair wage.
(cited in Ankeni, 2014a)

Eataly’s first mall was inaugurated on 27 January 2007, in the renovated Carpano
vermouth factory, located right in front of Lingotto – once FIAT’s main factory and
one of the most iconic buildings of Turin (see Colombino & Vanolo, 2017; Vanolo,
2015). Eataly Turin basically combines a supermarket (primarily selling regional
specialities), restaurants and eateries of different sorts with several learning pos-
sibilities. It created the blueprint for the other branches opened over the years. Cur-
rently, Eataly is present in seventeen Italian cities and has several branded stores in
New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Munich, Istanbul, Seoul, Sao Paolo and Dubai (overall
approximately thirty branches). Its online shop promises to deliver to the doors of
foodies a wide variety of earthly delights from Italy, the ‘land of plenty’. Further
openings are planned for other ‘world cities’ including London, Paris, Moscow
 Becoming Eataly 71
and Los Angeles.3 In the summer of 2016, it was announced that Eataly plans to
land soon in Las Vegas, perhaps the more appropriate context for a mall, which
the media have often labelled as the “Disneyland” for foodies.
The brand has already received academics’ attention. Sebastiani et al. (2013)
have discussed how the early collaboration between Eataly and Slow Food has
resulted in a novel business model that integrates the movement mantra “good,
clean and fair” with the pursuit of profit (see also Sebastiani & Montagnini, 2014).
Farinetti has in fact created a commercial format that bridges the (theoretical) divide
between alternative food networks and conventional food networks (see Sonnino &
Marsden, 2006; Tregear, 2011). Eataly, in fact, brings within a single retail-space
products and specialties, which once circulated only within food networks, notably
labelled as “alternative” in the academic literature (i.e., direct sell and open-air
local markets). Massa and Testa (2012) offer a detailed analysis of the ideological
discourses underpinning Eataly’s brand; namely, Slow Food’s mantra “good, clean
and fair” food, which, according to the movement’s philosophy, should be available
to everybody. This supposedly ‘democratisation of good food’ represents Eataly’s
ultimate goal, as stated in the tenth commandment of Eataly’s Manifesto. In con-
ceiving the brand, Farinetti aimed to making available specialty food to the masses.
The Italian entrepreneur’s idea worked as, apparently, many have fallen in love with
Eataly. In an interview I conducted in 2013 with the responsible of the press office
of Eataly Turin, it was mentioned that visitors spend several hours to do their shop-
ping and that the mall is particularly crowded at week-ends.4 Although the presence
of many customers may be uncomfortable for some people – as many New Yorkers
who, apparently avoid stepping into Eataly because it’s “too packed for lunch”, as
Kim5 told me in a conversation a few years ago (see also Davies, 2016) – Eataly
remains a fascinating and appealing place for its many visitors.

Inside the belly of the mall: the magic . . .

What does Eataly offer that is so appealing to its clients? What can people actually
do in the mall, which might bring them close to forget, at least in part, that what
they are actually doing is shopping and spending money?

The magic of . . . learning

Learning is the ‘must-do’ for Eataly’s visitors. “Eat. Shop. Learn” claims the sixth
‘commandment’ of Eataly’s passionate Manifesto, clarifying that “this is a store
with stories. Here, you won’t just discover what you love: you’ll also learn about
what you love”. Eataly’s Manifesto includes ten ‘commandments’, which rep-
resent a powerful, emotional, visceral representation of food, and which com-
municates the brand’s mission and commitment to its customers. Starting with
the statement “We are in love with food. We love high-quality food and drink. We
love the stories about it, the people who produce it, and the places it comes from”,
the Manifesto concludes with elucidating Eataly’s ultimate mission: “our goal
is to have you as our customer for a lifetime. The easiest means to that end is to
72 Annalisa Colombino
offer the best food and drink, as well as the best environment in which to discover
and expand your tastes” (my emphasis). As Farinetti argued in a 2005 interview,
preceding the opening of the Turin’s first flagship store, Eataly’s was initially
planned as “a place for large food retail, catering and eno-gastronomic education”
(in Olivero, 2005: 474, my emphasis).
In their detailed analysis of how Eataly articulates Slow Food’s mantra “good,
clean and fair”, Massa and Testa emphasise how “[a]ccording to [Farinetti], there
is a ‘lack of narration’ in food pricing and its motivations” (2012: 119, my empha-
sis). Incorporating Slow Food’s founder Carlo Petrini’s idea that for food to taste
good and be socially fair, it has to be paid for its ‘real value’ – namely, a value that
includes the payment of fair price to the producers – Eataly sells products that are
not exactly inexpensive. Yet, Eataly claims to be able to sell high-quality food at
‘affordable’ prices because the company buys directly from the producers (idem;
see also Sartorio, 2008). The motivations behind the price of the food sold in
Eataly constitute, therefore, a message that customers ‘learn’ (or perhaps it might
be more appropriate to say ‘buy’) while in the mall. It is this ‘gap’ of information
that consumers apparently have about high-quality, fair, pricy food, which Eataly
fulfils by providing a narrative of food origination (and which, arguably, justifies
the products’ prices).
In its malls, Eataly provides an over-abundance of information about food’s
exact provenance and origins, which guides the visitor to make an ‘informed pur-
chase’, so to speak. The space of the mall is designed to transform its visitors
into food connoisseurs and gourmets. Stepping into Eataly, one may indeed be
persuaded to increase its cultural capital by experiencing a real taste of Italy and
by gaining some competences around ‘authentic’ Italian food. To turn its visitors
into ‘gastronomes’, Eataly adopts some of the communicative strategies employed
in museums (cf. Bricknell, 2011) and open-air museums. Learning possibilities are
literally all over Eataly. As soon as one enters the walls of the mall, s/he is over-
whelmed with images, posters, labels, signs ‘shouting’ (as they are often typed in
capital letters) messages around the importance of eating good food (i.e., Eataly’s
food). Slogans and puns such as Wendell Berry’s “eating is an agricultural act”;
“life is too short to eat and drink badly”; “save money and enjoy: at Eataly you
can”; “I do not use . . . plastic bags”; “Italy is Eataly – you are what you Eataly”,
etc., are everywhere, engraved on posters or in other branded gadgets for sale
(t-shirts, shopping bags, etc.). These messages instruct the visitors/eaters on how
they can make a difference to the planet, farmers, their bodies and even to their
emotional life by simply buying and eating Eataly’s food.6 It must be pointed out
that one of the other pillars of Slow Food epicurean philosophy, which Eataly
embraces, concerns the fact that good food is something that brings joy to the
senses. And good, clean and fair food (as opposed to bad, industrially produced
food), according to Slow Food, affects positively people’s states of mind and bod-
ies by bringing about wellbeing, joy and good health (see Petrini, 2005). Further,
according to Slow Food, the consumption of good, clean and fair food makes a dif-
ference to the planet as it is environmentally and socially sustainable. Slow Food
and Eataly promote a profoundly visceral politics of food (cfr. Hayes-Conroy &
 Becoming Eataly 73
Hayes-Conroy, 2010a). For Slow Food such a politics aims to bring about a global
socio-economic change in agro-food production. For Eataly it is, arguably, a poli-
tics of profit-making.
Posters of different sizes that visually magnify label-like content (or package-
like to be more precise) play an important role into providing detailed information
about food’s exact provenance and origination. These are spread all over the mall:
hanging on the walls, in the middle of the food shelves, on the tables of cafés,
restaurants and kiosks. As if it were a museum, Eataly uses labels that tell the visi-
tors the stories ‘hidden’ behind the production of the food commercialised: where,
exactly, it was produced (in which Italian region or town); how and by whom it
was produced; and also some suggestions on how to prepare and taste it ‘properly’
(i.e., the Italian way). All the labels send the message that the food is authentic
and of high quality. Differently from the space of the museum, however, there is
not only ‘one’ original, but a cornucopia of original products, orderly displayed on
the shelves in its ‘proper’ place. Eataly’s departments are in fact structured around
themes such as pasta, pesce, formaggio, vino, carne. In Eataly, ‘the original’ is not
a unique piece, which, in the language of the museum, works as the metonymy of
an entire historical era or art movement (see Crang, 2003). Yet, a cornucopia of
Italian original products do work metonymically and stand for an entire imagined
Italian culinary culture.
If labels, posters and signs are not informative enough, then visitors can ask the
‘mall attendants’, who are trained on the specific food sector in which they work
and who will illuminate curious customers with further information about a spe-
cific product. Again, as in open-air museums – which reproduce how places were
in the past and how people used to work, for example – Eataly’s attendants do not
simply work to serve and sell food. They also perform the role of ‘guides’, of food
and wine experts, as they advise the visitor on how to choose the ‘right product’
according to her/his necessities and preferences. In the international branches,
some of the Eataly’s expert workers can even be real Italians, as in the Eataly I
visited in Munich in December 2015. Furthermore, while strolling in the mall,
customers can learn about how the food they may wish to consume on the spot
is prepared. There are in fact stands or areas with glass walls and doors, through
which visitors can see how workers, impersonating the role of the pizzaiolo, panet-
tiere (baker), sfoglina (the traditionally female artisan who rolls the sheets of pasta
with a pin) prepare pizza, pane and tagliatelle according to the Italian tradition
(Figures 4.3 and 4.5). As they work, they simultaneously stage ‘authentic’ Italian
food makers and traditional cuisine. Like in open-air museums, theme parks and
exotic resorts, workers are like ‘member of the cast’, and their labour becomes
a spectacle: an enjoying, learning activity for Eataly’s visitors (Minca, 2009; see
also Cohen, 1988; cf. MacCannell, 1973).
In Eataly, customers are also encouraged to behave as if they were inside a
museum. By following the signs, they can visit the areas dedicated to specific food
sectors. Or like in Turin’s branch, they can reach Eataly’s “cellars”, located in the
basement. Here, visitors may step into glass-walled rooms and, in the dim light,
glimpse and smell Parma hams and provolone hanging from the ceilings, and a
74 Annalisa Colombino

Figure 4.3 Fresh mozzarella in Dubai Eataly

Photo by Riccardo Iommi

few rows of Parmigiano-Reggiano wheels displayed on the shelves (Figure 4.4).

Visitors can even visit a real museum: the Carpano Museum, located on the upper
floor of Turin’s mall, that narrates through a range of original objects the story of
the former vermouth company, which, now-renovated, is home to Eataly.
All these paraphernalia, that come ‘for free’ are complemented by a wide range
of learning services and items, which can be bought in the mall and online. Eataly’s
bookstores, like contemporary museum stores, sell a wide range of academic books
on food, cooking guides, including gadgets. Since 2014, they also sell a large, illus-
trated, glossy volume entitled How to Eataly. A Guide to Buying, Cooking, and
Eating Italian Food, that claims, amongst other things, “the more you know, the
more you will enjoy” your meal (my emphasis).
Yet, knowledge does not only come through signs, workers’ expertise and books.
It also comes packaged into a wide range of classes and events to learn how to cook
food, taste wine and even learn Italian. In Chicago, for example, for $110 customers
can buy a two-hour workshop to learn how to make formaggio (and to taste it);7
 Becoming Eataly 75

Figure 4.4 Eataly’s cellars in Turin cheese hanging and Parmigiano

Photo by Annalisa Colombino

for $75 in New York, at the Flatyron branch, visitors can learn about Italy’s regions
and eat a regional dish during an hour-and-a-half class of Italian;8 in Sao Paolo
do Brazil, customers can learn how to cook haute cuisine at home;9 and in Dubai,
children and parents can learn how to make pasta (Figure 4.5).
Whilst it cannot be denied that learning in a food retail space is an innovative
aspect of Eataly’s business model, as several commentators have pointed out (e.g.,
Bricknell, 2011; Peruccio, 2012), it might also be argued that one of the commodities
that Eataly manufactures and sells is knowledge, which comes into packages of dif-
ferent sorts, as discussed in the paragraphs above. Knowledge about food, its prov-
enance and origination, are used to ‘justify’ and explain the costs of products sold in
Eataly. At the same time, this knowledge may also be seen as a commodity in itself,
sold in the several classes and events that Eataly organises, and as the added value
attached to the products that the mall sells. Learning about food is a commodified
experience that Eataly manufactures, sells and on which it capitalises. It is a knowl-
edge that customers acquire through the experience of discovering Eataly/Italy.

The magic of . . . a visceral journey through Eataly/Italy

To learn, visitors can also buy tours for “discovering” Eataly. There are tours for
children and adults. For $25, parents in Chicago and New York can buy for their
children a “Passport to Eataly”, which includes a tour of the mall, during which
76 Annalisa Colombino

Figure 4.5 Parents and children learning how to make fresh pasta in Eataly Dubai, Festival
City Mall
Photo by Riccardo Iommi

“kids will uncover the food and language of Italy as an Eatalian ambassador guides
them [;] and earn a stamp in their passports. [Kids will] discover the value of
whole ingredients and receive delicious tastes along the way”. Tours for adults
cost $35 and include an expert guiding “guests . . . to explore each department
and discover unique information and details; meet some of [Eataly’s] specialists
and learn Eataly’s best kept secrets; get delicious tastes along the way” (Eataly
website, my emphasis).10
More generally, Eataly offers a medium for travelling to an imaginary Italy and
for enjoying this journey through a sensorial, visceral experience of food. Adam
Saper,11 Eataly’s chief financial officer in the USA, highlights that

food is the center of culture everywhere. It uses all of our senses. It cannot be
replicated online or even by a super-high-definition television. I can give you a
 Becoming Eataly 77
great book with beautiful color photographs of the Vatican or the Sistine Chapel,
and you can get a sense of what it’s like. But it’s a much bigger difference if I
show you photos of a great restaurant. You’re missing the smells, the sights and
the sounds. What people want more than any material thing is an experience.
(in Ankeni, 2014a, my emphasis)

The mall promotes itself as a “market” and is spatially organised to reproduce frag-
ments of the places of a traditional Italian village, as it includes a piazza, coffee
bars, stalls of different sorts, which are typical of an Italian open-air market. By
being in Chicago, Dubai or Tokyo, one can visit Eataly and, as Financial Time’s
journalist Nicolas Lander (2010) reported about his experience in New York: “In
La Piazza, a standing only area, I felt immediately transported to Milan”. In Eataly,
writes Bricknell, “you can purchase an Italian newspaper with your espresso to
‘practice your Italian or pretend you are in Italy’” (2011: 39).
Yet, Eataly is not just a “Disneyland” where foodies can make their culinary
dreams come true, as it is often described in the media. Going to Eataly is much
more than travelling into hyperreality, to paraphrase Umberto Eco (1986). Step-
ping inside Eataly is the beginning of a visceral journey through an imagined Italy
and its ‘epicurean culture’. Eating and drinking while exploring and discovering
Eataly are activities that visitors can do all over the mall.
Customers can obviously eat by sitting in restaurants of different types: upscale
and elegant restaurants run by celebrity chefs like Massimo Bottura in Istanbul’s
Eataly; in more affordable eateries like La Risotteria in Sao Paolo (specialised in
risotto), or La Pizza e La Pasta, in Eataly Chigago; and in restaurants that serve
regional cuisine like in Turin’s branch, where the tables are positioned close to the
fruit and vegetable market – perhaps to offer the impression to customers that they
are enjoying a meal ‘outside’, while feeling a sense that life on the street goes by,
as other visitors fill their bags with fresh groceries and chat with the ‘owner’ of
the stalls about the provenance of the onions (Figure 4.6).
Street food provides another means to enjoy the journey through Eataly,
which has stalls that sell gelato (ice-cream), slices of pizza and sweets like pane
e Nutella in the Nutella® Bar. While eating street-food and strolling through the
open-air market and the piazza, and following the signs, visitors can reach the
areas dedicated to formaggio (cheese), vino (wine), pasta and verdure (groceries),
and they can engage in sightseeing Eataly’s rich foodscape. They can even get in
touch and take pictures of fragments of Italy, which can be either pictorial rep-
resentations of regions and towns, or real, material fragments of Italian arts and
architecture. Installations such as two gothic pinnacles of Milan’s cathedrals, for
example, were transported to New York and displayed in Eataly’s branch on the
Fifth Avenue in November, 2014.12 While strolling, eating, sightseeing or relax-
ing sitting at the tables of restaurants, visitors take pictures of Eataly/Italy and
the food they are enjoying – either visually or with their palates – and share them
on social media.13 Taking pictures in a shopping mall – a once off-limits, private
space to photo-cameras – even in the era of social media, can still be interpreted
as a typical tourist practice and a key component of the tourist experience and
performance (see Crang, 1997; Edensor, 2008; Urry & Larsen, 2011).
78 Annalisa Colombino

Figure 4.6 Old scale and market and restaurants Eataly Turin
Photo by Annalisa Colombino

Eataly’s stores, in fact, are also tourist destinations listed, for example, on Tri-
padvisor, and cleverly opened in the most crowded touristic areas of global cities,
as notably in the cases of the second Eataly in New York, inaugurated in Financial
District at 4 World Trade Center in early August 2016, and the two branches in
Dubai, the first inaugurated in the largest mall of the world (the Dubai Mall),
the second in the Festival City Mall. The fact that some large, if not immense,
 Becoming Eataly 79
shopping malls are also tourist destinations, which provide the material context
where visitors, like in Disneyland and other theme-parks, can explore imaginary,
hyperreal elsewheres, has already been pointed out in geography and cognate dis-
ciplines (e.g., Goss, 1999; Rabbiosi, 2011; Shields, 1989; Shim & Santos, 2014;
Sorkin, 1992). Yet, there is something novel about Eataly’s attractiveness. Dif-
ferently from other large malls, Eataly does not include facilities dedicated to
exciting activities and embodied experiences like skiing or swimming indoors, or
even entire amusement parks. Yet, similarly to other malls, it does sell embodied
experiences. What is novel, in the case of Eataly, is that the brand is a retail space,
a supermarket, that grounds the commodities and services it sells in the very acts
of eating and drinking, while simultaneously learning and exploring an Italian else-
where. Eataly operates through and capitalises on a literally visceral encounter that
the mall fosters between its clients and its commodities, which come into packages
that always include the ingestion of food, beverages and geographical knowledge.
As blogger Barbara Revsine once wrote in a post about Chicago’s branch, in Eataly
one can literally “ingest Italy”.
Eataly is a brand that ‘speaks’ to the intellects and bodies of its customers. The
activities – exploring, discovering, enjoying, tasting, eating food – it fosters within
its malls do their magic as they speak to customers’ guts, to their viscera, via the
medium of food. In speaking to the guts, the visceral may be seen as a register of
our being humans, which – by going beyond calculative reason and the rational
homo economicus – may be used as a very powerful means of communication to
seduce and persuade visitors and encourage them to make perhaps unreasonable
(i.e., pricey) purchases on the concept of the visceral in geography see Hayes-
Conroy & Hayes-Conroy, 2010a, 2013; Goodman, 2016).
Eataly has been certainly successful in creating an innovative business model
that brings together alternative food networks and conventional food networks
within a single retail space, born out of a collaboration between a social move-
ment (Slow Food) and a private enterprise, and which offers the novel possibil-
ity to its customers to learn while they eat and shop (see Bertoldi et al., 2015;
Bricknell, 2011; Pitrelli, 2014; Sebastiani et al., 2013; Sebastiani & Montagnini,
2014). However, Eataly is, in my view, particularly innovative because it literally
employs the visceral as a powerful register of communication to target its clients.
It is particularly through the visceral register of food that Eataly does its magic in
trying to engage its clients in a range of ‘palatable activities’ (learning, discover-
ing, travelling via the ingestion and sensorial experience of food), which may
somehow distract them from recalling that what they are actually doing is shopping
and spending, arguably, a lot of money.
In Eataly, visitors do perform, at the same time, the roles of the tourists and
of the ‘eaters’ (cf. Goodman, 2016). The mall provides a material context where
clients can be, or have the impression to become, travelling gourmands, experts,
so to speak, of Italian culinary culture without having to travel to Italy by expe-
riencing Eataly’s food. Customers can even have a drink while sightseeing the
shelves and pondering on which delicacy they wish to bring back to their pantries.
As Gothamist’s blogger Rebecca Fishbein, writing on Eataly’s World Trade Center
80 Annalisa Colombino
location, recently argued, “the coffee bar doubles as a wine bar so you can have
a glass of wine while you shop”. Because, last but not least, Eataly is indeed a
supermarket that does sell food. Which food it exactly sells is a topic I discuss in
the next section.

Outside the belly of the mall: the magic of the brand

The magic of the brand is an expression that I use here to indicate how a success-
ful brand such as Eataly, from the point of view of its suppliers, has the ability to
turn their products into more profit and brand reputation. Once within the walls of
Eataly, products do not change their ‘identity’ – i.e., they are not branded as made
in “Eataly”, so to speak – as it happens for other products, frequently produced in
the Global South, like sneakers or luxury fashion accessories, for example, which
get branded to be positioned in specific segments of the market. Inside Eataly, I
argue, some products either get a reputation on the market or enhance or consoli-
date their brand reputation. Furthermore, becoming a supplier of Eataly can be, in
some instances, a story of emancipation, rather than exploitation. For some small
agricultural producers, Eataly does its magic as it increases their profits and, in
some cases, even saves them from bankruptcy.
Although Eataly does not define its malls as supermarkets, but as “markets” or
“bazaars”, it is difficult to deny that its malls are (also) supermarkets. On Eataly
shelves, customers can buy a wide range of authentic Italian, regional, special-
ties, and more recently, they can also find industrially manufactured, branded
products – which in Italy can be bought in any supermarket, and which an Italian
may not exactly perceive as high-quality food.
The switch to sell also non-specialty food may be seen as the profitable step
made when Eataly started to expand overseas, which in turn had to imply a
distancing between the brand and Slow Food. Selling Italian food internation-
ally, in fact, stood in clear contradiction with the second pillar of Slow Food’s
mantra (i.e., clean), and it had to be justified. As Eataly was multiplying its malls,
Farinetti’s position against the chilometri zero policy and subsequently, the
brand’s distancing from Slow Food, were in fact amplified in Italian media (see,
e.g., Gramellini, 2012; Pitrelli, 2014). Increasingly, Eataly’s partners started to
include food giants such as Barilla, Lavazza, Ferrero, San Pellegrino and Peroni
(these two latter brands respectively owned by Nestlé and SABMiller). Along
with the ‘usual specialties’, which at Eataly’s very beginning constituted its only
offer, the shelves of mall started to be packed with food, which is far from being
artisanal (Figure 4.7).
Whilst today large retail chains offer product lines that are labelled as local,
prime, organic, etc., to reach out to the ‘informed consumer’, Eataly’s has adopted
an inverse strategy. Starting with offering only specialties, it now also sells also
ordinary products, which, however, once of the shelves of its malls, ‘magically’
turn into original, authentic, Italian good food, symbols of ‘made in Italy’. For
some international giants of the food and beverage sector, becoming an Eataly’s
partner translates into an increase, or solidification, of their brand reputation. With
 Becoming Eataly 81

Figure 4.7 Water and beverage bottles: ordinary/extraordinary food, Dubai Eataly
Photo by Riccardo Iommi

Eataly’s endorsement, these food and beverage giants are able to commercialise
their rather ordinary branded products as ‘extraordinary’ products, which become
symbols and parts of an imagined, stylish, epicurean, authentic Italian lifestyle, and
which get positioned in the mass market of luxury items (cf. Dubois & Duquesne,
1993; Silverstein & Fiske, 2003).
In expanding overseas, however, the importance of local food and the zero-miles
policy has been “recuperated” and commodified (cf. Anderson, 2015: 130–132).
82 Annalisa Colombino
Following Oscar Farinetti’s diktat: “we act local but think global”, Eataly’s brand
ambassador and manager Dino Borri argues that “we want to put all the best Italian
food in one place. But we also offer local food in every store we open abroad” (cited in
Ankeni, 2014a). Farinetti’s son, Nicola, currently one of the company’s CEOs, claims
that “Eataly is not a chain . . .. It’s not copy-and-paste”, specifying that before each
new opening Eataly has to do a lot of research on the food it will sell (cited in Ankeni,
2014b). Borri explains that to select local suppliers, Eataly’s team of experts do

a blind taste test. [Then,] we want to meet you first, and you have to tell us the
story of where the food is coming from, and all the stuff about you and your
company. It has to be related a little bit to Italian – not ‘Italian-sounding.’ We
don’t want to sell ‘Italian-sounding.’
(cited in idem)

At Eataly New York, the ovens to make pizza and bread (according to the Italian
tradition) are imported from Spain, yet the main ingredients are local. For example,

the flour originates two hours north of Manhattan in the hamlet of Clinton
Corners, N.Y., the site of Wild Hive Farm. The Wild Hive Community Grain
Project, founded by Don Lewis to promote sustainable agriculture across the
Hudson Valley region, is home to stone milling with granite grinding stones
capable of producing flour that perfectly replicates the nutrient-dense, high-
quality product indigenous to Eataly’s native Turin.
(idem)

In its overseas branches, Eataly also sells what can be called ‘Eatalian’ food.
Namely, fresh meals and foods, which are made with local ingredients prepared
according to the ‘traditional’, ‘authentic’, Italian way, and local products, with
which clients are already familiar and which incorporate local tastes and cuisine.
For example, in Eataly USA clients can buy prime Black Angus beef; in Japan,
customers can dress their insalata verde (green leaf salad) with myoga ginger; and
of course, other local, fresh groceries, meat and fish. Local food in fact translates
into qualities such as freshness and sustainability (which are key to Eataly’s brand
identity). Furthermore, it helps Eataly to build its specific local identity as, simi-
larly to MacDonald’s and many other companies, it capitalises on place-specific
cultural differences, culinary preferences and agro-food production, so that Eataly
can be ‘everywhere but never the same’. For example, Eataly’s forthcoming branch
in Boston will be dedicated to fish and seafood (Affari Italiani, 2016).
It is by including in its offer local produce and products that Eataly, the brand,
makes its other magic. It’s a kind of magic that benefits also the malls’ local sup-
pliers. Overseas, Eataly’s offer is diversified and extends to include foods and
products, whose origination plays a key role in contributing to the brand’s reputa-
tion and profits. Adam Saper claims that “something like 70 percent of our revenue
in the New York store comes from U.S.-based products” (cited in Ankeni, 2014b).
Eataly’s expansion and its key-mission of selling “good, clean, fair food” has in
fact fostered some place-specific agro-food production and benefitted a number
 Becoming Eataly 83
of local suppliers. For example, Cascun Farm in Greene, New York, has enor-
mously increased its production since selling whole and packaged chickens to
Eataly. According to the farm’s owner “Having our chicken in a place like Eataly
also gives us a huge amount of credibility when we deal with other restaurants
and businesses in New York City. Saying we have a relationship with [Eataly]
speaks volumes about our products” (cited in Ankeni, 2014b). The success of this
company is far from being unique. Back in Italy, for example, starting to supply
Eataly with Piedmontese beef has meant for a group of around sixty farmers (now
associated in La Granda Consortium, in Cuneo’s province) to be able to keep their
farms, rather than closing them down as large retail chains were imposing on them
the payment of low prices, and even to expand their own livestock and find new
customers (see Colombino & Giaccaria, 2013, 2015).
Eataly is frequently pictured in media accounts as a company that ‘saves’ local
producers and makes their fortunes. However, more recently, critiques have also
started to emerge in Italian media and the blogosphere. Some point to how the com-
pany fosters the “gentrification of agriculture”, a process, in this case, understood as
one which benefits only few local suppliers, and which leaves many other farmers
subjugated to mainstream large retail chain (Terrarivolta, No date). Others highlight
how workers in the mall and in agro-food productions are exploited (Clash City
Workers, 2014; Tommasi, 2014). Although thorough investigations on what Eataly
exactly ‘hides’ behind its successful brand are still lacking, it is difficult to deny that
indeed a number local farmers and agro-food producers do benefit from becoming
suppliers of the mall. Whilst similar products use packaging to uniquely distinguish
themselves on the shelves of shops and supermarkets, Eataly – the mall – seems to
function as a giant packaging tool, a package that is spread all over the surfaces of
the mall, and that has succeeded into convincing visitors that its content is actually
all high-quality, clean, fair, good food. There is a nearly magic effect on the products
that succeed to enter the mall’s doors. Being on the shelves of Eataly means for a sup-
plier to position its products in a retail surface filled with other products, which have
a high-quality reputation, and to be able to step into a segment of the luxury market.
Despite its promises of democratising good, clean and fair food and making it
available to everyone, Eataly is far from being a mall where all social classes can
afford to buy a taste of Eataly/Italy. Not all those who visit Eataly, in fact, actually
do their shopping there. During my fieldwork, undertaken primarily in the two
stores in Turin, I have often observed and heard people walking through the malls
while commenting on the expensive cost of the products. Some visitors do in fact
visit Eataly only for sightseeing (i.e., to have a look around the new temple of food
in town), and might also leave the mall with nothing in their bags. Yet, perhaps,
they might leave with something in their stomachs.

Eat Italy: Eataly’s next magic

“Eat Italy” is the expression that Farinetti wrote on the margins of the A4 sheet
of paper he used to draft, on 11 November 2002, the plan for the mall he would
open five years later in Turin to sell “only be the best of Italian enogastronomy”
(Sartorio, 2008: 82, my translation). “Eat Italy” was indeed the first of name of the
84 Annalisa Colombino
yet-to-come mall, before adopting the synaeresis “Eataly”, in which eat and It(aly)
are pronounced in the same way (idem: 122). Moreover, nowadays, customers can
read the claim “Italy is Eataly”, often positioned at the entrance of the walls of the
international food mall. This slogan explicitly points to the identification between
Italy, the nation, with the commercial space, Eataly which, as I have discussed
throughout in this chapter, claims to sell high-quality Italian food and offers a
selective, highly aestheticised, visceral experience of the Bel Paese. These two
examples clearly highlight how, since the very beginning of Farinetti’s gastro-
nomic enterprise, Italy was, and still is, at the basis of the creation and positioning
of the brand Eataly. The production and circulation of the brand Eataly, in Italy
and overseas, dwells on two principles that place and nation branding practices
commonly mobilise to attract visitors, tourists, investors and/or new inhabitants;
namely, the selective (re)presentation of a country, and the celebration of the belief
in a shared, compact, national heritage.
First, like many branding activities implemented in several media (e.g., on web-
sites, magazine articles, tour operators’ campaigns) that brand Italy as an exciting
tourist destination, Eataly depicts the Peninsula by focussing on very few spe-
cific aspects of the country. The Italy that Eataly reproduces within its walls and
through its marketing activities is basically a land of culinary delights; a country
made only of small villages, piazzas, traditional open-air markets, coffee places,
small restaurants and food stalls. A country where visitors can live la dolce vita
and enjoy the excellent, fresh and colourful food, which arguably can be found
everywhere in Italy and which seem to be part of Italians’ everyday life. Such an
image of Italy is, rather obviously, a highly selective, polished and sanitised repre-
sentation of the nation. While drawing on few aspects of what can be found while
touring the country (typical, local foods and interesting architecture, for example),
it completely ignores other less-seducing aspects, such as, amongst the others, the
widespread consumption of industrialised food and the recent economic crises that
are impoverishing an increasing number of households, who do struggle to put
food on their tables (see, e.g., Dusi, 2016; Mancini, 2016).
Second, Eataly builds on, celebrates and nourishes the widespread belief that
Italy has a strong, shared, national culinary heritage. Italy may be seen as politi-
cally divided and culturally diverse. Yet, if there is something that actually unites
the imagined community (Anderson, 2006) called ‘Italy’ and its fellow inhabit-
ants is indeed the strong, shared common belief in the excellence of its food.
Most Italians do profoundly believe that their cuisine is the best in the world. I
do not mean to deny that in Italy one may also find excellent food. Rather, I wish
to briefly point out that what is commonly labelled ‘Italian food’ and/or ‘Italian
cuisine’ is the outcome of long, socio-economic, cultural and historical trajectories
of the country, including its history of immigration overseas. Importantly, it is a
selective representation of a highly variegated gastronomic landscape. Italian food/
cuisine, its portrayed excellence, can be seen as a culinary, invented tradition (see
Hobsbawm & Ranger, 2012; Lowenthal, 1996). There is no pure, compact, essen-
tial, excellent Italian cuisine. Rather, in Italy, as well as in many other countries,
there is a large number of local, regional and very diverse ways of preparing food
 Becoming Eataly 85
(for an excellent overview of the history of food in Italy, see Parasecoli, 2014).
What exists is an on-going, positive, celebrated, selective representation of Italy’s
culinary landscape, which is commonly called ‘Italian food’, and which emerges
in all its excellence primarily when portrayed in cookbooks; performed in TV-
shows by celebrity chefs; depicted in tourist promotional activities; remembered
in the minds and stomachs of Italian travelling overseas (often complaining about
the food in other countries); and chewed during the visceral encounters of inter-
national tourists visiting il Bel Paese or in the many Italian restaurants spread all
around the world.
To go back to my point, the brand Eataly does not only use key-practices of
nation branding (the selective representation of Italy and the nourishing of the
belief in the existence of a shared, national, culinary heritage). In claiming to
identify itself with Italy, the land of culinary delights, Eataly reinforces its brand
reputation as a company that sells only excellent food. Furthermore, as I have
illustrated in this chapter, it may be argued that Eataly has also been able to ‘magi-
cally’ turn a broad imaginary of Italy and its invented, culinary tradition into profit.
In this chapter, I have discussed how Eataly performs different kinds of magic
on its clients, products and suppliers. Eataly is based on a model that pivots around
the consumption of food, broadly articulated through the encouragement of several
practices, such as discovering, experiencing, enjoying, eating food. Furthermore,
Eataly proposes a persuasive form of eatertainment, which, in turn, is declined
into shopertainment, edutainment (see Hannigan, 1998) and into a ‘visceral form
of traveltainment’ – an expression I use here to indicate the experience of another
place (in this case an epicurean Italy) through the sensorial consumption food
without the need to actually travel to that place. Similarly to Disney World, Eataly
is able to magically take its visitors to an imaginary elsewhere, which in this case is
a very much imagined Italian land of plenty and earthly delights. All the practices
and spatio-temporal strategies articulated in the malls are thought to work their
magic to enchant Eataly’s visitors and persuade them to basically buy food and,
obviously, to maximise the brand’s profits.
As mentioned before, Eataly has often been labelled the “Disneyland” for food-
ies; a nickname that anticipated Oscar Farinetti’s next enterprise: the opening of
Eatalyworld in Bologna, a 80.000 sqm theme park, which will exhibit in one place

the culture of high quality food; the beauty of biodiversity of the Italian agri-
food business; the expertise and knowledge of those who have always worked
for the excellence of Italian food and wines.
(http://eatalyworld.it/en/)

Apparently, there will be no entrance fee to Eataly’s amusement park (Huen, 2016),
which, however, will practically magnify the model incorporated in Eataly’s malls.
Along with a 10.000 sqm farm with “demo fields and educational breeding farms
[which will showcase], the most important varieties of cultivars and native animal
breeds”, Eatalyworld will include a 4.000 sqm convention centre for corporate
meetings and events related to food; 40 workshops run by the “best Italian firms”,
86 Annalisa Colombino
which will show “before your eyes” how artisanal food is processed; ten train-
ing classrooms to explore “agri-food chains”; 25 restaurants, which will propose
traditional and innovative Italian cuisine; and markets and stores covering an area
of 9000 sqm “where to taste, and buy, the products that come to life in the work-
shops, and where to share the story told by the producer”.14 Perhaps the entrance to
Eatalyworld will be free. Yet, while exploring the 80.000 smq theme park, which
includes a 3 Km of “didactic itineraries”, visitors might ‘magically’ get hungry.
A few years after Eataly opened its first mall in 2007, word on the street in Turin
was that Farinetti was losing money. Now Eataly is a successful brand, celebrated
in the media of the countries where it operates and where it is announced to “land”,
“head to” or “debut” (see, e.g., Day, 2016; Morabito, 2016; Stapleton, 2016). The
opening of new international branches seems to be part of the brand’s own market-
ing strategies, perhaps also to re-assure potential future investors. At the begin-
ning of January 2014, Oscar Farinetti announced that Eataly plans a stock market
listing by 2017 (Reuters, 2014), which is now postponed to 2018. As Hanningan,
amongst others, has suggested, investors are attracted by brands with a potential
large customer base and look especially . . . to “the ‘roll-out’ factor of a project;
that is, how well it can be replicated elsewhere in the world. Projects which are
considered to be ‘site specific’, and, therefore, difficult to duplicate nationally
and internationally, make investors nervous” (Hannigan, 1998: 102). With nearly
thirty stores making profits in Italy and overseas and with concrete plans to open
branches in more world cities, Eataly might indeed succeed into making its magic
also on its future investors.

Notes
1 In this chapter I use Eataly interchangeably to indicate the brand, its malls and the
company, if not otherwise specified.
2 Eataly’s Manifesto can be consulted at www.eataly.com/us_en/manifesto/ [Accessed
17 September 2016].
3 For a chronology of Eataly’s expansion, see Fillon (2016).
4 The analysis I propose in this chapter is based on various materials, which I am collecting
as part of an on-going research on Eataly. I started to be interested into this food mall in
2011 when working on a project on the making and commercialisation of the Piedmon-
tese breed, whose beef is sold as a specialty in Eataly’s branch in Turin. It must be also
noted that I was born in Turin and that, since its opening, I frequently shopped and visited
Eataly’s branches in the capital of Piedmont. Fieldwork material that I use for the analy-
sis I present in this chapter include several semi-structured interviews I conducted with
people working directly or indirectly for Eataly and with visitors of the mall, in Italy and
overseas; observations were conducted over the years in Eataly’s branches in Turin, Rome,
Bologna and Munich; the collection of newspapers articles and blog posts about the brand;
and Eataly’s numerous, official Facebook pages, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
5 Kim is the pseudonym of a person working in an office located close to the first branch
of Eataly in New York.
6 For an overview of Eataly’s slogans and marketing material see Farinetti’s (2009)
book, which contains his marketing philosophy and a collection of Eataly’s advertising
campaigns.
7 Forming Formaggio, Hands-On Cheesemaking, www.eataly.com/us_en/classes-and-
events/forming-formaggio-hands-on-cheesemaking-2016-10-20-2023 [Accessed
15 October 2016].
 Becoming Eataly 87
8 Italian for Eatalian: Italian Language & Campanian Cuisine, www.eataly.com/
us_en/classes-and-events/italian-for-eatalian-italian-language-campanian-
cuisine-2016-10-21–2167 [Accessed 15 October 2016].
9 Alta gastronomia em casa IV, www.eataly.com.br/events/1810-alta-gastronomia-
em-casa-iv/ [Accessed 15 October 2016].
10 See www.eataly.com/us_en/passport-to-eataly-tours-for-kids-2016-12-10-2048 and
www.eataly.com/us_en/classes-and-events/nyc-flatiron/nyc-eat-ineraries/walking-tour-
of-eataly-new-york-2016–12–07–2041 [Accessed 15 October 2016].
11 Alex and Adam Saper are two brothers, both part of Eataly’s international venture.
12 See EatalyNYC’s Twitter status and webpage at https://twitter.com/Eataly/
status/530141336683307008 and www.eataly.com/us_en/magazine/eataly-stories/
nicola-most-creative-people/ [Accessed 15 September 2016].
13 At the time of writing this chapter, the hashtag #eataly counts 323,263 posts and
#eatalysp (San Paolo) 19,693 posts on Instagram. Last accessed on October 17, 2016.
14 http://eatalyworld.it/en#il-progetto [Accessed 18 October 2016].

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5 The on-screen branding and
rebranding of identity politics
in Cyprus
Costas Constandinides

Introduction
On the 21st of September,1 2011, the short mockumentary The Nine O’Clock
News in the Year 20302 premiered at Chateau Status,3 a venue located in the UN-
administered buffer zone or ‘dead zone’ of Ledra Palace in Cyprus. The organisers
of the screening could not have chosen a better place to screen a mockumentary
that imagines a reunified Cyprus in the year 2030 since the film and the recent
‘transformation’4 of the space itself and its surroundings share common charac-
teristics associated with promise and desire narratives. On the one hand, the moc-
kumentary and the renovation of spaces located in the Ledra Palace buffer zone
partly reflect utopian functions or discursive paradigms on utopian functions as
they form models of cooperation (e.g., the Economic Interdependence project and
the co-creation of the mockumentary as a tool for change5) between Greek and
Turkish-Cypriots, where hope for reconciliation is strengthened in the present,
even though a solution to the Cyprus Problem has not been achieved. On the other
hand, the fictional post-division narrative that the mockumentary imagines can be
compared to, and partly is, brand storytelling mainly because it narrates a desire
for change that it is almost exclusively based on values that are associated with
economic entities. The mockumentary ends with the following words: “Recon-
ciliation will bring Economic Benefits to Both Communities”. Hence, there is an
attempt to build a seemingly apolitical narrative that celebrates the financial pros
of a possible solution to the Cyprus Problem and at the same time promises that
the coming together of the two communities will change living conditions to the
better; Cyprus is narrated both as a peaceful and prosperous post-division model.
However, unlike other utopian ‘reconciliation’ narratives, and even though the
mockumentary is the product of a dialogic process, I argue that it is a utopian
“parody of hope” (Ashcroft, 2009: 8) instead of being a negotiation of hope in
the present; in other words, an example of utopianism as understood by Ashcroft
(ibid.). The mockumentary’s representation of a perfect post-division Cyprus is
founded on terms, which are certainly not apolitical; on the contrary, brands not
only represent economic entities “but also sources of power and legitimacy which
impose modes of thinking and behaving” (Heilbrunn, 2006: 92).
The mockumentary also suggests that an identity-building process took place
prior to the future it imagines as certain characters tend to talk about the past
92 Costas Constandinides
(that is present time and recent historical events) as a narrative that no longer
has an effect on the way they experience Cyprus in the year 2030. Furthermore,
the mockumentary seems to project the logic of value co-creation (see Volcic &
Andrejevic, 2011, for a critical discussion of this strategy) as citizens seem to
have an active role in the apparent success of the 2030 Cyprus brand message; in
other words, civic participation in this seemingly ‘post-political’ version of Cyprus
“combines the obligations of citizenship with the responsibilities and risks of the
entrepreneur” (Volcic & Andrejevic, 2011: 601). The mockumentary implies that
present national identifications are anachronistic and it presents an ideal condition
where “the market can dissolve archaic forms of collective cultural conflict by
disaggregating collectives into self-interested individuals and reassembling them
into branded communities” (ibid: 606).
One of the key aims of this study is to discuss the above mockumentary in relation
to other on-screen representations of identity politics in Cyprus. Even though this is
a volume on nation/place branding, I do not use the term nation branding to refer to
examples that illustrate a carefully engineered process undertaken by nation branding
experts to favorably communicate or highlight the values, experiences and opportu-
nities that a nation may offer or has traditionally been offering. Instead, I attempt to
draw an analogy between brands as narratives/storytelling and the on-screen repre-
sentations of the Cyprus Problem with a particular focus on the concept of utopia.
The key reasons I ‘cannot’ discuss cinematic traditions in Cyprus in relation to nation
branding as a professional field of practice are outlined in the following subsections.

First reason or how not to brand

a place through cinema
The Cypriot Films or video productions discussed here are not the result of a con-
scious state-initiated process to brand Cyprus in the way nation branding or place
marketing is understood by those who practice it. There have been efforts by the
Cinema Sector of the Cultural Services of the Ministry of Education and Culture of
the Republic of Cyprus (MECRC) to promote Cypriot films and Cyprus as a filming
destination in various fora, such as Cannes International Film Festival,6 but these
have been mini scale or ‘let’s do-it-ourselves’ efforts; in other words, these are not
well-informed or planned campaigns and do not receive any significant financial
or know-how support to ‘brand’ Cypriot cinema or Cyprus, the place, through the
medium of cinema. Sadly, state film policy relies heavily on the goodwill of the cul-
tural officers of the understaffed Cinema Sector of the Cultural Services of the
MECRC and the government has only recently announced plans for the develop-
ment of the audiovisual sector. The Nine O’Clock News in the Year 2030 is the
product of the Economic Interdependence project which is implemented by organ-
isations that serve the interests of island-wide economic entities. However, the project
is an example of no-place rather than place branding; moreover, this vision is not
state-funded. The reason I discuss this video as a case study example in the final
part of this chapter is because like many other filmic representations of the Cyprus
Problem, it communicates a reconciliatory desire; however, unlike other on-screen
 Branding of identity politics in Cyprus 93
narrations of this desire, the potential of reunification is told through imaginary
brands and financial-oriented activities that are headlining a mock TV news pro-
gram. The message of the mockumentary is clear, and it does not pretend to be
anything else other than what it aims to be. However, as a product that may also
aspire to contribute to the visual culture of Cyprus or the on-screen representa-
tion of debates specific to the Cyprus Problem, it is an example of a hybrid model
which combines the elements of reconciliation narratives and brand storytelling.
Still, the reunified Cyprus imagined by the mockumentary may be division-free,
but it seems to be governed or controlled by brands (the news program itself func-
tions as a business guide) to the extent that it becomes a ‘parody of hope’ rather
than an example of Ashcroft’s understanding of utopianism within the context of
emergent post-colonial writing. He defines this model of utopianism as a “gesture
toward a resolution of utopian contradictions dialogically” (2009: 8). The moc-
kumentary may be the result of a dialogical process7 within the context of the bi-
communal Economic Interdependence project, but it employs a rationale that has
been associated with neocolonialism and fails to suggest much-needed larger scale
peace-building processes in the present since what led to this imagined condition is
treated as a distant memory. It narrates a place that has managed to ‘fix’ its ‘post-
division’ problems by positioning itself as a brand within a wider global market,
which is fiercely being claimed by mega-nation brands through strategic acts that
“symbolically reinforce the notion of a ‘natural’ hierarchy of nations within the
world order” (Roy 2007: 572). The mockumentary promotes “a narrative pro-
gramme, which must promote a system of material and discursive differences so as
to justify and legitimize its existence among other brands” (Heilbrunn, 2006: 95),
in this case other nation brands.
There are examples of Cypriot films that can be discussed as efforts to induce
outsiders to visit Cyprus, but these efforts are not comparable to examples like Baz
Luhrmann’s 2008 film Australia, which is discussed by Baker as a case study that
“demonstrates the benefits of close collaboration between the marketing of a high
profile movie and a well-known destination” (2011: 241). Even though the island
of Cyprus is a well-known tourist destination, there is no indication or evidence (at
least to my knowledge) that a Cypriot fiction film, which may partly or exclusively
be aimed at showcasing the island as a tourist destination, such as Vacation in Our
Cyprus (Laskos, 1971), has eventually persuaded international viewers to visit
Cyprus or was part of Cyprus Tourism Organisation’s (CTO) strategic planning to
induce tourism through a collaboration with filmic productions. Gary Needham
writes that when he first started working on his study of the impact of Greek cin-
ema outside Greece he discovered that the “most widely available Greek film and
the best-selling according to Amazon’s statistics was not Zorba the Greek or Never
on Sunday, but a film called in English Emanuelle Queen of the Sados and in Greek
I Mavri Emanouella” (2012: 212). Needham does not mention that the specific film
directed by Ilias Mylonakos (released in 1979 according to Needham’s study) was
predominantly filmed in Cyprus and was co-produced by a Greek-Cypriot movie
theatre owner Diogenis Herodotou. Apart from the titillating softcore scenes fea-
turing Laura Gemser and a controversial rape scene which the film is infamous for
94 Costas Constandinides
internationally, the film’s other main protagonist is the island’s tourist attractions.
However, in a number of film reviews or user reviews the diegetic space or filming
location of the aforementioned cult classic is simply labeled as a Greek island, a
generic rather than an ideologically informed description, which essentially means
that the place shares the typical characteristics of any Greek island. Therefore, the
most widely seen Cypriot co-production which showcases the beauties of Cyprus
is experienced by international viewers as a Greek island.
The Beloved (1971), starring Raquel Welch and directed by George P. Kosmatos,
who later became widely known for directing films like Rambo: First Blood Part II
(1985) and Cobra (1986), was also shot in Cyprus and was recently the subject of
a full-length Greek-Cypriot documentary titled Beloved Days (Patsalides, 2015).
Even though Greek-Cypriot businessmen invested in the film and the then-
president of the Republic of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios the III, gave his ‘bless-
ings’, the film does not in any way reflect a well-planned attempt to brand Cyprus;
even the summary of the film’s storyline on various sites, including IMDb, refer to
the island of Cyprus as a Mediterranean island or a Greek island. The son of one
of the Greek-Cypriot investors, who is being interviewed in the aforementioned
documentary, Aris Sakorafos, suggests that his father, Thanasis Sakorafos, and the
other Greek-Cypriot co-investors did not really know what to expect from their
investment or anything about the business of moviemaking. The above examples
illustrate that promising (regardless of the genre) attempts for the on-screen brand-
ing of Cyprus were not successful; the fact that Cyprus is being described as
a typical Mediterranean or Greek landscape, in other words as a place with no
distinctive or differentiating characteristics, is an indication that early investment
in high-profile or commercially successful genres, such as sexploitation films,
was rather based on naïve expectations. For example, consider Aris Sakorafos’
struggles to explain why his father and other Greek-Cypriot businessmen invested
in The Beloved. He speculates that the participation of Raquel Welch was Kos-
matos’s strongest card and the making of the film in Cyprus would provide them
with the opportunity to meet a big Hollywood star. Therefore, early and recent
Cypriot cinematic activity is not informed by any serious state or entrepreneurial
effort to brand Cyprus. Even if the aforementioned films consciously or otherwise
suggested ways of experiencing or living Cyprus in the 1970s, an international
viewer would not know where to travel to experience them.
Even though the examples I use above are from the 1970s, I use the word
‘early’ because the first Cypriot films (predominantly privately funded) were made
after the island’s independence in 1960, a decade of cinematic renaissance or re-
discovery rather than discovery for other national cinemas. The first effort by the
Greek-Cypriot administered Republic of Cyprus to establish a state film policy
was politically motivated and began in 1984, that is, after the Turkish-Cypriots
unilaterally announced the establishment of their own state the Turkish Republic
of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in 1983. TRNC has not gained international rec-
ognition, and it financially relies on Turkey as the latter is the only country that
recognises TRNC. The Rape of Aphrodite (Pantzis, 1985) appears to be the first fic-
tion film financially supported by the Greek-Cypriot controlled and internationally
 Branding of identity politics in Cyprus 95
recognised Republic of Cyprus. According to Constandinides and Papadakis, The
Rape of Aphrodite, a visually compelling and poetic film, is also “one of the key
films that strongly resonates Greek-Cypriot cinema’s ethnocentric (Hellenocentric)
approach to the Cyprus Problem” (2014b: 122). The film was partly funded by the
Film Production Council created under the Press and Information Office (PIO)
of the Republic of Cyprus, which is also responsible for raising awareness about
the Greek-Cypriot official position on the Cyprus Problem, and communicates
decisions by the Advisory Committee on Enlightenment.8 The Rape of Aphrodite
gains “its energy from a utopian vision located not in the future but in the past”,
which may be, according to Ashcroft, a “dangerous strategy because it can paralyse
transformative action with an arcadian nostalgia . . . ‘a fantasy of unhappening’”
(2007: 422). Indeed, the film attempts to “retrieve some authentic pre-colonial
cultural essence” (ibid.) expressed through an untainted pre-independence version
of the Greek-Cypriot political vision of enosis (Union with Greece). In what is
perhaps the first critical discussion of the development of Cypriot cinema before
the creation of the Cinema Advisory Committee in 1994 and its subsequent trans-
fer under the MECRC, Soula Kleanthous-Hadjikyriakou (1995) forms a rather
daring (considering the dominant politics of the time in which the author first
presented her case as a conference paper at a Cyprus Association for the Arts and
Communication conference in 1986) position on the Greek-Cypriot films produced
between 1974 and 1986. She uses the words “miserable” and “propaganda” to
describe Greek-Cypriot cinema and concludes that the Republic of Cyprus treated
cinema as either a medium of political persuasion or as part of a campaign to
induce tourism. In addition, she describes the overall effort to support the produc-
tion of cinema as inadequate. Constandinides and Papadakis argue that the key
characteristics of the cinemas of the Cyprus Problem are the following:

the blurring of the boundary between fiction and reality; the employment of
film for political persuasion (which others would call propaganda); the use of
film to present key historical events in order to persuade, explain, or rather –
as the Orwellian-sounding phrase goes – to “enlighten (diafotisoun)” others
about what really happened and who really is to blame.
(2014a: 2)

Therefore, the Republic of Cyprus’s investment in the medium of cinema was

evidently steered by a political agenda. During the same period, identity-build-
ing practices were employed in order to secure and enhance the legitimacy of
the post-1974 mono-communal and internationally recognised the Republic of
Cyprus. Such practices were also evident in post-1974 educational forms which
challenged the dominance of the Hellenocentric approach (due to the attempt to
violently impose the vision of union with Greece); therefore, educational changes
were introduced along the lines of the Hellenocypriocentric and Cypriocentric
identity formations but from an exclusive Greek-Cypriot perspective (Philippou &
Klerides, 2010). The early state-funded ‘cinema of the Cyprus Problem’ as well
as other state-funded on-screen or lens-based representations of the Cyprus
96 Costas Constandinides
problem were on a political level mirroring this attempt to promote the above
arrangement internally and externally, and to inspire loyalty to a free from violent
forms of national identification Greek-Cypriot community. This brief introduction
to the origins and failures of cinema in Cyprus leads me to the Second Reason I
am disinclined to discuss political or otherwise cinematic traditions in Cyprus in
relation to branding as a professional field of practice.

Second reason or how not to stop worrying and

love nation branding
Any use of the words ‘branding’ and ‘brand’ in relation to Cyprus, the place, and
specifically the on-screen representations of the Cyprus Problem, is metaphorical
rather than referential. Even outside the field of cinema, there is little evidence to
suggest that Cyprus or the Republic of Cyprus is being branded by nation/place
branding experts. The branding of its tourist product may be an exception, with
recent brandmarks like ‘Love Cyprus’ and ‘Cyprus in your Heart’, however, the
almost retro design – until recently, yet still non-user-friendly design – of CTO’s
official website and dated logo9 suggests otherwise. Dinnie and Fola, in a confer-
ence paper presented at the 7th International Conference on Marketing in Athens
(2009), titled “Branding Cyprus: A Stakeholder Identification Perspective”, iden-
tify tourism and shipping as the key pillars of the Cyprus Brand and focus on the
potential of other sectors that could possibly help differentiate the Cyprus Brand
from other regional competitors.
According to Heilbrunn, a brand is “a narrative entity that imposes itself as a
natural source of ideological” power (2006: 92). If we accept Heilbrunn’s position
that brands behave similarly to a “theologico-political paradigm” (Ibid.: 96), then
nation branding is simply another term someone can use to describe “a politically
constituted process which unfolds in relation to dominant discourses and symbols
that are in circulation” (Johansson, 2012: 3611) and branding itself is a term that
someone can use to describe the act of narrating imaginary ‘objects’; in other
words, the very same thing. This statement is not as simple as it appears to be, but
it certainly aims to support observations that link branding to storytelling, specifi-
cally, imaginary or utopian alternatives to existing conditions. Heilbrunn explains
that “the ideology promoted both explicitly and implicitly by brands is also closely
related to the main paradigm of consumption that equals consumption with hap-
piness” (2006: 92). He further adds that a “discourse on happiness is always more
or less linked to a kind of theologico-political paradigm. Utopia as a narrative on
the ideal society is a good illustration of this necessary conjunction of economic,
theological and political principles” (96). Johansson concurs that “branding also
intersects with utopia . . . in that a brand claims to offer the possibility of a supe-
rior alternative to that which already exists” (2012: 3615), but she also notes that
“the perfected world of utopia also implicitly harbours an unforgiving, darker
side where there is no room for ambiguities, contradictions or hybridity” (ibid.).
Johansson also links place branding to fiction, which has “the power to redescribe
reality” (ibid: 3613).
 Branding of identity politics in Cyprus 97
Marketers and brand-builders outside the realm of nation branding are equally
interested in storytelling as it places the messages of desire and promise within
an imaginary that can facilitate persuasion through strong identification mecha-
nisms, emotional stimulation and engagement, that ‘plot’ to deliver a feel-good
experience. According to Smith and Wintrob, narrative arc as a brand-building
tool “provides a framework within which multiple brand stories can co-exist, thus
translating an overall brand promise into the narrative form”. (2013: 37) The fol-
lowing section will illustrate how the above tactics, opinions and definitions relate
to the way identity politics in Cyprus have been predominantly redescribed on-
screen as narratives founded on omissions and the “myth of return” (Ashcroft,
2007: 422).

A historical and critical overview of identity branding

and utopian visions in Cypriot cinemas
According to Johansson “the aim of place branding is to present a sanitised, appeal-
ing image of a place, which inevitably means selecting particular elements to be
included in official messages while disregarding or erasing other elements” (2012:
3612). Johansson describes a practice that is evident in the way the cinema of the
Cyprus Problem (depending on who is narrating the place) treats the place and/or
how the year 1974 has transformed the place. Navaro Yashin writes that 1974 “is
not only a memory, a dream, an ideology, a nightmare or vision. It is inscribed all
over the materiality, physicality, texture, surface, and territory of Cyprus. It has
transformed the land (not just the landscape)” (2012: 10). She explains that the
1974 division was the culmination of practices geared towards division that

were well in place before 1974 . . . separate spheres of existence for Turkish
and Greek-Cypriots had already been implemented when the island was under
British sovereignty and administration (in the 1950s and until independence
in 1960) . . . conflict emerged between Turkish and Greek-Cypriot fighters on
the island between 1963 and 1974

a period of intercommunal violence that forced “Turkish Cypriots into ghetto-like

enclaves, separate from the Greek-Cypriot” (ibid.). While this is a very short sum-
mary of the events that led to the 1974 Greek military Junta-led coup and the sub-
sequent Turkish military offensive that sealed the division of Cyprus, it describes
a series of events that have been excluded from the official Greek-Cypriot nar-
rative. In the remainder of this section, I use examples of films10 that on the one
hand exemplify the understanding of place branding as described by Johansson
and on the other hand attempt to narrate or read an imaginary place from a single-
vision or mono-communal perspective. In the closing part of this chapter, I will
revisit the 1993 documentary Our Wall a collaboration between Greek-Cypriot
filmmaker Panicos Chrystanthou and Turkish-Cypriot political scientist Niyazi
Kizilyürek, which serves as an example of a double-perspective; in other words, a
filmic example that attempts to de-sanitise mono-communal perspectives through
98 Costas Constandinides
the ‘documentation’ and narration of experiences that have been omitted or ‘forgot-
ten’ by the two sides. The Nine O’Clock News in the Year 2030, is also the result of
a double-perspective; however, its “rationale draws on a discourse of a competitive,
globalized world where places are primarily constituted as settings for symbolic
consumption” (Johansson, 2012: 3612). It has been repeatedly underlined within
the context of critical perspectives on nation branding that neocolonialism is the
ideological/political phenomenon that lies at the foundation of the global market.
Current debates on the Cyprus problem focus on the financial cost of a possible
solution; it has been officially stated that economic entities outside Cyprus, namely
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, have recently took
over the task to study this possibility. Anti-austerity narratives are designed as alter-
natives to the economic measures imposed by economic entities such as IMF on
states that face financial problems, including Cyprus. Therefore, the vision proposed
by the The Nine O’Clock News in the Year 2030 is imbued with paradoxes that are
not immediately visible due to its apparent playfulness and reconciliatory context.

Pre-independence
Stubbs provides a well-researched overview of British Colonial films about
Cyprus, which were produced from 1929 to 1958 (2015). The overall position
of the author’s discussion is that Cyprus is ‘branded’ as a Colonial Utopia. Ash-
croft defines the colonial process as follows: “the land was conquered; its name
was changed; the indigenous inhabitants were ‘civilized’; what was previously
‘wasteland’ was cultivated; and the land was physically reconstructed” (2007:
415). According to Stubbs, “The island of Cyprus, which was ruled by Britain
between 1878 and 1960, was the subject of some 12 British films. The major-
ity were funded by various departments of the British Government” (2015: 1)
and “Cyprus is thus idealised as the successful product of enlightened British
imperial power and its people projected as compliant and productive colonial
subjects” (ibid.: 6). Stubbs focuses on Cyprus is an Island (Ralph Keene, 1946)
“which remains the most ambitious and widely seen of all British films made
on the island” (ibid.: 2). Indeed, the film was recently screened and discussed
in various fora such as Cyprus Film Days International Film Festival11 and the
Treasure Island project12 and it has been noted by commentators participating in
the discussion panels (including myself ) that it is an example of a colonial utopia
in that it also narrates the relationship between the British colonial administra-
tion and the ‘Cyprus people’ as a happy ‘partnership’, the result of “enlightened
British rule” (Stubbs, 2015: 14). Moreover, the British colonial Cyprus ‘brand’ is
carefully differentiated from other imperial powers that conquered Cyprus before
the British in true branding fashion: it is stated early in the film that ‘Cyprus now
is an island of the British Commonwealth, and these are her people’. The place
is imagined as a female entity (note the use of ‘her’), and after a prologue that
places the island within a historical context that has no record of the people of
this island, the documentary introduces its aim which is to voice (and document
through a modern medium) the hardships of the Cyprus people and how the British
 Branding of identity politics in Cyprus 99
colonial administration has alleviated them through “progress and modernisa-
tion” (Stubbs, 2015: 13). Vincent suggests that “one of the most useful ways
to think about your brand’s character is to compare it to a relevant narrative
archetype. Every culture has its archetypes: the Nurturing Mother figure; the
Commanding Father; the Innocent Youth; the Fool” (2012: 158). For Cypriot
film narratives or films narrating Cyprus, Aphrodite – and her many personas – is
evidently a popular source of inspiration. “Out of this sea rose the Grecian Aph-
rodite” are the first words of Cyprus is an Island, which complement its opening
shot and describe the landscape it frames, namely the ‘rock of Aphrodite’, also
known in Cyprus as the Greek goddess’s birthplace. It is not clear whether the
female personification of Cyprus in Cyprus is an Island refers to the Aphrodite
‘archetype’, but Given notes that “when the British took Cyprus in 1878, this was
illustrated by Punch as a courteous but still dominant Sir Garnet Wolseley, the
first High Commissioner, kissing the hand of Aphrodite, who stands for Cyprus”
(2002: 422). Given asserts that the marble statue of Aphrodite, from Soloi, 1st
century BC, is the logo of Cyprus (2002) as variations of the specific statue have
been associated with colonial conquest, (Greek-Cypriot) CTO’s branding, and
the statue itself is for Greek-Cypriots proof of the island’s Greekness. Moreover,
writings favoring colonial rule claimed that the worship of Aphrodite corrupted
the people of Cyprus. Therefore, they expected to be ruled by someone who could
tame their unruly ways (Given, 2002). Stubbs argues that British colonial films

avoided depicting Cypriot people either as partners in the administration of

their territory, or as politically modern citizens with aspirations to escape Brit-
ish rule. In this way, documentary representations of Cyprus kept resistance to
British power on the margins, even as British power itself began to decompose.
(2015: 13–14)

Post-independence and pre-1974

The first Cypriot-produced full-length fiction film is according to the existing
literature George Filis’ Love Affairs and Heartbreaks (1965). Filis’ was an inde-
pendent amateur filmmaker (state film policy was established in 1984), and he
made two fiction films (the second is The Last Kiss, 1970) that were seem-
ingly inspired by the popularity of the Greek Dramatic Idyll film genre. From
its very beginning, Greek-Cypriot cinema established close links with Greece,
which sometimes promoted an equally close national kinship between the Greek-
Cypriot community and Greece. For example, Ninos Fenek Mikelides, a dis-
tinguished Cypriot-born film reviewer and book writer living in Greece, is the
director of the short film Cyprus, Where it was Ordained for Me (1962), which
is cited in the existing literature as the first short Greek-Cypriot film produced
independently in Cyprus. The film is based on poetry by the Greek winner of the
Nobel Prize in Literature, George Seferis, published in his collection Imerologio
Katastromatos C (Logbook C, 1955), which was the creative response to the
poet’s first visit to Cyprus.
100 Costas Constandinides
Love Affairs and Heartbreaks exemplifies the ‘myth of return’ utopian model,
a “desire to cling onto a rural identity and its associated nostalgia as opposed
to urbanization and the development of beach resorts; romanticizing the past as
opposed to looking toward the future” (Stylianou-Lambert & Philippou, 2014: 61).
According to Stylianou-Lambert and Philippou

both films present a common Greek-Cypriot past set in the miniature world of
a traditional village. The emphasis is on the common way of life, language,
traditions, rituals, and religion which make up the imagined community of
Greek Cypriots. Alternative points of view, for example of the Turkish or
Armenian communities, are not presented.
(ibid.: 66)

Constandinides and Papadakis argue that the

dominant paradigm of Cypriot cinema is that of a politically ethnocentric

cinema, since the majority of Greek-Cypriot films tend to erase the internal
conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriots during the 1960s and employ a
strong Greek-Cypriot viewpoint focusing on 1974.
(2014b: 122)

Early Greek-Cypriot films were made during a period of intercommunal conflicts

between Greek and Turkish-Cypriots (1963–1974) and as the above commentators
observe the presence of other communities and the conflict was predominantly
kept outside the Greek-Cypriot-lensed on-screen space. Love Affairs and Heart-
breaks narrates a space that seems to exist outside the events that marked the
1960s. Documentaries such as Troubled Winds (Yiannis Ioannou, 1984), A Detail
in Cyprus (Panicos Chrysanthou, 1987) and Our Wall, were the first on-screen
attempts to challenge official narratives.

Post-1974
Before the establishment of state film policy in 1984, Greek-Cypriot director
Costas Demetriou made two films in the mid-1970s that were informed by anti-
Greek junta feelings. The first film, titled Hassanpoulia: The Avengers of Cyprus
(1974–75), is a loose film adaptation of the real-life criminal activities of three
Turkish-Cypriot brothers in late 19th-century Cyprus, also known as the Has-
sanpoulia gang. The film began production in 1974 and was interrupted by the
Greek militaty junta-led coup against Makarios’ government. Shooting resumed
in Greece and members of the Greek crew urged Demetriou to add sex numbers
in the film. The Greek film industry was going through its erotic cinema phase
during that period, which has been read by film historians (e.g., Karalis, 2012) as
an act of resistance against the dictatorship of the Greek colonels, also known as
Greek Junta (1967–1974). Therefore, the sexual numbers in Hassanpoulia may be
interpreted as a sociopolitical commentary against forms of repression, which were
 Branding of identity politics in Cyprus 101
prevalent at that time. Even though, Cyprus is represented as an unlawful space,
the film promises through its “sex and violence” theme a viewing experience that
will free the audience from the sexual mores of its time. The director claims that an
increase in birth rate followed the film’s release in Cyprus in 1975, and one of the
film’s punchlines is ‘the film that increased the birth rate in Cyprus’. Demetriou’s
treatment of sexual activity and female sexual agency outside marriage in a pre-
modern rural Cyprus may also be seen as a response to Filis’ village idylls, where
the traditional Cypriot wedding is a recurring visual spectacle. For example, the
black and white Love Affairs and Heartbreaks turns to color when one of the male
characters dreams of his wedding day in what I tend to refer to as Cypriot cinema’s
Wizard of Oz moment. Demetriou’s second film of the same period is Order to Kill
Makarios (1975), which focuses on the 1974 events that led to the Turkish military
offensive on the 20th of July. In an attempt to enhance the political legitimacy of
the film’s narrative, Demetriou includes an appearance by Archbishop Makarios,
the first president of the Republic of Cyprus and highly influential religious-
political ‘diplomatic celebrity’ (Constantinou & Tselepou, 2017), who performs a
pre-coup version of himself being interviewed by a Greek journalist.
As it has already been mentioned The Rape of Aphrodite is one of the first
films funded by the Republic of Cyprus, released in 1985. The film belongs to
one of the broader categories of the cinemas of the Cyprus Problem suggested
by Constandinides and Papadakis, which refers to the Greek-Cypriot experi-
ence of 1974, the other one being inclusive of both the Greek and Turkish-
Cypriot experience (2014b). The director, Andreas Pantzis, names all his young
female characters Aphrodite. The female body is a missing person, physically
and psychologically scarred and stigmatised, and even though the film raises
awareness about the marginalisation of women, who were sexually abused in
1974, the allegorical treatment of these stories reduces the female experience
into a reaffirmation of the female body as a site of Greek-Cypriot ethnocen-
tric imaginary (Kamenou, 2014). In other words, the female body functions
as a metonymy of a collective Greek-Cypriot experience that has been the
victim of external and internal conflict. The main male character of the film,
Evagoras, stands for a heroic and unpolluted pre-1974 Greek-Cypriot national
vision communicated through his recollections of the “pure” EOKA (National
Organization of Greek Fighters) uprising against the British Colonial rule from
1955 to 1959 striving for union with Greece as opposed to a contaminated
form of nationalism expressed through the film’s negative representation of the
members of the EOKA B; a group of hardline nationalists, who did not abandon
the unification with Greece cause after the island became an independent repub-
lic in 1960, and were later aided by the Greek Junta to launch a coup against
Makarios. Evagoras’ symbolic suicide attack in the end of the film calls for a
form of resistance that is generated by the director’s desire to return to a superior
imaginary. Other Greek-Cypriot films that belong to the same broad category
as The Rape of Aphrodite do not share the same desire, yet, in their attempt to
offer a more inclusive representation of identity politics, they tend to empha-
sise a past “of peaceful co-existence” between Greek and Turkish-Cypriots.
102 Costas Constandinides
However, this past is not shared by the official narrative of Turkish-Cypriots,
who refer to the past as one “of conflict and oppression by the Greek Cypri-
ots” in order to legitimise the Turkish-Cypriot claim that the two communities
should remain apart (Constandinides & Papadakis, 2014a).
The fiction films Akamas (Chrysanthou, 2006) and Mud (Zaim, 2003) are exam-
ples of the second broad category of the cinemas of the Cyprus Problem as they
express a vision of reconciliation (ibid.). Akamas, is Chrysanthou’s third collabora-
tion with Turkish-Cypriot Dervish Zaim; the two filmmakers co-directed the docu-
mentary Parallel Trips (2004), Chrysanthou is credited as a co-producer in Zaim’s
Mud, and Zaim is credited as a co-producer in Chrysanthou’s Akamas. Chrysanthou’s
collaboration with Turkish-Cypriots began with the documentary Our Wall, which,
according to Constandinides and Papadakis, is a “bold critique of both sides’ official
policies of only presenting the pain of their own community and silencing the oth-
ers” (2014b: 132). Both Akamas and Mud place their key characters in locations that
can be read as utopian-like. They function as in-between spaces that symbolise the
possibility of co-existence. The leading female character in Akamas, Greek-Cypriot
Rodou (short for Aphrodite) and the leading male character, Turkish-Cypriot Omeris,
fall in love in what could also be seen as a transposition of the Romeo and Juliet
archetype in the Cyprus political setting. According to Chrysanthou “they become
a symbol against fanaticism and bigotry. They refuse to belong to one or the other
side. For them homeland is not something abstract. It is their land” (2011: 48). Their
decision not to choose sides is a rejection of the new promise that Chrysanthou
describes as “superior to people”, that is, the imagined ethnocentric narratives of the
time (ibid.: 49). Akamas, is the peninsula in the northwest of Cyprus, but in the spe-
cific film, it is symbolically treated as an untainted space, an in-between utopia that
functions as an alternative to dominant identity politics. Mud’s in-between space is a
location described in the film as the mudflats. One of the main characters of the film,
Turkish-Cypriot Ali, who is unable to speak and about to complete his military ser-
vice in north Cyprus, is stationed at a Turkish military base located in this in-between
space, which essentially lies under the mudflats and is discovered by Ali through a
well. Ancient statues are buried under the mudflats; but Temel, Ali’s future brother-
in-law, confesses in a video diary recording that the bodies of Greek-Cypriots, who
were killed by a small group of Turkish-Cypriots that Temel was part of, are also
buried there. Even though this in-between space cannot be described along the lines
of a perfect space, it still functions as an example of Ashcroft’s utopianism as it is
a symbolic “gesture toward a resolution of utopian contradictions dialogically”
(2009: 8). The arrangement of abstract ‘objects’ in Zaim’s film is open to interpre-
tation, but this space expresses a political position which calls for the unearthing,
in other words the voicing, of each community’s acts of violence as a healing and
peace-building tool (Constandinides & Papadakis, 2014b).
In my opinion, the most interesting filmic (non-perfect) utopia that offers an
alternative to dominant representations of identity politics is not a place that exists
in Cyprus or has been invented for the purposes of a filmic narrative to appear
as a Cypriot location. This on-screen space is the London based fish and chips
shop in Elias Demetriou’s fiction film Fish n’ Chips (2011). The film hints at the
 Branding of identity politics in Cyprus 103
impossibility of identity building founded on ethnic or national aspirations within
the small world of the fish and chips shop. The shop is owned by a Turkish-Cypriot
and managed by a Greek-Cypriot immigrant, who eventually accepts the fact that
the first is his biological father, as he was raised by his Greek-Cypriot mother
believing that he is the son of a Greek-Cypriot who was killed in the events of
1974 (possibly to avoid stigmatisation for the family by London’s Greek-Cypriot
community). The film ends with the homecoming of the son to London after his
failure to realise his dream to return to his fatherland, Cyprus; and the news that
his German girlfriend is having their baby. The director of Fish n’ Chips wittily
stated in an interview he gave to Flix that a group of “little bastards” made the
film, referring to the dual citizenship or ethnic origin of the crew members and how
this also relates to the identity branding experiences of the characters in the story.
Cypriot cinema is not well known as a category or experience to the majority of
the island’s population, and is thus a good example of Higson’s (1989) observation
that international cinemas, Hollywood in particular, are more naturalised parts of
national cultures than is the domestic product itself. The lack of local financial and
know-how resources inevitably leads to poor marketing campaigns internally and
externally, hence, the mobility and visibility of Cypriot films is limited. However,
I have used the above film elsewhere (2014) as a metaphor of the pluralities that
describe almost all Cypriot films, which are, on another level, mainly products
of cinematic transnationalisms (affinitive, epiphanic, sometimes cosmopolitan or
even opportunistic, [Hjort, 2010]); the majority of Cypriot films regardless of their
representation of identity politics are co-productions and often labeled as prod-
ucts of other national cinemas, namely Greek and Turkish cinema. For example,
most Greek-Cypriot films are co-produced by Greek funding bodies and are often
circulated as Greek productions. Fish n’ Chips was co-produced with the Greek
Film Center, won the Best “First Time” Director Award and was nominated for
the Best Greek Film Award presented by the Hellenic Film Academy Awards. The
curator of the “Focus on Cyprus 2012” exhibition that was hosted by the BOZAR
Center of Fine Arts in Brussels included the Greek film Knifer (2010) directed by
Cypriot-born Yiannis Economides in the screenings program of the exhibition. The
film does not focus on Cyprus, but was co-produced by the Ministry of Education
and Culture of the Republic of Cyprus. The above examples illustrate that the term
national cinema refers to a complex structure – no longer specific to the promotion
of dominant national ideologies, but one that acknowledges other key processes
specific to supra-national and regional or affinitive arrangements – that implies a
flexibility (also fostered by the European Union policies) able to meet the demands
of European and Global markets.

Living in the ‘dead zone’

The Nine O’Clock News in 2030 is a bilingual (Greek and Turkish with English
subtitles) short mockumentary that imagines a Cyprus which enjoys the economic
gains of the island’s reunification. The imagined prosperity of the island is pre-
sented through the TV news format by a Greek-Cypriot female presenter, portrayed
104 Costas Constandinides
by Greek-Cypriot actress Varvara Larmou and a Turkish-Cypriot male presenter
portrayed by Turkish-Cypriot actor Osman Alkaş. The mockumentary premiered
at Chateau Status, a recently renovated space located next to the Greek-Cypriot
Ledra Palace check point, within the UN administered buffer zone. The venue
was founded by Executive Chef Phokionas Hadjiioannou, and the visitor of the
about section on the official website of the page is informed that Chateau Status
“is his family’s home built in the old Venetian walls of Nicosia and it has been for
several years the meeting point of nations, cultures, civilizations and religions”.
The about section exemplifies the understanding of brands as utopian narratives
since potential customers visiting the website learn that “Chateau is a French
word and it stands for palace, old mansion, and castle. Status reflects the welfare
and social status of the people that lived in it”. The name stands for the values
of the venue which promise a commitment to superior services and a “feeling of
happiness”. Chateau Status tells a story that combines all three brand messages
(Vincent, 2012): It draws attention to itself as a space that is doubly walled
(within the old Venetian walls of Nicosia and the ‘dead zone’), it wishes to
educate through the explanation of the venue’s name and history, and it wishes
to persuade potential customers to visit it through promise and desire messages.
It is possible for both Greek and Turkish-Cypriots to enjoy the Chateau Status
experience as in 2003 the check points dividing the two sides were partially
opened. According to Davis

the decade since the opening of the checkpoints in 2003 has seen a rapid
growth in the production and consumption of documentary films by Cypriots
in Cyprus . . . the revivification of the “dead zone” at the center of divided
Nicosia, have fostered the development of an anti-nationalist, multi-communal
culture.
(2014: 34)

Davis describes the space within and the around the Ledra Palace buffer zone
as “a new common space for Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots, as well as
other Cypriots and expatriates, to participate together in political and cultural
events” (ibid.). The author notes that the majority of documentaries being made
that express visions of reconciliation are being screened in spaces located in
the Ledra Palace ‘dead zone’, which she describes as an “emergent political
space” (ibid.).
Another space, located within the Ledra Palace ‘dead zone’ vicinity and was
recently renovated is Home for Cooperation (H4C). Its mission is to contribute
“to the collective efforts of civil society in their engagement with peacebuilding
and intercultural dialogue. Using its sources, it encourages people to cooperate
with each other beyond constraints and dividing lines” (official website). The spa-
tial dynamics of the mockumentary’s screening space evidently contest dominant
narratives, yet the mockumentary itself does not activate a dialogue that squarely
addresses the complexities involved in the process of realising its vision and fast
forwards to a brand-like message that mainly draws attention to itself.
 Branding of identity politics in Cyprus 105
The mockumentary starts with the presentation of the main headlines, which
include the opening of ‘The Annual Cyprus Global Competitiveness Forum’, the
announcement of a new tourism package by ‘Cyprus Jet’ and the new sponsor,
‘Island Shipping’, of the football team ‘Nicosia United’. The mockumentary also
imagines a future, where Cypriot women hold power positions. For example, the
president of Cyprus and ‘Island Shipping’s’ CEO are women. ‘Cyprus Jet’ intro-
duces a new tourist product, ‘the three-countries cultural tourism holiday’ with
the brandmark ‘Aphrodite’s Island, the Bridge between the Cultures’ and invents
a new term (at least to my knowledge) ‘Greco-Turkish’ culture in an attempt to
replace ideologically loaded readings of historic sites with terms that render the
three countries as spaces that are written by a multi-cultural past.
The main reason I revisit Our Wall, even though it has been discussed at
length by Papadakis (2000) and Percopo (2011), is because it has been described
as a departure point (first filmic collaboration between a Greek-Cypriot and a
Turkish-Cypriot) under the broad category of on-screen visions of reconciliation.
If we consider Our Wall as a departure point and The Nine O’Clock News in
2030 as one of the most recent points under the same category, then there is a
gap between them. And I am not referring to the latter’s non-cinematic pedigree.
Cypriot cinema needs films that revisit identity branding in a way that does not
simply aim to voice the experience of the other community through narrative
arrangements that have themselves become part of a commonplace visual treat-
ment of the Cyprus Problem. While films like Fish n’ Chips and Kalabush (Adonis
Florides and Theodoros Nicolaides) do have moments that may respond to the
above lack of there aren’t many examples of films and documentaries that launch
a critique of identity branding from a radically different perspective – as Our Wall
did back in 1993. A perspective that remains within the imaginative and performa-
tive possibilities of the here and the now, but may also work as a “self-conscious,
ironic or self-mocking display of clichés and prejudices” (Elsaesser, 2005: 61);
or voice the experiences of underrepresented communities in Cyprus such as the
documentaries The Third Motherland (Costas M. Constantinou & Giorgos Kykkou
Skordis, 2011) and Evaporating Borders (Iva Radivojevic, 2014), two of the few
documentaries that may be described a minority of Cypriot cinemas.
Smuggling Hendrix (Piperides, 2015) is a film in the making – the script has
already been published – which carries the potential to partly fill in the aforemen-
tioned gap. The story is set in 2016, and the main character is Greek-Cypriot Yian-
nis, who is in his early 40s and used to be a member of a rock group in the 1980s.
Yiannis lives in an apartment located in the old city of Nicosia near the ‘dead
zone’. His plan is to leave Cyprus and lays low for a few days as he owes money
to mobsters. Everything goes wrong when Jimmy, his dog, runs away and crosses
to northern Cyprus. Yiannis finds Jimmy, but he is informed by a Greek-Cypriot
police officer stationed at the Greek-Cypriot check point that a European law pro-
hibits the crossing of animals from the north to the Republic of Cyprus. Yiannis is
stuck in northern Cyprus trying to find a way to smuggle Jimmy. Piperides’ aim is
to cast an ironic glance at the Cyprus Problem through the eyes of a character who
lacks conventional heroic qualities and describes Cyprus as a ‘shit hole’ as well as
106 Costas Constandinides
through the comic, yet highly symbolic, ‘bad-boy’ behavior of Jimmy the dog. The
parodic elements of the specific narrative are certainly closer to a transgressive/
transformative reading of the Cyprus Problem than the deliberate exaggerations
of The Nine O’Clock News in 2030, which I describe above as ‘a parody of hope’.
The latter forms a narrative where the past and the future do not speak to each
other in the present (Ashcroft, 2009). Inspired by Ernst Bloch, Ashcroft notes that
in a utopianism devoid of utopias “memory is not about recovering a past that was
present but about the production of possibility” (2009: 9). In The Nine O’Clock
News in 2030 the past is treated as something that only a few seem to remember;
when a young Turkish-Cypriot entrepreneur is asked how difficult it was for a
bi-communal company (co-founded by his father) to survive in a divided Cyprus,
he semi-jokingly replies that this was a bit before his time. In another news story
children are shown participating in a re-forestation campaign happening in a land,
where the ‘dead zone’ used to be ‘as some of us remember’, adds the News pre-
senter; the teacher accompanying the children uses a holographic device to show
them how the territory will look like in twenty years, but not what it was or meant
in the past. Ashcroft adds that “utopianism cannot exist without the operation of
memory” unlike ‘achieved’ and fictional utopias/dystopias (and notes the very thin
line between Utopias and Dystopias) where memory as a possibility for energising
the present is repressed (2009: 9).
Percopo (2009) has already discussed Our Wall as an example of utopianism
using Ashcroft’s utopia vs. utopianism as a theoretical model. Our Wall expresses
its reconciliatory vision amidst destruction and ruins, and therefore at first glance
the locations of the documentary are far away from being described as utopic. It
is the way memory operates in the film that invites the possibility of reading it
through the lens of post-colonial utopianism as understood by Ashcroft. Utopia-
nism, however, does not lie only in the voicing of the experience of the other, but
also lies in the film’s poetic rewriting of landscapes and nature, a dimension that
Panicos Chrysanthou reactivates in his fiction film Akamas in a less powerful way
as the story of the latter project is told through a conventional three-act narrative
that inevitably guides the viewers’ emotional responses. Akamas is loosely based
on Hasan Mustafa and Charalambia, who also appear as key characters in Our
Wall. Hasan, a Muslim, and Charalambia, a Christian, married against their com-
munities’ wishes in the early 1960s and lived in the village of Androlykou, which
became their internal exile. The way Our Wall frames the couple’s otherwise ruin-
ous and natural surroundings contains a utopianism that the documentary hopes to
invigorate. This is what Chrysanthou hoped to achieve in Akamas: “nature has a
protagonist role in this film. Because our heroes are creatures of the land, who live
and depend totally from it, they constitute in fact a piece of nature and automati-
cally adopt its rhythms and explosions” (Chrysanthou, 2011: 50). Even though this
is Chrysanthou’s analysis of the nature in the film Akamas, it is also a description
that reflects the treatment of landscapes in Our Wall.
The documentary’s beginning is similar to the beginning of Cyprus is an Island.
Both frame the familiar landscape of ‘The Rock of Aphrodite’ as an opening shot.
Our Wall may then be read as a response to Cyprus is an Island’s attempt to tell
 Branding of identity politics in Cyprus 107
the story of Cypriots in that Our Wall aims to tell the story of the island’s people
in a manner that is autobiographical and deeply personal and not an outsider’s
account. Panicos Chrysanthou, the co-creator, appears in the 6th shot of the film
lying on a bed, daydreaming and looking out the window; it is apparent that
the voice-over that begins in the 5th shot is a projection of his poetic stream of
consciousness. The following shot is a low angle point of view shot framing the
window of the room. Chrysanthou is gazing at a cloudscape time-lapse, which
enhances the poetic mood of the opening shots as it is a window or a door to a
place that is not bound by the constraints of the here and the now, that is why
his thoughts embark on the journey of the cloudscape without being repressed
by the logic of division which is visually and verbally described in the remain-
der of the documentary. As Chrysanthou walks towards the Ledra Palace check
point to meet Niyazi Kizilyürek, the mise-en-scene of each shot is filled with
the markers of division: guard posts, barbwires, UN soldiers and barriers. The
filmmakers choose to frame themselves amidst a space that, even though, is a
constant reminder of division, it also emerges as a possibility of hope as this is
the departure point of the documentary’s transformative action. The area within
and around the Ledra Palace hotel, where Chrysanthou and Kizilyürek meet is
the same ‘dead zone’ that now hosts the activities described above and discussed
at length by Davis (2014). These processes of imagining (Ashcroft, 2007) have
transformed the Ledra Palace ‘dead zone’ into a space, which is now a constant
reminder of the production of new possibilities in the present.

Notes
1 Declared by the United Nations (UN) as the International Day of Peace.
2 You can view the entire video available here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbrk1i4xXBI
[Accessed 12 February 2016].
3 The official website of the venue: www.chateaustatus.com/ [Accessed 12 February
2016].
4 See history of Home for Cooperation (www.home4cooperation.info/history-of-the-h4c),
which officially opened in 2011, and was the initiative of the intercommunal Cyprus
based Association for Historical Dialogue and Research, www.ahdr.info/home.php
[Accessed 12 February 2016].
5 The mockumentary is a product of the “Economic Interdependence” project, which
is a “UNDP-ACT funded project implemented by the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce
& Industry and the Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Commerce”. See: www.cpnnet.net/
about-us
6 See relevant article: www.filmneweurope.com/news/cyprus-news/item/110471-cypriot-
cinema-in-cannes-2015 [Accessed 12 February 2016].
7 After all the logo of the project, a cup of Cyprus (aka as Greek or Turkish) coffee that
has two handles, one on the left and one on the right side, with an outline of the map of
Cyprus as a stamp metaphorically stands for dialogue.
8 PIO’s mission: www.moi.gov.cy/moi/pio/pio.nsf/mission_en/mission_en?OpenDocument
9 www.visitcyprus.com/wps/portal [Accessed 12 February 2016].
10 For a more detailed discussion of Cypriot films and identity politics, see: Constan-
dinides, C. & Papadakis, Y. (2014). Tormenting History: The Cinemas of the Cyprus
Problem. In: Constandinides, C. & Papadakis, Y. (eds.). Cypriot Cinemas: Memory,
Conflict and Identity in the Margins of Europe. New York: Bloomsbury, 117–150.
108 Costas Constandinides
11 Cyprus Film Days IFF official website: http://cyprusfilmdays.com/index.php/archive/
cyprus-film-days-2012/exhibition [Accessed 12 February 2016].
12 The Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre/”Treasure Island” exhibition project http://nimac.
org.cy/archives/81 [Accessed 12 February 2016].

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6 Tango Argentino as
nation brand
Rita Rieger

Introduction
The aim of this paper is to illustrate how Tango Argentino and its associated emo-
tions and attitudes, such as passion, self-confidence and perseverance, function as
nation brand after the ‘corralito’. Apart from the well-known importance of Tango
Argentino for the cultural image of Buenos Aires, tango is also considered as part
of a specific cultural and identity symbol for the Rio-de-la-Plata region or for the
whole Argentinian nation. Hence, within a global context tango figures as one
identification mark for argentinidad. The brand sells since it characterises tango
as unconventional, transcultural, historically informed and therefore political, self-
reflective and emotional, as will be shown.
From an economic perspective, it is assumed that via commercial branding
techniques of tango the nation tried to restabilise social life in Argentina and to
restore trust in the international market after the state bankruptcy in 2001/02.
Tango Argentino can be considered as a prime example for nation-branding strate-
gies that are found in situations of crisis for several reasons: As an art form, it is a
hybrid combination of music, dance and text. Tango discourse includes a variety
of inconsistent narratives which aim to foster the imagination of authenticity and
thus cultural identity. Considering Simon Anholts nation brand hexagon which
names the sectors of “tourism”, “exports”, “governance”, “investment and immi-
gration”, “culture and heritage” as well as “people”, this paper will outline how
Tango Argentino discourse refers to most of these required elements and therefore
appears as an efficient self-reflective nation brand.1
As will be shown in detail, one of the key elements of Tango Argentino discourse
is the historically proven Argentinian capacity to overcome difficult economic situ-
ations through unconventional behavior. The second element is the establishment
of an imagined atmosphere of tolerance within a multi-ethnic culture where the
poor and the rich enjoy the same music and dance. The latter attributes might be
more important in terms of national cultural identity, whereas the inclusion of suc-
cessful coping strategies of the past which narrate the surmounting of economic,
demographic and individual obstacles in tango discourse bridge the contemporary
society and Argentinian roles on the international market situation. To show how
these discourse elements are interwoven, two recent documentary productions
112 Rita Rieger
serve as examples: The Argentine-German production, 12 Tangos – Adios Buenos
Aires (Birkenstock, 2005), and the German-Argentine-Finnish production, Mid-
summer Night’s Tango (Blumenschein, 2013).

Tango as cultural image of Argentina

Corresponding the theme of this volume – nation, place and product branding –
this article considers Tango Argentino as a nation brand. Although Simon Anholt
argues that a nation, region or place cannot be branded, they are perceived in the
global market via their image (see Anholt, 2008). This image transports cultural
expressions and practices which offer identity-facilities to the consumer, as Doug-
las Holt explains:

Cultural expressions serve as compass points, organizing how we understand

the world and our place in it, what is meaningful, what is moral, what is
human, what is inhuman, what we should strive for, and what we should
despise. And cultural expressions serve as linchpins of identity: they are the
foundational materials for belonging, recognition, and status.
(Holt & Cameron, 2012: 173)

Among the different cultural expressions of Argentinian culture, this paper concen-
trates on the perceptible elements of the brand, the narratives of a mysterious origin
and the emotions transported via the brand. All three of them serve as means to char-
acterise the tango through its unconventionality, transculturality, references to national
history, self-reflectiveness and certain emotions as successful nation branding.

Visual characteristics of Tango Argentino

Even if the ‘typical’ tango orchestra’s outfit for male musicians is dark suits
with lacquered hair, the most relevant visual impressions for Tango Argentino
community participants are particularly related to the dance (see Elsner, 2000).
Observing the dancers at Milongas enables one to differentiate the nonverbal
expressed hierarchy of the dancing community via the dress-code and their
partner-changing dancing practices. Fashionable leather dancing shoes, women
in black or red close-fitting dresses or skirts, fish-net stockings and high-heels
and dancing in intimate embrace with men dressed in light or dark colored suits
express a certain image of femininity and masculinity, which is commonly
associated with Tango Argentino. Aside from the binary male/female, the terms
leader/follower, head/belly and presence/absence construct the discourse on
dancing practices and allow to separate the insider from the outsider (see Villa,
2006: 212). Not to forget the emotions which nourish the identity-building-myth
and serve as identification point staging the belonging, recognition and status in
a specific social community.
The emotional benefits of Tango Argentino as dance include the promise
of accessibility to a non-conformist community, where the national origins,
 Tango Argentino as nation brand 113
the belonging to a social class and even specific knowledge are not relevant.
Many instructors catch beginners with the words: Tango Argentino is no more
than walking. Thus, to attract beginners, Tango Argentino reduces its move-
ment complexity in a way so that the non-elite can easily follow it. At the same
time, professional tango performances show highly artistic choreographies.
Vice versa, the cultural branding strategy also includes the multiplication of
complexities, such as the ‘tango-language’. ‘Tango-language’ does not only
refer to lunfardo – the argot reproduced in songs and novels – but also to the
Hispanising of the discourse in European tango lessons. Even if many European
dancers do not master Spanish, they learn the discourse specific terms, since
the instructors use them in tango lessons. Instructors use the term ‘cabeceo’
instead of ‘nod’ to speak of the corresponding gesture to invite somebody to
dance. Different movement patterns are transmitted via the Spanish language
like ‘paso’ (step) and ‘giro’ (turn) for the simple moves up to more complex
figures like ‘ocho’, ‘quebrada’ or ‘boleo’. The dancers refer to themselves as
‘tanguero’/’tanguera’ or ‘milongero’/’milongera’ and the dancing festivals also
may have Spanish titles.
Other cultural codes which are part of the branding strategies are the plain
design of the dancing halls combined with dimmed light, the search for untypical
places to dance, the open-air Milongas which support the dancing on the streets
and which are meant to evoke unconventionality.
Unconventionality is supposed to be one of the core attributes of the tango
brand. Nowadays, this also means deconstructing cultural icons and breaking the
codes: dancers experiment with the clothing and with the shoes, the traditional
gender-constellations of the dancing couples are broken and their related role mod-
els of leader and follower are twisted. Also, in literature and in cinema, the myth
is continued by its deconstruction. The Argentine author, Horacio Vázquez-Rial,
for instance, discusses in his novel Las dos muertes de Gardel (2001) the origins
of tango through a rewriting of Carlos Gardel’s biography, contrasting a European
and Argentine version with a Uruguayan version of the icon.
Protagonists of the Golden Age (1920–1955) and the music revolution of the
1960s are known as the first cultural icons. Among them, the interpreter and
actor Carlos Gardel; the composer and renowned interpreter Hugo del Carril; the
pianist, composer and band leader, who is still widely appreciated today, Osvaldo
Pugliese; the great bandoneon player and composer, Aníbal Troilo (El Gordo);
and the revolutionist Astor Piazzolla represent the so-called authentic tango.2
Their biographies often serve as a confirmation, since each of them embodies
the myth of the immigrant who lived his childhood in the arrabal, and finally
realised the American Dream and became famous world-wide. Even if some
parts of the tango dancing community consider the songs of Carlos Gardel as
impossible to dance, or the music of Astor Piazzolla limited to Tango Nuevo
dance, and consequently not danceable in a crowded Milonga, their music is
played at Milongas in Europe, their photos serve as an advertisement or orna-
ment in the room. Milonga décor and their importance is commonly discussed
by the community.
114 Rita Rieger
A mysterious entrance – historical references
as branding elements of tango
Although pre-tango influences can already be found in the 16th century, the brand
mainly emphasises the nebulous origins of tango and revives narratives concern-
ing the origins of the music and dance as a social product of the immigrants at the
end of the 19th century.3 Whereas tango themes derived from the folk songs of
the gauchos (Milongas) and the Andalusian tango (see Nielsen & Mariotto, 2006:
13), the dance movements originated from the Black Atlantic dances Candombe
and Habanera. The origin of the word ‘tango’ is unclear. Some linguists link the
word to the Latin verb tangere (to touch) or to tan as sound-reference to the drums
in black music. Other researchers date its first appearance at the beginning of the
19th century and related it to the slave markets in Buenos Aires and Montevi-
deo. It not only denominated the places where Afro-Americans performed their
dances to collect money to free the slaves, but the performances also symbolised
as an expression of self-respect and freedom for the ‘lost people’ of Argentina: the
gauchos, blacks, Indians, and mixed-race. The music and songs illustrated their
everyday joys, sorrows and dreams, violence and their hardworking lives (see
Nielsen & Mariotto, 2006: 13).
Hence, the second key elements of tango discourse are its inter- and transcul-
turality combined with translation processes both in the spatial meaning, and in
the transfer to another culture.4 Tango represents a cultural encounter of different
people, immigrant and native, powerful and powerless, or to put it in Savigliano’s
words: “like the matching of pieces or mating of species that do not fit but will
stick together” (Savigliano, 1995: xv).
Tango music, in particular, still serves as a symbol for interculturality and trans-
cultural communication. Narratives refer to its instrumental compositions: The
‘orchestra’ consists of an Italian violin, a German bandoneon and a voice that
performs the lyrics written in Arab Hispanic octo-syllable (see Ferrer, 1995: 14).
With its export to the global market in the first decades of the 20th century, tango
was appreciated worldwide and further developed. Tango Argentino transformed
the landscapes of music and dance not only in France and Germany, but also in
Finland and Japan. In addition, it has built transcultural ramifications in Italy,
Slovenia, Serbia, Catalonia, United States or Québec.5
Among these developments of the tango, the Finnish Tango stands out because,
apart from La Cumparsita and Volver, the Finnish community produces and pre-
fers Finnish tangos. In the period of this break-through, the most prolific Finnish
composers were Toivo Kärki, Unto Mononen and M.A. Numminen. This process
of adapting Argentinian cultural elements to Finnish cultural elements symbolises
a successful transcultural communication and the working of the brand within
the course of identity building. Pelinski speaks of tango nomad, describing the
autoreferential and the auto-differential characteristics of tango: Compared with
an intercultural dialogue between the tango porteño and for example, the Finnish
tango, the Argentine tango marginalises its differences, it removes its borders, and
thus, it nomadises its center (see Pelinski, 1995: 31). Consequently, Argentine is
 Tango Argentino as nation brand 115
reduced to an attribute of a cultural brand that shares some common aspects with
the Finnish Tango. The documentary, Midsummer Night’s Tango, illustrates how
tango works as a brand, and which elements out of tango discourse are taken to
promote the narratives of an unknown origin.

Midsummer Night’s Tango (2013)

The mythical origins of Tango Argentino in the humorous music-documentary
Midsummer Night’s Tango is the main attraction. In the first two and a half minutes
of the documentary, Aki Kaurismäki narrates the birth and globalisation process of
the tango, introducing the Finnish point of view, and thus providing and challeng-
ing the common discourse. The following transcription shows this unusual story,
which is provided by the narrator:

There is lots of misunderstanding of the origins of tango. Even Uruguay says

it’s from Uruguay and Argentina says from Argentina but in fact it’s from
eastern boarder of Finland which is nowadays part of Russia.
And the shepherds which were with the cattle in the forests had start to sing
tango originally to keep the wolves away from the cattle . . .
And also, because they were lonely. And slowly people started to dance
tango in the dance halls by the lakes. This all started in 1850. And by 1880 it
came to west coast of Finland and the sailors took it to Buenos Aires and they
were singing in the boats and the locals heard it from the sailor’s bars and
suddenly it became popular also in Argentina.
I’m not angry, but a little . . . I could say, I’m a bit angry because the Argen-
tinians . . . because the beats originally came through Uruguay to Argentina. It
was earlier in Uruguay than in Buenos Aires. They easily forget the part of . . .
Uruguay has developed the dance. And they also have forgotten the Finnish
part of . . . because it was born here. Since we are quite modest and we are
used being . . . in the writes of history nobody ever mentions our part, because
we also developed waltz which the Austrians had stolen, but that was earlier.
[0:00:01–0:02:33]

Interestingly Kaurismäki’s elaborations on the historical roots of tango progress

through analogies to the Argentinian version and relate them to the romantic
discourse of argentinidad as well as to tango discourses of the 20th century. A
glimpse into the music history reveals the rebellious self-understanding of tango,
and its position against official policy even within the nation-building process of
the 19th century. Whereas Argentinian cultural nationalists like Ricardo Roja or
Manuel Gálvez supported a concept of argentinidad that localised the essence of
the Argentinian culture in the countryside, tango first appeared as a cosmopolitan
subculture of Buenos Aires. The right-wing ideas of the nationalists characterised
the city as the visible Argentina which was “believed to be false, cosmopolitan and
superficial”, whereas the invisible Argentina of the countryside symbolised “the
authentic ser nacional, a collective personality or autochthonous national culture
116 Rita Rieger
rooted in the Hispanic past and shaped, in some versions, by the experience of
the Argentine pampa” (Delaney & Delaney, 2002: 657). Its icon was the gaucho,
to which Kaurismäki alludes to with the words ‘the shepherds inventing tango’.
Whereas in the 19th century the idealistic aspects should foster the nation-building
and the expansion of the state’s authority (see Delaney & Delaney, 2002: 640),
it is to assume that from the 20th century onwards, the national branding strate-
gies instead referred to the variety of different cultures shaping Buenos Aires as
adequate to promote national identity. In this context, ‘a dangerous live’ or ‘the
loneliness’ could be read as an analogy to characterise the lives of immigrants in
the suburbs of Buenos Aires with their high rates of criminality. The allusion to
the uncertain national territory (Finland/Russia) instead corresponds to the birth
of the Argentinian Tango in the Rio-de-la-Plata region combined with the fear of
losing something that is considered one’s own property.
Except for this humorous introduction, the whole documentary consists in the
meeting between Argentinian and Finnish musicians in Finland. The Argentine
musicians consist of the auto didactical singer Walter ‘Chino’ Laborde and the
guitarist Diego ‘Dipi’ Kvitko, as well as of the professional bandoneon player
Pablo Greco. The constellation of the musicians already indicates their different
social affiliation, and their surnames serve as symbols for Argentinian intercultur-
ality. During their journey, they meet with the famous composer M.A. Numminen
and Riku Nieme, as well as with the interpreters Sanna Pietiäinen and Reijo Tai-
pale. From this moment on, the transmitted atmosphere is one of openness and
transcultural dialogue. That can be seen not only in the soundtrack composed of
Argentine and Finnish tangos but also in situations like ‘Chino’ learning from
Sanna the Finnish version of La Cumparsita, the specialised dialogue between
Pablo Greco and Riku Nieme about the importance of silence for music and the
discussion within the Argentinian musicians about whether the Finnish Tango is
a cultural and/or an aesthetic variation of Tango Argentino. The whole journey of
the Argentinian musicians in a shabby car through the Finnish plains and woods
as well as their acquaintance with their Finnish colleagues represent unconven-
tional approaches. Whereas Midsummer Night’s Tango deconstructs, re-writes and
continues the mythical origin of tango, the documentary 12 Tango – Adios Buenos
Aires builds the cultural image through a focus on migration.

Inter- and transculturality as

the brand’s characteristics
Tango Argentino discourse appears quite opposite to the ideals of some collective
‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ free from any foreign influences. On the contrary, as it was bound
to the stimuli of music and dances of different cultural origins, Tango Argentino
serves as a primary example of a scattered society in motion. This, in turn, is
legitimated with historic references to the economic situation of Argentina and its
role as migration destiny throughout the history.
The attractiveness of Argentina as a migration destination in the second half of
the 19th century was partly due to the fact that the Argentine constitution anchored
 Tango Argentino as nation brand 117
the freedom of press and religion as well as the equality in civil law of the immi-
grants since 1853. Remote parts of the country were supported via the construction
of trains and the extension of the public educational system. Immigration was
supported not only in the country, but also in European cities with advertisements
in Europe and ‘Hoteles de Inmigrantes’ in Argentina which guaranteed accom-
modation, food and medical treatment for the first couple of days. The latter was
confirmed in 1876 by the Ley de Inmigración y Colonización (see Carreras &
Potthast, 2013: 105). At the turn of the century, most of the new citizens, as part
of the 30 percent of the Argentine population, came from south European coun-
tries, like Italy and Spain.6 Within only 20 years the population grew from 4.0 to
7.9 million people.
Most of the immigrants landed and stayed in Buenos Aires, and soon the city
structure was marked by this multi-ethnicity. Prosperous families lived in the north
and constructed villas following the English architecture. The middle class lived
in the western center of the city, where the Spanish Argentinian architecture was
enriched by Italian architectonical elements. Most of the citizens, the two-thirds of
working men and tradesmen, lived in the south near the port, where the immigrant
districts of La Boca and Barracas were situated (see Carreras & Potthast, 2013:
122). The geographic demarcation line was the Riachuelo-River (see Malcher,
2008: 106), which was sung about in many tango songs.
The spatial differentiation is also reflected in the building of cultural monu-
ments. Whereas the prosperous districts frequented the theaters and cafés such as
the Teatro Colón constructed in 1908, the cultural emblem of the harbor’s citizens
was the Tangobar and its association with prostitution and criminality (see Car-
reras & Potthast, 2013: 124). However, the prosperous years ended abruptly with
the economic crisis of 1929. After the Second World War, Argentina tried to sup-
port the national industry with numerous reforms. The economic ups and downs
continued till the 21st century, and Argentina was continuously in ruins. These
economic crises are closely related to migration. In the 19th century, Argentina
tried to populate the country via facilitating the immigration; in contrast, the crisis
in 2000/01 produced a wave of emigration. This fact serves Arne Birkenstock’s
production, 12 Tangos – Adios Buenos Aires, that sells Argentinian identity via the
attributes of transculturality and unconventionality with emphasis on the migration
topic in tango discourses.

12 Tangos – Adios Buenos Aires

The music documentary 12 Tangos – Adios Buenos Aires puts the ‘corralito’ in
the center of the plot. Via four portraits, the documentary narrates the existential
consequences of the economic situation which left many less well-off families
in a life-threatening crisis. Younger and middle-aged Argentinians of the fourth
generation decided to turn back into the home country of their ancestors, whereas
the third age had to stay in their country compensating with alternative solutions.
All three nomadic lives are related to the tango: Marcela Maiola is a young dancer
whose great-great-grandfather was Italian. As in Buenos Aires she is unable to
118 Rita Rieger
earn enough to survive, she prepares to leave for Europe and to find a job as a
tango dancer. Yolanda Zubieta instead is a middle-aged woman who has decided
to leave her four children behind and follow her cousins to Spain to pay off their
house. In the meantime, their children are dancing in the same club as Marcela and
Roberto. Roberto Tonet was a famous tango dancer but lost all his savings during
the financial crisis. As he is already 71 years old, he no longer wishes to travel
again and is living from the loans he gave his friends during his prosperous times.
In an auto-critical and self-reflective turn, the filmmakers present the history of
tango as a history of forced migration. That also reflects in the tango songs of the
soundtrack like 4 vampiros banqueros (‘4 bank vampires’), Adiós Nonino or La
Violeta, which is the name of a ship, chosen to narrate the intertwining of tango
discourse and migration. A look at the official trailer reveals which attributes to
tango are taken to perform the cultural image of Argentina.
The official trailer starts with three cultural icons: In a close-up, it shows a
bandoneon, then widens to the whole orchestra and finally pans towards a pro-
fessional dancing couple performing a tango at a Milonga. The film-company has
chosen Piazzolla’s Adios Nonino to accompany selected scenes of the film, each
one commented with a growing headline in white letters to emphasise the docu-
mentary and chronical character of the production. This introduction through
the music history is interrupted by the demonstrations during the ‘corralito’
which remember street fighting. The first headline declares “A Land in Crisis”.
The trailer continuously works with expected tango narratives followed by their
deconstruction. The critical economic situation of big parts of the society, for
instance, completes the individual point of view of the passionate dancers.
Among the other branding strategies are the headlines ‘A Secret Dancing-Club’
showing the same place as in the first scene but this time with non-professional
dancers. Hence, it is the secret and mysterious image of tango which is considered
as a counter-cultural event. Playing once again with the passion-stereotype, the
trailer introduces the 70-year-old Roberto who dances with Marcela at the Milonga
and alone with her in his living room. The corresponding headlines “An Old Man
with a Moving Past” and “A Young Lady with an Uncertain Future” like “A Mother
Who Must Leave Her Children” induce the myth of tango’s origins in the suburban
brothels and tango bars, embodied by under privileged social members. The final
headline ties the recent Argentinian history to tango music and dance history, and
reveals the auto-reflexive character of this music and dance form with the words
“12 tangos performed by the best musicians of Argentina narrate the true story of
tango in a moving music-documentary by Arne Birkenstock”. The documentary
promises new insights in the nebulous beginnings of this art form and rewrites
its myth. Even the obvious overdetermination of authenticity exposed through
the slogan “the true story of tango” and the indication of the chosen genre – a
documentary – foster the discourse on authenticity.
Perceived as an artistically formed myth of community with a transcultural
identity,7 tango serves as a symbolic form to express pain and suffering, passion
and vitality, and therefore, provide not only an identification model for Argentinian
citizens, but also for other transethnic cultures, such as the Finnish one.
 Tango Argentino as nation brand 119
More than amorous passion – branded emotions of tango
The most common emotions associated with Argentinian Tango are passion and sad-
ness, but also a feeling that symbolises ‘the many parts that do not fit together, but
cannot fall apart’: On the one hand, there is passion and yearning. Festival organisers
and public relation managers highlight amorous passion when they promote tango
festivals, music, novels or Milongas. Considering the metaphors used for love in
tango songs, the connotations of savage impulse, the magic moment and the passion-
ate fire dominate. The amorous relation itself is described with a variety of metaphors
like passion as cooperation in a battle or in life, as common union, ephemeral relation
or artificial paradise.8 However, tango practices also transport its inherent contradic-
tions. Whereas the observation enables to perceive men in suits and women in stylish
skirts, eccentric tights and high-heels – who are dancing in a tight embracing posi-
tion, entangling their feet – the passion of this situation may be felt by the dancers
but surely is attributed to the dance by the audience.9 Following the tango code, the
passion should not be mirrored by the facial expressions of the dancers, from which a
certain emotional distance can be deduced. In 12 tangos, in the scene where the pro-
fessional couple is performing their passionate tango, the corresponding song of Luis
Borda is titled Ironía de Salón and remembers the conscious playing with appearances
and essence. Hence, the brand works with amorous passion only superficially, but
also includes its deconstruction through irony to reveal other identification models.
On the other hand, tango-specific emotions and mental attitudes are negation,
melancholy and sadness. Whereas Gardel’s trademark was his smile, the famous
tango poet Enrique Santos Discépolo left his indelible mark in the tango discourse
with his reflections on sadness: “The tango is a sad thought which one can dance”.
Many lyrics speak of the life in the arrabal, the suburbs of Buenos Aires, where
people lived under miserable conditions in the conventillos – one family shared
a single room of the tenement blocks, up to 60 families shared a bath room – or
the songs criticise the corrupt political system. The experience of alienation is a
still-relevant topic. However, the tango canción is not a protest song, even if the
reigning norms and values are negated. Tango is a sad melody; it does not stimulate
happiness where there is not any (see Reichardt, 1984: 171). Although tango cel-
ebrates the pain, it is not meant as a narcotic agent (see Malcher, 2008: 148–149).
It is to assume that within the context of commercial strategies, more than its
presence of sadness, it is the perseverance which provides the nuance to the brand.
A certain kind of distance to emotional involvement as cultural expression of
argentinidad can also be deduced from comments on the national economy. The
economist Rudiger Dornbusch for instance described the situation of the ‘corralito’
in El Cronista (29/11/2000) as following:

I do not see answers for Argentina. It is a mystery. We could make reforms, but
the nation already did . . . none of the three growth alternatives: productivity,
higher commodity prices or capital investment is possible at this moment.
Sometimes there are situations, where there are no answers. It is a tragedy.
(Malcher 2008: 121, translated by R. R.)
120 Rita Rieger
Catchphrases like ‘it is a mystery’ or the keyword of hopelessness could also
be taken out of tango songs, since they reflect the emotional state of resignation in
the face of insurmountable obstacles of daily life.
As already mentioned above, Arne Birkenstock presents this intertwining of
music history and the economic situation of the second millennium in the German-
Argentine production 12 tangos. Adios Buenos Aires. In his documentary, he con-
trasts a so-called official version of the emotional attitudes towards the economic
crisis with a private one. The public or visible revolt is presented through the mani-
festations and the confrontations between the public and the police [00:24:15–
00:29:15]. The camera catches graffities, such as “cementerio de ahorristas”,
“Pase que lo estafan” or “chorros ladrones buitres asesinos”, painted on bank
buildings to inform the viewer about the anger of the Argentine population, as the
orchestra performs Mario Bulacio’s tango 4 Vampiros banqueros where the chorus
says “la esperanza está quebrada” (the hope is broken).10
However, these active and passive expression of anger contrast with a subtle
kind of stoicism, which can be found in the interviews of the chosen ‘protagonists’
and of pupils of primary schools, who speak of the ‘corralito’ distantly. A young
boy, for instance, explains that “the people protested against something that at
that moment was absent in Argentina”.11 Another one describes the consequences
of the ‘corralito’ with the words: his parents “just lost their job”, and a girl com-
ments how their mother “cooked soup” because they had no money to buy other
food [00:26:10–00:29:15]. This attitude is not merely melancholic or comparable
to resignation, but more an attitude of ‘carrying on’ after a big disappointment.
Therefore, Roberto Tonet’s explanations of the training of a tango dancer could
serve as cultural expression of the emotional state of the Argentine people depicted
in this documentary. The septuagenarian folds and unfolds his knees in a forward
step, he occasionally looks at the camera and he sips his mate, which he passes
from one hand to the other.

Es uno, dos, uno, dos. Esto, yo te lo puedo hacer cuantas veces que vos quiera,
puedo hacerlo 10 veces, 15 veces, 100 veces . . . yo con mis 71 años voy abajo,
voy abajo, subo, bajo, subo, bajo, sin torcer el cuerpo, nada la espalda bien
arriba, abajo, abajo, arriba, abajo, arriba, cuantas veces quiera.
[00:04:35–00:05:23]12

The scene is filmed in his living room, between the table and the wall, where
the mirror doubles the folded and the upright positions. A blue tracksuit bottoms,
a woolen pullover and a knitting cap contrast with the collective image of a pro-
fessional tango dancer. Nevertheless, it also reflects the spiral movement of tango
history, and Argentinian national history, where certain elements like hope and
failure take turns and advance in spiral moves.
Interestingly, the emotions attributed to Tango Argentino are highly political
and therefore serve as reflection not only concerning individual matters, but also
national that in turn relates to music history. With the Tercera Guardia (from
1948 onwards), the lyrics started to include political statements.13 At that time,
 Tango Argentino as nation brand 121
the living conditions of the working class were raised to supreme importance,
and some tango musicians supported Perón’s leadership or turned to Commu-
nism (see Nielsen & Mariotto, 2006: 14). For that reason, tango songs served
and still are composed as a megaphone for criticism on national policy as illus-
trated by 4 vampiros banqueros that in turn allows Tango Argentino to appear as a
medium of critical self-reflection in the global context, and thus promote a vision
of self-awareness concerning political disproportion and social evils. Consider-
ing the emotions that Tango Argentino promotes, which include passion, sadness
or melancholy, the most interesting and significant emotions are the feelings of
perseverance and strength that were molded throughout music innovations of the
Tercera Guardia (see Nielsen & Mariotto, 2006: 19).14 Whereas passion, sadness
or melancholy serve as individual identification tools for different cultures and
societies, strength and perseverance in a political or economic meaning seem to
be less receipted within the global context.

Conclusion: tango as nation brand

Scholars humorously agree that Tango without bandoneon is unconceivable –
except in Finland. The aim of this paper was to illustrate how tango as nation
brand is in the process of cultural identity building for Argentina and how the
brand operates within a global context. The analysis of the cultural icons, tango
specific codes, discourses and related emotions revealed different characteristics
of the brand like unconventionality, inter- and transculturality, an awareness of the
national historic past combined with an interest in the recent policy, self-reflection
and emotions. The core element which guarantees the working of the brand is its
ambiguous structure.
Branding techniques pick up elements of music history as well as dance prac-
tices and periods of national history. Among the cultural icons of music which
mold the brand are the bandoneon and its polyphone sound, the black dress code
and lacquered hair of the orchestra, and the famous personalities of the past, such
as Carlos Gardel, Aníbal Troilo and Astor Piazzola. They still dominate the tango
discourses and are played on Milongas and their photographs serve as advertise-
ment or décor in the dancing places. These cultural icons foster narratives of
authenticity. At the same time, they transport a notion of unconventionality which
is typically associated with tango.
The ambiguous structure can also be deduced by observing the codes expressed
on Milongas: on the one hand, the dancing community is meant to infiltrate social
classes as the music and dance are said to be enjoyed by the ‘rich’ and the ‘poor’
at the same time. On the other hand, the constellation of follower/leader and the
associated dichotomies like female/male with their corresponding dress codes of
high heels and suits are not only confirmed, but also reversed that allows to pro-
mote a feeling of stability and unconventionality at the same time.
Additionally, the brand refers to narrations of inter- and transculturality as
expressions of cultural identity that in turn serves not only to describe the social
situation of Argentina and its national past as privileged migration destination, but
122 Rita Rieger
also offers starting points to other intercultural nations, such as Finland. Surnames
which reveal e.g. Italian, Spanish or Russian ancestors symbolise the intercultural
constellation as well as the history of the bandoneon. Its function is to promote
openness towards transcultural communication and dialogue.
Finally, the brand uses specific emotions with commercial interests. Amorous
passion, perseverance and strength contribute to the nation brand. Particularly the
latter ones are closely linked to economic occurrences and unsuccessful national
policy. They outline the political awareness of tango songs and transmit self-
reflection as required elements of cultural expression.

Notes
1 For the concept of nation brand, see Aronczyk (2013: 1–33). She also includes the figure
of Anholts nation brand hexagon (ibid.: 71).
2 Concerning humans as cultural icons, see Holt (2004: 1).
3 See Reichardt (1984); Birkenstock & Rüegg (2000); Rössner (2000); Giorlandini
(2010), who refer also to the periods before the 19th century.
4 See the articles in Klein (2009).
5 In his musicological study, Jorge Lombardero describes the Argentinian tango via
its tonality in major with ascending melodic profiles in contrast to the Finnish ver-
sion, which is characterized by its minor tone and its descending melodic profile.
Furthermore, the bandoneon’s role is replaced by the accordion (see Lombardero,
1995: 271, 276). For research on the cultural impact of Tango Argentino in Japan see
e.g. Fares (2015).
6 Carreras und Potthast list the nationalities of the immigrants with more details: The
biggest groups were the 930.000 Italians and 836.000 Spaniards. Followed by 93.000
migrants from Russian Tsar empire among them many Jews, 80.000 French and 65.000
people of the Ottoman Empire (see Carreras & Potthast, 2013: 106).
7 Gerhard Steingress analyses Tango, Rebetiko and Flamenco as expressions of an inter-
cultural or transcultural communication process in Argentina, Greece and Spain (see
Steingress, 2006: 180). As his main objective is not the economic impact of these dance
and music forms, further research on Rebetiko and Flamenco as key elements of cultural
or nation brands would be of interest.
8 Concerning metaphors of love in tango songs, see García-Olivares (2007).
9 For a recent study on Tango Argentino and the corresponding fashion, see Haller
(2017).
10 “cementary of saver”, “come in, we cheat you” or “pickpockets thieves vultures
killer”.
11 “Protestaron por algo que en ese momento no había, que faltaba en Argentina y . . . y
no sé”.
12 “it is one, two, one, two. This, I could do as many times as you like. I could do it 10,
15, 100 times . . .. With my 71 years I go down, I go up, I go down, I go up, I go down,
without twisting the body, nothing, the back upright, down, down, up, down, up, as
many times as you like”.
13 Concerning the textual character of tango and its interest for literary studies, see the
articles collected by Zubarik (2014).
14 Especially the avant-garde schools of Horacio Salgán, Osvaldo Pugliese or Astor Piaz-
zolla, who experimented with chromatic melodies, dissonances, new instruments, and
changes in rhythms, serve as paradigmatic examples of the new cultural image which
transports the expression of strength and perseverance not only through new rhythms
and the combination with jazz elements but also through the lyrics.
 Tango Argentino as nation brand 123
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Giorlandini, E. (2010) Sobre el tango y sus raíces. Argentina: Departamento de Humani-
dades Univ. Nacional del Sur.
Haller, M. (2017) Tango Argentino und seine Mode. Bewegungsfreiheiten und Kleider-
ordnungen. In: Rieger, R. (ed.). Bewegungsfreiheit. Tanz als kulturelle Manifestation,
1900–1950. Bielefeld: Transcript, 111–134.
Holt, D. B. (2004) How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding. Bos-
ton, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Holt, D. B. & Cameron, D. (2012) Cultural Strategy: Using Innovative Ideologies to Build
Breakthrough Brands. London: Oxford University Press.
Klein, G. ed. (2009) Tango in Translation: Tanz zwischen Medien, Kulturen, Kunst und
Politik. Bielefeld: Transcript.
Lombardero, J. (1995) Finlande, Norvège, Suède. Notes sur le tango en Finlande et dans
les pays nordiques. In: Pelinski, R. (ed.). Tango Nomade. Montréal: Triptyque,
271–288.
Malcher, I. (2008) Tango Argentino: Porträt eines Landes. München: Beck.
Nielsen, C. S. & Mariotto, J. G. (2006) The tango metaphor: The essence of Argentina’s
national identity. International Studies of Management & Organization. 35 (4), Cultural
Metaphors Paradoxes, and Cross-Cultural Dimensions, 8–36.
Pelinski, R. (1995) Le tango nómade. In: Pelinski, R. (ed.). Tango Nomade. Montréal:
Triptyque, 25–70.
Reichardt, D. ed. (1984) Tango: Verweigerung und Trauer. Kontexte und Texte. Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp.
Rössner, M. ed. (2000) ¡Bailá! ¡Vení! ¡Volá!: El fenómeno tanguero y la literatura; actas
del coloquio de Berlín, 13–15 de febrero de 1997. Madrid: Iberoamericana Vervuert.
Savigliano, M. E. (1995) Tango and the Political Economy of Passion. Boulder, CO: West-
view Press.
Steingress, G. (2006) Sozialtheorie und vergleichende Geschichte von Flamenco, Tango
und Rebetiko. In: Steingress, G. (ed.). Über Flamenco und Flamenco-Kunde. Aus-
gewählte Schriften, 1988–1998. Berlin: LIT, 168–200.
Vázquez-Rial, H (2001) Las dos muertes de Gardel. Barcelona: Editiones B.
124 Rita Rieger
Villa, P. (2006) Bewegte Diskurse, die bewegen. Überlegungen zur Spannung von Konsti-
tution und Konstruktion am Beispiel des Tango Argentino. In: Gugutzer, R. (ed.). Body
Turn: Perspektiven der Soziologie des Körpers und des Sports. Bielefeld: Transcript,
209–232.
Zubarik, S. ed. (2014) Tango Argentino in der Literatur(wissenschaft). Berlin: Frank &
Timme.

Film references
Birkenstock, A. dir. (2005) 12 Tangos: Adiós Buenos Aires. Cologne: A Fruitmarket Kultur
und Medien Production.
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7 Tourism, nation branding and
the commercial hegemony of
nation building in the post-
Yugoslav states1
Florian Bieber

Introduction
Since the advent of modern advertisement and tourism, countries and particular
places – towns, cities, beaches, and resorts – have been promoted as tourist destina-
tions. As a form of self-presentation for tourism (and other, related) purposes, nation
branding is an arena of contention: between self-perception and the need to com-
modify one’s own identity in a global marketplace; between, on the one hand, the
view of one’s state as a nation state seeking to reduce internal variety and approach
the “West” and, on the other, global interest in the different, exotic and ethnic. There
is an inherent tension between the idea of promoting one’s country, including its
traditions and “identity”, for the purposes of tourism or other commercial transac-
tions, and the idea of the nation and implicit resistance to “selling out”.
Two very different advertisements for Croatian and Macedonian tourism high-
light the tensions discussed in this chapter. In Macedonia, the state tourism cam-
paign noted that

[t]rue folklore cannot be bought or sold, but it has to be learned through

toil, sweat, tears, and, sometimes, even blood. Contrary to some who abuse
its name for self-serving interests, it is not mere entertainment to amuse the
throngs or to pander to an audience.
(Timeless Macedonia – Land of Tradition)2

In Croatia, a more commercial approach to tourism suggested that you could

indeed buy Croatia: “[t]he Buy Croatia concept implies [the] arrangement of
business meetings between Croatian tourist participants (tour operators, travel
agencies, hotels) and foreign tourist participants” (Buy Croatia).3 In the case of
Macedonia, the immaterial nature of the nation is fetishised and entertainment
virtually dismissed; possibly somewhat alienating for a leisure-seeking visitor.
Reading these lines as a tourist, it is hard not to be slightly nervous. The Croatian
pitch, on the other hand, reduces Croatia to a product subject to a banal commercial
transaction, free of emotional investment.
The interrelationship between the (re-)construction of national identity and
tourism through nation branding has been neglected in the study of nationalism,
126 Florian Bieber
particularly in Southeastern Europe. What might seem like a marginal subject
area – tourism and the image a country4 seeks to project – at first does not appear
to share the urgency or risks of other forms of national identity. Yet, the ways in
which a country presents itself to tourists, both within its borders and outside, is
significant for the study of nationalism.
The manner in which a country presents itself reflects its self-perception just as
much as the preamble to a constitution, a flag, or the other symbolic politics of the
state. While the tourist presentation changes over time, it is more malleable than
a constitution – in most cases, at least – and is shaped by the ideas of advertise-
ment agencies with little vested interest in the “nation”, and they easily achieve
greater public visibility, and thus greater potential impact, than some more formal
self-definitions that have been studied with more care. They could thus be con-
sidered as an example of banal nationalism, a term introduced by Michael Billig,
to describe the

routine practices and everyday discourses, especially those in the mass media,
[through which] the idea of nationhood is regularly flagged . . . Through such
flagging, established nations are reproduced as nations, with their citizenry
being unmindfully reminded of their national identity.
(Billig, 1995)

Nation branding, the positioning of a country in a global arena through the

creation of a particular image for tourists and broader audiences, has been of par-
ticular importance for countries which have suffered from negative associations
due to their association with socialism, the Iron Curtain, and/or war. In addition,
nation branding in Post-Communist Europe can be seen as the launching of a new
product, especially in countries that have become independent in recent decades.
Nation branding is thus not just an exercise in attracting tourists and thereby
boosting the economy but is also about projecting a particular image of oneself as
a state and by extension, as a nation, and thereby implicitly or explicitly shaping
outside perceptions. The message is thus a reflection of the state and the govern-
ment’s view of the country – even if the campaigns are generally designed or at
least assisted by professional advertisement agencies. Tourism and nation branding
are primarily directed towards the outside world. The manner in which a nation-
state presents and sells itself is consequential for the outside world and in turn,
for the nation. Considering nation branding leads us to reflect on how literature
on nationalism focuses much attention on the manners in which nation-builders
convince (projected) members of the nation to join and remain convinced of the
merits of the nation, but little on how nationalism projects itself outwards and
thereby creates acceptance and legitimacy. Nationalism is commonly understood
as an internal process of establishing and maintaining a nation-state, or from a
constructivist perspective as a process of continuous group-making (Brubaker,
2004). This process, however, also encompasses an external dimension beyond
boundary-setting. This includes claims about the nation and its legitimacy: these
matters for international recognition as a state and nation, but also for symbolic
recognition. From Kosovo’s lobbying for international recognition to Armenian
 Tourism, branding of nation building 127
efforts to have the mass murder of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 rec-
ognised as genocide, the external dimension of nationalism cannot be neglected.
Nation branding can thus be considered a form of banal nationalism that is at least
primarily directed towards the outside, but as I will argue in this chapter, these
external tools of nation branding are often much discussed internally and thus
also serve a function within the country itself as well. In the case of the “Young
Europeans” campaign in Kosovo there was an explicit internal dimension, as the
campaign materials acknowledge:

Kosovo’s branding campaign is a national effort. As such, local institutions,

companies and individuals are also invited to play a strong part in it. When
the people of Kosovo see the campaign they will also have an opportunity to
share the values and the excitement in it and spread their enthusiasm to their
friends and family in other countries. In today’s highly-connected world this
is the way the message spreads.
(Xharra & Wählisch 2010, 12)

As self-representation for tourism purposes, nation branding is an arena of con-

tention, as noted earlier: between self-perception and the need to commodify one’s
own identity in a global marketplace; between self-perception as a nation-state
that seeks to reduce its difference to the “West” and global interest in the different,
exotic and ethnic, as argued in the beginning of this paper. This source of tension
is a useful focal point to understand how national projects define and redefine
themselves.
This chapter will consider these questions by exploring the self-presentation of
the post-Yugoslav countries over the past two decades. It does not endeavour to sys-
tematically examine all materials – advertisements, video clips and brochures – but
rather uses key examples to explore how countries have been presenting themselves
and communicating their vision of the nation to the world. In doing so, this chapter
argues that most countries have struggled to bridge the gap between their self-
perception as distinct nation-states and the outside view of generic Balkan states.
Initially, much of the literature on nation branding and tourism as a function of
promoting a particular country was largely restricted to the field of marketing and
tourism, with little concern for the implicit political dimensions of nation branding
and the function of tourism for shaping national identity.5 On the other hand, the
literature on nationalism has often only had a passing interest in tourism. Seri-
ous and often deadly nationalism and seemingly frivolous and unserious tourism
appear to have little in common. One might argue, however, that at least since the
growth of debate about Orientalism, the European discovery (including tourism)
of the “exotic” and the oriental have been tools of othering and colonial control.
These mechanisms do not only apply to the control of colonial possessions or
post-colonial mechanisms of hegemonic control, but also to the transformation of
a country into a nation-state. In his book The Discovery of France, Graham Robb
ascribes the spread of tourism (and the associated means of transportation) a cen-
tral role in the 19th century “discovery” of the state and nation. He distinguishes
between the first visitors, mostly British, on the Grand Tour of Europe who had
128 Florian Bieber
a limited role in nation-building. Later however, the rise of French visitors to the
provinces of France became crucial for nation-building. In fact, the state and its
intellectuals highlighted the intrinsic value of the French, discovering their own
country through travel (Robb, 2007). Getting to know one’s own country in this
manner was an active part of consolidating Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined Com-
munity” (Anderson, 2006). Only the rise of modern infrastructure, such as train
and shipping routes or the expansion of road networks, enabled the rise of modern
travel habits. If the traveler from within the nation could learn about his or her
own nation and thus understand the nation-state as an organic unit, travellers from
outside are no less important. The outsider visitor provides for an audience back
home to whom s/he may present and interpret the country (Pretes, 2003). There
are also symbiotic relationships emerging between, on the one hand, the invented
traditions that nationalism often requires in order to project itself into the past,
and on the other, newly invented ‘authentic’ traditions that tourists desire to see
(Leong, 1989). In Croatia, the bottom-up effort to promote Marco Polo as hail-
ing from Korčula, including the promotion of a house – clearly constructed well
after his death – as having belonged to him links pragmatic tourism concerns with
efforts to enhance and embellish the idea of the nation (Orlić 2013).6

Tourism and nation branding in

historical perspective
In Southeastern Europe, the origins of tourism and nationalism in the 19th century
are caught up in the large processes of modernity that spawned both. Tourism
began simultaneously at both ends of the region. European travellers, longing to
discover antiquity, headed to Greece while others were discovering the appeals
of the seaside, in particular along the Dalmatian coast. Already here, some of the
tensions of today’s nation branding are evident. When the Dalmatian coast became
accessible through the spread of steam boats and the railway linking Trieste to
Vienna in the mid-19th century, the region was “branded” with names reminding
tourists of already familiar destinations, such as calling the coast the “Riviera”,
evoking the South of France, or “Austria’s Madeira”, the Island of Hvar. The Dal-
matian coast was marketed in the metropoles of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as
both the familiar and close south as well as the exotic, underlining its proximity to
the Orient. Tourism remained limited to a relatively small elite during the late 19th
and early 20th century, and only in the interwar period did tourism spread with the
gradual introduction of paid holidays. During the interwar period, there was also
a rise in tourists who identified with the same nation as the inhabitants of their
destination: fellow Yugoslavs (and Croats) visiting “their” coast. City dwellers fol-
lowed the European fashion of going on excursions to the countryside. These were
often excursions to nearby places: thus inhabitants of Split would visit the central
Dalmatian islands, or the middle class from Zagreb would visit the nearby Kvarner
(Vukonić, 2005). The rise of mass tourism began in earnest after World War Two,
with the Socialist government promoting tourism and encouraging Yugoslavs to
take holidays. New holiday resorts were established for workers and pupils, which
 Tourism, branding of nation building 129
brought Yugoslavs to the coast in large numbers. This was both a reflection of the
new understanding of labour and social relations and simultaneously a method of
building the new socialist Yugoslav nation that transcended the persisting national
and regional boundaries. Tensions emerged as the country opened up to interna-
tional visitors in the 1960s, who competed for scarce resources along the coast
with less well-off domestic tourists.
For Yugoslavia, mass tourism was not just a source of revenue, but also of
prestige, and it contributed to the “Yugoslav” brand, even if such terminology
was not used. At first, Yugoslavia promoted itself in a rather ham-fisted way to
promote its own socialist path after the break with the Soviet Union, using the
slogan “Come and See the Truth”. It was this same rupture in 1948 that forced
Yugoslavia to attract tourists from Western Europe, as visitors from Communist
countries were prohibited to visit renegade Yugoslavia, including those from a
traditionally key country of origin, Czechoslovakia (these began returning in the
mid-1950s) (Tchoukarine, 2010).
However, such ideological tourism was less promising than the mass tourism
that began in earnest in the early 1960s – the same time at which Yugoslavs became
able to leave the country without restrictions. The attractiveness of the coast helped
to promote a positive image of the country in the West and distinguish it from other
Socialist countries. One of the early slogans was “1000 otoka” (1000 islands), used
in 1960.7 Of course, Yugoslavia promoted itself beyond the coast and placed great
emphasis on its diversity, both religious and ethnic, identifying itself as a “cross-
roads”.8 Thus, tourism and its promotion became an important pillar of Yugosla-
via’s international position as being attractive to the West and more open than
other Socialist countries. The distinct Yugoslav path was thus showcased through
tourism, whereas domestically, tourism was a constitutive part of Socialist Yugo-
slav identity (Yeomans, 2010).

Branding after Yugoslavia

The end of Yugoslavia and the wars that ensued constituted a challenge to the suc-
cessors beyond the direct consequences of war. The international reputations of
Yugoslavia and of its republics alike were shattered, and tourists stayed away. In
Croatia, tourism collapsed as, during the first phase of the war in 1991/2, a third
of the newly independent country came under the control of the self-declared Serb
Republic of Krajina. The region under control of this quasi-state contained few
tourist destinations, yet it tainted Croatia as a war zone and made key tourist regions
in Dalmatia difficult to reach. The imagery of the shelling of Dubrovnik by the
Yugoslav Army in late 1991 embodied the targeting of tourist destinations. Except
for some limited tourism in the areas not directly affected by the war in Istria and
Kvarner, the country had no significant tourism for a five-year period and could only
begin rebuilding its tourism industry after the end of the war in 1995.9 At first, the
principal targets for the country’s tourism efforts were international peacekeepers
in Bosnia, hardly a conventional constituency for tourism (Fremdenverkehr, 1996).
Closely intertwined was the need for Croatia to present itself as a new country
130 Florian Bieber
that could draw on the familiarity of tourists who had visited the Adriatic coast for
decades, and break the now tainted “Yugoslav” legacy, whose negative association
was more significant domestically than internationally (Jordan, 2000).
With the exception of Slovenia, which had escaped the dissolution of Yugoslavia
largely unscathed, the other new states were in a more difficult position. Macedo-
nia had not been a prime tourist destination before the war and was isolated due to
the pariah status of Serbia and Montenegro and its name dispute with Greece. In
Western media, it was consistently depicted as a country on the brink in a volatile
surrounding: not a good basis for tourism. Montenegro, which had begun develop-
ing its coast in the decades before the war, was isolated due to its voluntary alliance
with Serbia during the early 1990s. Even after Montenegro distanced itself from
Serbian influence and Slobodan Milošević, it remained isolated and difficult to
reach. Bosnia found peace with the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995, but remained
devastated by war. Not only was the human loss dramatic, but the destruction of
cities, including tourist destinations, made it a destination only for international
peacekeepers, not tourists. The extensive destruction of Sarajevo and Mostar, the
destruction of the famous bridge of Mostar and other sites tourists often visited
for excursions from the coast meant that the country remained beyond the reach
of tourism for another decade.
The post-Yugoslav period of nation branding is also a story of change, reflecting
an evolving self-positioning incorporating domestic nation-building, distinguishing
the country from neighbours and eliciting external support and sympathies. Among
the first marketing formulations for Croatia were “A small country for a great holi-
day” and “an old friend with a new name”: efforts to appeal to previous visitors to
Yugoslavia while emphasising the country’s newness. Of course, this slogan was
inherently awkward and provided little reason for new visitors to visit after a six-
year gap in any tourism. Subsequent slogans included “Croatia, Heaven on Earth”,
“When Hearts Says Summer, It Says Croatia”, “So Beautiful, So Close” and “When
Heart Says Summer, It Says Adriatic”. For several years, the most prominent slogan
was “The Mediterranean As It Once Was”, evoking a more authentic seaside experi-
ence than that of more developed destinations. The slogan sat awkwardly with the
reality that large parts of Croatia are not Mediterranean, and it was hard to convince
tourists to visit Zagreb or Slavonia as part of this experience. The master brochure
squared the circle by stating that the “experiences of the warm, blue Mediterranean
are enhanced by the charm of the tranquil and picturesque green mountains in the
north and the fertile golden plains in the easternmost part of the land”.10 The slogan
was retired in 2014 and has been replaced with “Full of Life” since 2015. Accord-
ing to the marketing companies behind the change, it was “chosen because of its
simplicity and flexibility”.11 Arguably, it reflects the gradual depletion of a slogan
with any content. If the early slogans focused on the Adriatic and Mediterranean,
the latest one could apply to literally any country or destination.
Slovenia’s nation branding underwent a similar transformation. The first slogan,
introduced in 1995, was “The Green Piece of Europe”, later “The Sunny Side of
the Alps”, and since 2007, “I feel SLOVEnia”.12 As with Croatia, geographical
positioning and the association with nature (green) have been dropped in favour of
a product slogan without discernible characteristics. This depletion of the slogan
 Tourism, branding of nation building 131
from geographic and other characteristics has understandably led some researchers
to argue that nation branding can have a moderating function.
Similarly in the case of Serbia, nation branding slogans have evoked emotions
without much specificity. During the 2000s, the main slogan described Serbia as a
“Landscape painted from the heart”. Later the motto became “Fall in love again”,
combined with “Three times love”. These slogans are somewhat confusing, as the
reference to falling in love again appears to refer to an earlier “love”, which could
be understood to be that for Serbia as part of Yugoslavia. However, relatively few
tourists visited Serbia during the Yugoslav period. The “three times love” slogan
echoes the Slovenian tagline evoking love. However, the reference to three is more
likely a reference to kissing three times as a greeting Serbia, which is associated
with Orthodoxy. Tourist materials, on the other hand, explain the three times to
refer to “the first love its nature, the second one its cultural heritage and the third
one its customs and hospitality”.13
Montenegro began promoting itself with the slogan “Wild Beauty”, evoking
some conception of pure nature. This slogan and nation branding strategy predates
independence but became central after 2006. It sought to present not just the seaside
(unlike the aforementioned Croatian slogan) but also the less-developed North.
In Macedonia, nation branding began in earnest in the mid-2000s with the slo-
gan “Timeless Macedonia” and a number of high-profile video clips, including
several by well-known Macedonian director Milcho Manchevski.14 They evoked
ancient Macedonia – a key tenant of the nationalist politics of the Macedonian
government since 2006, epitomised by the “Skopje 2014” project – as well as
Macedonians in traditional dress, represented in a rural idyll.
Of course, it is not only states that brand themselves. There are at least four
different types of alternative place-branding. Some regional-branding, like that of
Republika Srpska, openly challenges the state and is part of a deliberate effort to
promote the entity over the state. It echoes similar place-branding such as that of
the Belgian regions of Flanders and Wallonia, where tourism falls under the com-
petence of the region and also coincides with a state with low levels of support. In
case of the RS, the legacy of the war adds a more pernicious layer.
Other regions, such as Istria, have also promoted themselves as distinct from
the larger state. However, in Istria, the region-branding positioned itself not as a
nation-state in waiting, but rather as a regional multicultural identity that is distinct
from the larger nation-state.
Individual places also experiment with their own branding, and nowhere is this
more pertinent than in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the state is largely unable
to promote itself. This reflects itself in place promotion, such as the pilgrimage
destination Međugorje, which downplays its location in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Nation branding and new countries

In the post-Yugoslav space, tourism and nation branding became closely inter-
twined in presenting the new countries to an outside audience, both to gain visi-
tors and to build international good will and support, in a process that left many
potential Western visitors confused. Thus, nation branding pursued the goals of
132 Florian Bieber
re-introducing the countries to tourists while also positioning them internationally.
In addition, the negative perception of the countries, formed due to their associa-
tion with the wars of Yugoslav succession and the lingering Balkanist and East
European stereotypes about the region, further enhanced the perceived importance
of nation branding (Kaneva & Popescu, 2011: 194).
Nation branding thus served a number of different purposes in the post-Yugoslav
period, extending well beyond simply attracting tourists:
First, it served to create new brand-recognition for “start-up” nations. While the
destinations themselves were in part known from Yugoslav times, the new coun-
tries elicited little familiarity, and thus nation branding served to position the new
countries externally.15 Nation branding thereby sought to create and re-affirm the
new state. Making it “real” internationally helped to re-affirm its domestic existence
via international recognition. For example, Slovenia has been promoting itself as a
distinct “brand” separate from Yugoslavia since 1986, both promoting itself domes-
tically and projecting the external image of “the sunny side of the Alps” (Konecnik
Ruzzier & Petek, 2012).
Second, this new branding extended, as noted in the example of Kosovo,
beyond tourism. Nation branding served the purpose of public diplomacy to
claim a place among the countries of the world, to normalise their existence and,
more pragmatically, to attract foreign investment. In effect, nation branding can
be seen as focusing on a trinity of goals: tourism, positioning the country, and
attracting outside investment. The best example of this type of nation branding
was the “Young Europeans” campaign by the government of Kosovo,16 which
did not target tourists at all, but rather sought to project a positive image of
the country in light of opposition to Kosovo’s international recognition and
prevailing negative associations (esp. migration and organised crime). Thus,
the campaign did not try to emphasise what makes Kosovo unique or particu-
lar in comparison to the rest of Europe, generally essential features in tour-
ism promotion, but rather sought to present itself as part of “average” Europe,
featuring young Kosovars who, by look and dress, could have been from any
other country in Europe. It could thus be viewed as a campaign to “European-
ise” Kosovo, quite distinct from most other nation branding campaigns. The
campaign was designed, like other similar nation branding promotions, by an
international advertisement agency, but the government was also involved. A
critical review of the campaign concluded, however, that it failed to involve
civil society and thus remained poorly understood in Kosovo itself: it was even
the target of counter-campaigns by the opposition movement Vetëvendosje! and
Serbian groups (Xharra & Wählisch, 2010, 25–28). This response highlighted
how contentious nation branding can be, with the former pointing to interna-
tional isolation and the difficult situation experienced by young Kosovars while
the latter pointed to crimes committed against Serbs and the ostensible Serb
nature of Kosovo.
Third, the new nation branding positions the new state. Either it literally claims
a space, or it might downplay a particular connection to a region. Furthermore,
it can counter claims from other states. If Kosovo’s nation branding is by itself
 Tourism, branding of nation building 133
a positioning against Serbian challenges to statehood, other campaigns make
similar counter-claims. For example, the nation branding campaign “Timeless
Macedonia” countered official Greek claims that the state is based on an “arti-
ficial and spurious notion of the Macedonian nation”, cultivated systematically
through the falsification of history and the exploitation of ancient Macedonia
purely for reasons of political expediency.17 As such, it formed part of a broader
deliberate campaign to establish an explicit connection to the Macedonia of
antiquity, including through the extensive remodelling of Skopje (Graan, 2013).
Of course, the congruence between nation branding and domestic claims about
the nation need not be identical, but as the above example highlights, they often
work hand-in-hand. Any large discrepancy would be hard to reconcile, as nation
branding campaigns are subject to domestic debate and attention. Thus, Croatia
could hardly present itself as a Balkan country to tourists while, domestically,
discourse was focused on denying its Balkan connection and emphasising its
Mediterranean and Central European identity. On the other hand, it has to fit
into larger external tourist demands that require difference from existing places
and destinations. While politically, Croatian governments have emphasised its
Central European nature, tourism branding has underlined the Mediterranean
identity of the country. Most importantly, both sought to distance the country
from the “Balkans”.
Fourth, nation branding creates legitimacy at home. The external presentation
of a country is based not on how the country actually is, but how it wants to be
seen and how it sees itself. However, nation branding campaigns are not just a
projection targeted beyond the country’s borders, but are also discussed at home,
and there is great sensitivity regarding whether they project the ‘correct’ image
of the country. This became apparent in Serbia’s first nation branding campaign
in 2007. It provoked controversy in Serbia when a video clip for CNN showed
images of the river Danube, including a church located on the Romanian side
of the border. For critics of the nation branding campaign, this was a source of
mockery, while others saw it as shameful considering the splendour of Serbian
churches. Needless to say, few viewers outside would recognise the mistake.
Similarly, the clip shown on CNN featured music also used in an advertisement
for Kazakhstan, and viewers in Serbia had earlier complained about the supposed
“Turkish” sound of the music.18 Ironically, the concern for an authentic depiction
of the country stands in contrast with the Western eye, represented by CNN, for
whom these details hardly matter. This feedback loop between external presen-
tation and domestic perception has also been effective elsewhere in the region
(Kaneva & Popescu, 2011: 193).
Nation branding is therefore an integral part of (re-)constructing the outside
view of the nation and reaffirming national narratives about oneself, even if there
is considerable mis-communication, as discussed above. Considering the post-
Yugoslav context, these narratives have been sanitised from the conflict of the
1990s and are a contrast with the nationalist narratives, which place the wars at
the centre of self-identification, while they can also be seen as tools to legitimise
the recent past by ‘forgetting’ it.
134 Florian Bieber
In 2001, Peter van Ham optimistically argued that nation branding would be
a more constructive alternative to nationalism: “State branding is gradually sup-
planting nationalism . . .. By marginalising nationalist chauvinism, the brand state
is contributing greatly to the further pacification of Europe” (van Ham, 2001).
However, such a view confuses a strategy, namely the promotion of a nation
towards the outside world, with the content, and the fact that nationalism can
target multiple audiences and also keep them quite separate, as we shall see later.
Van Ham, however, correctly argues that nation branding could have a moderat-
ing role, as the goal of marketing oneself as attractive on a global marketplace
requires the abandonment of more particularistic and extreme positions. It is thus
the process of commodification which defangs the nation, as Kaneva and Popescu
have argued: “National identity is appropriated for the purposes of neoliberal glo-
balisation . . . commodification constrains national identity within an ahistorical,
decontextualised, depoliticised frame, resulting in a form of nation identity lite”
(Kaneva & Popescu, 2011). Thus, nation branding is a reflection of nationalism
in a globalised market economy, where nations are products. However, this does
not necessarily have to result in a “light” national identity. Of course, the nation
branding itself will always be “light”, in order to be digestible to an external
audience who care less than nationalists about long lists of obscure heroes and
scholars.
The reductionism of advertisement does not inherently translate into a lighter –
by implication more benign – version of nationalism. Volcic and Andrejevic thus
argue that nation branding “is a consumerist form of nationalism, or perhaps more
precisely, a consumer co-created form of nationalism” (Volcic & Andrejevic,
2011). Thus, nationalism does not become lighter through its commercialisa-
tion, but it has to accommodate itself to different audiences and satisfy certain
expectations.

Authentic and ethnic

Tourism, particularly in exotic places, often seeks out the “ethnic”, the “authen-
tic”, to contrast with globalised and often hegemonic Western consumerism
(Comaroff & Comaroff, 2009). This often-orientalist view of the exotic produces
ethnicity, not unlike how earlier colonialism did. Today its purpose is less to con-
trol and dominate than to be enchanted by the irrational and emotional. It is this
strand of tourism and nation branding which Serbia and Macedonia have been
playing up in their campaigns regarding “authentic” and “traditional” cultures,
which are rural, idyllic and pre-modern. Thus, the current tourist motto for Ser-
bia is “Life in the Rhythm of the Heartbeat”, and the flagship tourism brochure
features a young girl with a flower wreath wearing a traditional Serbian dress.
This visual image is reminiscent of the hugely successful Serbian film from 2002,
Zona Zamfirova, which is an “uncritical celebration of the village as a site of
authenticity” (Jelača, 2013: 134).
The quest of the original and the authentic in tourism and nation branding
nicely dovetails with similar obsessions in nationalism. Consider the strange
 Tourism, branding of nation building 135
double life of the term “ethnic”: on one side, it designates the most negative
features of nationalism, such as “ethnic cleansing” or “ethnic war”, and conflict
and tensions, if they take place outside of North America and Western Europe, are
often described as ethnic rather than nationalist. On the other side, the “ethnic” is
designated to music and tradition and other desirable manifestations of authentic-
ity. What merges both iterations of “ethnic” is the assumption that it represents a
primordial and deeply rooted form of identity that can produce great hatred, but
also “authentic” products in a world of mass-production and interchangeability
(Comaroff & Comaroff, 2009).
More closely linked to the region under consideration, the term “Balkans”
has acquired a similar double life. The “Balkans”, like “ethnic”, continues to
represent fragmentation, conflict and backwardness in Western media represen-
tation. On the other side, the term “Balkans” has become a way to describe
parties and music, designating them as exotic, passionate and more “authentic”,
as represented by ubiquitous “Balkan parties” across Western Europe and North
America. It is not without irony that one of the most prominent protagonists
of this movement is Shantel, the pseudonym for a German DJ, Stefan Hantel,
who has self-Balkanised himself to sing about Ciganizaja19 and Planet Paprika
(Silverman, 2011).
Nevertheless, there is often a tension between the two. Nationalist projects in
Southeastern Europe have been eager both to de-Balkanise and to downplay eth-
nic diversity as a key feature of the historical legacy of the country in question.
Minority-related imagery (such as the religious buildings of minority faiths) are
often absent or downplayed in nation branding campaigns. It is no surprise that
one of the few exceptions is Montenegro, which in its tourism materials also pro-
motes “[t]he intertwining of various cultures and an authentic folk tradition”.20
Self-presentation may therefore live up to expectations of “authenticity”, but less
so to those of the Balkan “melting pot”.

Constructing the self

Nation branding is also an exercise in constructing the desirable self: the idea of
how one should be, rather than the reality. This may be well-illustrated by several
nation branding efforts from Macedonia and Serbia. One might liken the three
components on the basis of Freud’s concept of the id, the ego and the super-ego
(Freud, 1947).
In Macedonia, the government launched a domestic campaign in 2012 to “edu-
cate” its citizens on how to behave more appropriately towards visitors. A series
of humorous ads, directed at the Macedonian public, caricatured Macedonians in
their behaviour towards tourists as abusive, obnoxious and inconsiderate. One is
set in a military barracks and entitled “Somewhere in Europe. Training centre for
tourists before arriving in Macedonia”: potential tourists with T-Shirts emblazoned
with “Surviving Macedonia” are commanded by a drill sergeant at 3 a.m. to fall
asleep while a “Gypsy” band is ringing in the tourists’ ears. The drill sergeant
throws fire crackers under the bunk beds, exclaiming: “Think this loud? This is
136 Florian Bieber
nothing. I want to see you sleep in Macedonia with loud music coming from five
different restaurants at the same time!” The campaign ran under the slogan “You
are the face of your country. We all gain from tourism”.21 Other ads mimicked the
style of the late Steve Irwin, the host of the famous Australian wildlife TV-show
“The Crocodile Hunter”. The ads take the viewer to the “dangerous” habitat of
the Macedonian City Cab Driver, the Macedonian Market Seller and the Macedo-
nian Room Renter. All three are characterised by not speaking English and giving
the tourists a hard time. The motto of the ads is “Don’t let this be the image of
Macedonia”.22
These ads are part of a longer historical pattern, in which tourism has served as
a tool of asserting discipline and “modernisation”. Tourism is closely associated
with modernisation and thus serves to form new models of citizen behaviour.
Even in 1869, the date of the establishment of the region’s first tourist organisa-
tion, the municipality of the Croatian island of Hvar passed new ordinances such
as banning beggars on the seafront or the main square and banning them from
approaching foreigners; bars were ordered to close at 9:00 p.m., and citizens were
required to keep the streets clean (Novak, 1967). Similarly during the Socialist
period, Yugoslav media regularly criticised its own citizens’ behaviour towards
tourists.23
The ridicule of the Macedonian educational ads stands in stark contrast to the
way in which the population is presented to an outside audience, here reflecting
the super-ego: “Macedonians are very polite, warm and positive people, who are
really happy to have and to welcome guests in their home, apartments . . . in their
country. So what are you waiting for”.24
The tension between the id – the view of the vulgar, primitive self – and the
super ego – the desired view of how the country should be – is reflected in this
gap between presentations targeted towards the outside world and domestic per-
spectives. External presentation thus becomes not only commercialised self-
presentation, but also a reflection of the desired view of how the country and
population should be, closely matching the classic mechanisms of myth-making
between a degraded present and a desired future, often based on a mystified and
distorted view of the past (Levinger & Lytle, 2001).
A rare example of honesty in tourism, bridging the dichotomy between the
external image and the disciplining view domestically, was a tourism brochure
for Belgrade issued in 2001. The circumstances of the time rendered such an
honest tongue-in-cheek perspective possible, and it was rather a temporary glitch
in the otherwise very serious and humourless nation branding process. Published
not long after the fall of Milošević, it signified Serbia’s new beginning and
Belgrade’s efforts to attract visitors. Under a “keyword” section, the brochure
notes that

[b]asically, you’re safe in Belgrade, but anyway if you get in some sort of
trouble, our policemen are there for you. Although they look scowly and do
not have the faintest idea of single word in English, they are very helpful . . .
Politics. Topic number one in Belgrade. Everybody knows everything about
 Tourism, branding of nation building 137
politics. Everyone could do better than actual minister, primeministar [sic!],
president and other . . . but yet we have political problem last 12 years . . . it
is a miracle.25

Clearly such an informal, non-branded view of the city was only possible during
this brief interregnum, a narrow window between two regimes; it would soon be
replaced by more professional, sanitised and generic advertisement.
Another tension between self-perception and tourist interest arises from dif-
ferent expectations and requirements: tourists are generally interested in leisure,
and perhaps a bit of cultural experience, while nation-builders often seek to com-
municate a historical world-view and “sell” the national narrative. This tension is
reflected in Croatia, where Šibenik, Split and Dubrovnik have become tourist des-
tinations due to serving as a setting for the popular TV series “Game of Thrones”:
in this way, fictitious events and objects have trumped the genuinely historical
(Skoko, Brčić & Vidačković 2013).
In Macedonia, the tension between the desired narrative and reality is also vis-
ible. In recent years, every visitor to Macedonia has been welcomed with the text
message

Welcome to Macedonia, the cradle of civilisation! During your stay we

strongly recommend that you visit the Memorial House of Mother Teresa in
Skopje, the Memorial Centre of Toshe Proeski in Krusevo, the Museum on
Water in Ohrid and the Ancient Observatory in Kokino.26

The message, an attempt to use modern techniques to brand Macedonia as the

Cradle of Civilisation, reveals the tensions between national self-perception and
external perspectives. The term “Cradle of Civilisation” is used in a variety of con-
texts but is mostly associated with Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, where
the first settled civilisations formed.27 More ironically, the cites recommended by
the text message are hardly markers of the Cradle of Civilisation: the Memorial
House of Mother Theresa was built only recently, to commemorate her life and
her birth in the city in 1910. Even more ironic is the reference to the Memorial
Centre of Toshe Proeski, who also features on the Bridge of Artists in downtown
Skopje. The singer, who died in 2007, was enormously popular in Macedonia
and in the Yugosphere, but beyond this region would only be known to the most
committed Eurovision fans. The text simply reveals the contradictions between
making a claim to antiquity while advertising much more recent sites, as well as
that between the desired self-presentation and the reality of what visitors are more
likely to note.28

Conclusion
Nation branding, as noted above, is located at the nexus between images of self
and external demand and expectations. Thus, by its very nature, it is a likely site
of tension: in trying to present a unique nation through branding, re-iterating its
138 Florian Bieber
self-perceived historical narrative, it nevertheless easily slides towards a generic Bal-
kans/East European cookie-cutter nation-brand. To date, the post-Yugoslav countries
have been ignored by the Nation Brand index, as if the efforts of these countries to
literally “put themselves on the map” had failed.29 Yet fictitious Eastern European
countries enjoy name recognition, even if for the wrong reasons. In 2004, a travel
guide to “Molvania” was published in Australia with great success (Cilauro, Gleis-
ner, & Sitch 2004). The “Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry” is of course ficti-
tious, and fits comfortably into a long range of imagined East European countries
from Ruritania to Tintin’s Syldavia, Dilbert’s Elbonia or the Żubrówka of Grand
Hotel Budapest. These fictional places are peppered with stereotypical views of
Eastern Europe: “in-between” countries whose strangeness is already reflected in
their fictitious nature (Goldsworthy, 2012). It is appropriate that this genre of ficti-
tious East European countries has now moved to travel guides. Molvania is peppered
with stereotypes, yet it is also a powerful parody of both the quest for untouched
and authentic destinations and the obsession with the past, the heritage of the place
reflected in its self-presentation and Western tourist literature (Hallett, 2015).
While nation branding might appear to be a clumsy, comical and sometimes
also well-designed exercise in promotion in the post-Yugoslav space, it is far from
innocent. It is, as this chapter has shown, a field that offers insight into the nation-
building projects of post-Yugoslav states, their self-perception and visions of how
the nation should be seen by outsiders. However, it is not simply a kaleidoscope
reflecting the nation through the lens of global tourism, consumerism and market-
ing: it is also a tool to legitimise, shape and impose a new view of the nation in a
top-down process. It also helps to shift our attention from viewing nation-building
and associated processes as exclusively or primarily directed towards the inside.
Instead, nation-building is both internal and external, these two elements being
intrinsically interlinked, and nation branding and the promotion of countries as
nations for tourists to experience is a key part of this. While nation branding is
restrained by the global marketplace, it also seeks to shape this marketplace and
gain legitimacy in and through it.

Notes
1 Draft versions of this chapter were presented at the conferences “Past, Present, Future.
Identities in Flux”, University of Pula, 28–30 May 2015, and “National Identity as
Central Political Concern. The Case of Southeastern Europe and its Competing Myths
of Origin”, Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, Skopje, 17–18 January 2014.
I would like to thank the organisers for the opportunity to present my research and the
participants for their questions and comments.
2 Available from: Tourism Macedonia, Macedonia Timeless, http://macedonia-timeless.
com/eng/things_to_do/senses/sound/traditional_macedonianclothes/ [Accessed
27 January 2017].
3 Available from: Croatian National Tourism Board, Buy Croatia, http://business.croatia.
hr/de-DE/Business [Accessed 27 January 2017].
4 This chapter uses the term ‘country’. However, the decisions over the self-representation
of states are of course the result of decisions by the government, as well as advertise-
ment agencies and other private entities engaged in the nation branding process. This
 Tourism, branding of nation building 139
chapter will not explore in detail the actors and processes through which nation-brands
are established and promoted. However, it acknowledges the multiple actors and the
different and possibly divergent interests involved. The key assumption is that, despite
the involvement of private and commercial actors, the ultimate nation-brand is a reflec-
tion of government policy and thus allows for insights on how a government seeks to
present the given country to the outside world.
5 There has been a growing number of critical studies of “nation branding”, but these
have been largely restricted to media and communication studies and anthropology. See
Volcic, Z. & Andrejevic, M. (2011) Nation Branding in the Era of Commercial National-
ism. International Journal of Communication. 5, 598–618, and Volcic, Z. & Andrejevic,
M. (eds.) (2015) Commercial Nationalism: Selling the Nation and Nationalizing the
Sell. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
6 This bottom-up effort echoes the more curious case of the Bosnian pyramids: Pruitt,
T. C. (2016) Creating Pyramids: Participation, Performance, and Pseudoarcheology in
Bosnia-Herzogivna. In: Card, J. J. et al. (eds.). Lost City, Found Pyramid: Understand-
ing Alternative Archeologies and Pseudoscientific Practices. Tuscaloosa, Alabama:
University of Alabama Press. Arguably, the same phenomenon can also be found in the
pilgrimage site of Međugorje.
7 See: http://ikonartsfoundation.org/milanvulpe/ [Accessed 24 January 2017].
8 See an ad used in 1975 by the Yugoslav tourism office, available from: www.youtube.
com/watch?v=U0Jf6hnBh9o, similar ads from the 1980s: www.youtube.com/
watch?v=RaZUu98MDlU [Accessed 24 January 2017].
9 Wartime tourist materials were unsurprisingly focused on promoting Croatian nation-
alist history: “on the mountains and fields of Croatia, at the sea and on its islands, the
only constant feature [over a millennia] has been the Croatian people, that has founded
its own state and developed its own culture, without regard to the misfortunes and for-
eign domination that sought to exterminate it”. Horvatić, D. (1992) Kroatien. Zagreb,
Turistkomerc.
10 Croatian National Tourism Board, Croatia, the Mediterrenean as it once was, https://
www.scribd.com/document/254102800/Croatia-The-Mediterranean-as-it-once-was-
2014-2015-EN-pdf [Accessed 24 January 2017].
11 Croatia, Full of Life: The Country’s New Tourist Slogan, Croatia Times, 12 February
2015, www.likecroatia.com/news-tips/croatia-full-life-countrys-new-tourist-slogan/
[Accessed 24 January 2017].
12 Slovenian Tourist Board, www.slovenia.info/en/zgodovina-znamke/Chronological-
Overview-of-Tour.htm?zgodovina_znamke=2458&lng=2 [Accessed 24 January
2017].
13 Tourism Organisation of Serbia, Three Times Love, Serbia. Tourist Map, n.d.
14 See Milcho Manchevski, Macedonia Timeless, http://manchevski.com/video/
macedonia-timeless-2/ [Accessed 24 January 2017].
15 Similarly in the Baltic states: see Jordan, P. (2014) Nation Branding: A Tool for Nation-
alism? Journal of Baltic Studies. 45, 283–303.
16 See Government of Kosovo/ BBR Saatchi & Saatchi Tel Aviv, Kosovo. The Young
Europeans, https://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/tv-commercials/government-of-the-
republic-of-kosovo-the-young-europeans-13509555/ [Accessed 24 January 2017].
17 Foreign Ministry of Greece, FYROM Name Issue, available at www.mfa.gr/en/fyrom-
name-issue/ [Accessed 3 December 2016].
18 “Nova bruka Srbije na CNN-u”. Blic, 31.7.2007.
19 Literally “Gypsification”.
20 The tourist brochure is explicitly called “Multicultural Heritage. Montenegro”. Monte-
negro Tourism, 2014.
21 Government of the Republic of Macedonia, Ti si liceto na tvojata zemja! [You are
the face of your country], www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKQCLpjDwOo [Accessed
24 January 2017].
140 Florian Bieber
22 See other examples from the campaign Government of the Republic of Macedonia,
Ti si liceto na tvojata zemja! [You are the face of your country], www.youtube.com/
watch?v=WhKr4tuThoU, www.youtube.com/watch?v=MANPFFx_MDo, www.
youtube.com/watch?v=NwGlm9nIVBs [Accessed 24 January 2017].
23 For example “Strani turisti a nama: Neljubazni, namrgođeni, neinformirani,” Vjesnik
Magazin. 17.12.1978.
24 The text can be found in various tourism materials, including http://aries.mk/package/
lifestyle/ and the Women’s Organisation of the municipality of Sveti Nikole, “Beauti-
ful things are in small packages – Meet Macedonia”, www.womsvetinikole.org.mk/
Beautiful%20things%20are%20in%20small%20packages-MEET%20MACEDONIA.
pdf [Accessed 24 January 2017].
25 Belgrade Tourism Association. Welcome to Belgrade. Spring 2001 edition.
26 “Welcome to Macedonia, the cradle of civilization! ” Vecher, 8.9.2011, http://vecer.
mk/ekonomija/welcome-to-macedonia-the-cradle-of-civilization [Accessed 24 January
2017].
27 Four other countries evoke the origins of humanity or civilisation in their tourism slo-
gans: Egypt, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Israel: “Map Shows Every Country’s Tourism
Slogan”, 24.11.2016 www.familybreakfinder.co.uk/holidays/map-every-countrys-tour-
ism-slogan/ [Accessed 24 January 2017].
28 Taking the ranking of sites on tripadvisor.com as an indicator, the most highly rated sites
in Macedonia are Lake Ohrid, Lake Matko, the Monastery of St. Naum (Ohrid), the
Old Bazar and the Stone Bridge. The sites cited are at Place 6 in “what to do in Ohrid”
(Museum on the Water) and Place 7 in Skopje (Mother Theresa’s House), while the
Observatory and the Proeski Memorial House have too few reviews to even be ranked.
29 Anholt-GfK Nation Brands Index. http://nation-brands.gfk.com/ [Accessed 24 January
2017].

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8 Promoting the nation in
Austria and Switzerland
A pre-history of nation branding
Oliver Kühschelm

Introduction
The concept of nation branding has become very prominent since the late 1990s. It
now seems almost obvious that countries have to cultivate their ‘brand’. This essay
will investigate the case of two small European countries in order to shed light on
the (pre-)history of nation branding. Small nation-states are of special relevance
to the topic because they face a far more daunting challenge than large countries.
There probably is not a single consumer on earth who has never heard of the
United States. Similarly, European powers such as France, Britain, and Germany
are well-known quantities in almost any part of the world. But small states cannot
count on being a fixture in the imagination of foreigners. Nearly as bad as a bad
image is no image at all; even more so as small states depend to a higher degree
than large countries on investors, consumers and tourists from abroad. They thus
have every incentive to hone their ‘brand’. The essay will look into the history of
state-run and para-governmental institutions, as well as civic associations with a
business background, whose brief it was to create goodwill for Swiss and Austrian
products and services. The aim is to sketch the emergence and ensuing develop-
ment of a field of promotional activities that staged the relation of companies,
products, and nations.
The success of ‘nation branding’ as a marketing concept is itself an example
of successful branding. It is a way of putting together promotional activities at
the intersection of state, nation and economy, as they have existed throughout
the 20th century. Does this mean that the practice of nation branding predates the
term itself ? As happens so often, the answer depends on which aspect we are
examining. The neoliberal language of market-based competition is, new but the
idea of the nation is much older, having been a political tool to enable competi-
tion for centuries (Greenfeld, 2001). In the present the leading role played by
advertisers and branding expertise has reached an extent not seen before; how-
ever, promoting the nation was among the tasks that advertisers took on as soon
as they established themselves as a profession in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. It formed part of their quest for respectability, which they could prove
by contributing to the greater cause of the nation (McGovern, 2006; Schwarz-
kopf, 2008; Hirt, 2013).
144 Oliver Kühschelm
If research on the history of promoting the nation is to enhance our under-
standing of ‘nation branding’, we first have to ask how contemporary branding
practitioners use this term. Keith Dinnie has written a well-received textbook on
the topic. He defines a ‘nation brand’ as “the unique, multi-dimensional blend of
elements that provide the nation with culturally grounded differentiation and rel-
evance for all its target audiences” (Dinnie, 2007: 15). These audiences are mostly
foreigners if we consider the three principal objectives that yet another marketing
expert, Leslie de Chernatony, offers as “academic insight” in the same volume.
Said goals are increasing tourism, inward investment and exports (Dinnie, 2007:
17). Dinnie allows for a role of the nation brand in nation building, which goes
beyond promotional practices, but he dwells mainly on its economic potential. This
is consistent with the emergence of the concept in marketing and advertising, the
major goal of which is to boost sales.
The social sciences have been engaged in a critical discussion of nation brand-
ing for at least a decade. Historiographical works that use the concept as a start-
ing point are still rare. To be sure, there are several strands of historiographical
research that have prepared the ground for analysing nation branding in a historical
perspective. Research on advertising and propaganda has studied how compa-
nies linked product images to stereotypical ideas about nations and how mass-
media-based communication about products has in turn shaped national images
(Kühschelm et al., 2012; Gries, 2003; Gries, 2011). The most obvious example
are big-name brands such as Coca Cola, Apple or McDonald’s that embody brand
America and represent an inextricable mix of lifestyle, business and politics. Clas-
sical accounts of US advertising (Marchand, 1985; Lears, 1994) show that the
co-branding of products and nations was a common practice long before market-
ing research coined terms such as the “country of origin” and began to measure
consumer ethnocentrism. Works in the history of consumption reconstruct how
consumption and the consumer became central concerns of public debate: a grow-
ing body of literature on the citizen-consumer has investigated the confluence
of ideas about citizenship, national belonging and consumption (Brändli, 2000;
Cohen, 2006; Soper & Trentmann, 2008; Trentmann, 2016). In the 1990s, research
in the history of nations and nationalism took a constructivist turn, increasing focus
on how nationalism played out in the sphere of the everyday. To conceive of the
nation as an “imagined community” (Anderson, 2006), to consider the “invention
of tradition” (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1984) or to investigate “sites of memory”
(Nora, 1984–1992) are valuable tools for understanding the possibilities and limi-
tations of historical practices that have led to the current vogue of nation brand-
ing. As tourists are a typical target audience of nation brands, the historiography
of tourism offers significant insights too. For example, neither the Austrian nor
the Swiss ‘brand’ can be divorced from the long history of promoting the Alps
to foreigners and co-nationals (Tissot, 2011). An increasing number of inquiries
in the fields of diplomatic history and the history of international relations have
focussed on cultural propaganda as a means of deploying soft power and creating
a favourable impression with the public of foreign countries (Wagnleitner, 1994;
Belmonte, 2008; Glover, 2011; Gienow-Hecht & Donfried, 2010; Gienow-Hecht,
 Promoting nation, Austria and Switzerland 145
2012). The basic concept here is “public diplomacy”, which has its origins in the
Cold War (Cull, 2013), the military and political conflict between two superpowers
and their clientele states. This contrasts to the connotations of nation branding, a
concept which accentuates its origins in commercial practices and in the neoliberal
retooling of the political economy. However, there is also a large overlap between
public diplomacy and nation branding.
Occasionally, marketing and branding experts refer to history as well in order to
bolster their claims about nation branding. The consultant Wally Olins (1999) stressed
the “long history of nation branding”; nations and large companies had always been
closely related because both were in the business of “trading identities”. Looking
back to 17th and 18th centuries Britain, he observed that with the East India Com-
pany, it was hard to say where private business ended and imperial politics began.
Ohlins clothed his observations in marketing lingo, but they point to the intricacies
of separating state, culture and economy. Clearly the relationship between companies
and the nation-state has been too complex to allow for a binary opposition between
a neoliberal present and a happier past when the state was able to control markets.
However, projecting back the contemporary concept of nation branding can easily
lead to oversimplification too. A genealogical approach to promotion that links prod-
ucts and services to their nation of origin has to show that this sort of promotion can
mean different things in different contexts. Connecting nations to their products and
vice versa can serve as a tool of economic nationalism, as a (symbolic) withdrawal
from world trade, yet its goals can equally consist of competing for tourists and invest-
ments from abroad. Such promotional activities sometimes address primarily a home
audience, sometimes primarily foreigners, and sometimes both groups. Research into
nation branding has to aim at inserting this recent concept into a longer history without
falling into the trap of drawing a picture of eternal sameness.
Tackling the history of the nation-state immediately raises the question: Who or
what is the state? One tradition of thinking, which has been prevalent in German-
speaking academia, goes back to Hegel, who set the state apart from and opposed to
civil society (Maier, 2012: 156–159). Unfortunately, this approach blinds research
to the myriad ways that the state is woven into the social fabric. Decision-making
in economic, cultural and political matters is not located exclusively within the
apparatus of the central state. This is especially important to bear in mind when
speaking of Switzerland, a federalist union of cantons, which are states in their
own right (albeit quite small ones). The crisscrossing net of associations, so typical
of Switzerland, further complicates the picture. Although access to economic and
cultural resources is always asymmetric, the nation-state is more complicated than
a top-down perspective, based in an administrative centre of power, would suggest.
Besides, while the economy may be the principal object of government, economic
relations do not automatically coincide with the national community. Nor does
their reach automatically correspond to the territorial boundaries of the state. To
look at economic relations from the angle of the nation-state is just one possibil-
ity among others. In German discourse, it gave rise to the concept of a “national
economy”, which cannot be divorced from the nationalist context in which it had
emerged in the early 19th century (Speich Chassé, 2014).
146 Oliver Kühschelm
In his late work Michel Foucault introduced the notion of “governmentality”
(Bröckling et al., 2010; Maier, 2012: 156–170). In his genealogy of the early
modern state, he emphasised how different institutional actors converge around
shared techniques of governing the social. Governmentalities are heterogeneous
bundles of material and conceptual elements that allow things (and people) to be
drawn together (Foucault, 2007: 108–110). They establish a centre, but not one
that is identical with a federal bureaucracy that dictates the norms. This is a useful
way of thinking about the position of the promotional campaigns that this article is
interested in. The nation and the nation-state may have anchored these promotional
efforts, but these campaigns were not always under direct government control. On
the contrary, governments often kept at least a token distance. This was advisable
for strategic reasons vis-à-vis foreigners, for example when a promotional organ-
isation took an openly chauvinist stance, but it also helped to harness cooperation
and funding from diverse social actors. The promotional organisations in question
negotiated and shared notions and tools of governmentality with companies, trade
organisations, unions, housewives’ associations, schools, political parties, as well
as local or central government agencies. Together these actors formed networks
that contributed to the fabric of society and the polity while also participating in
the discourses that shaped the imagined community of the nation.

A comparative sketch of Swiss and

Austrian history in the 20th century
Switzerland and Austria are both small countries and share a lot of characteristics.
But if we are to use them as case studies, it is necessary to take a closer look at
their similarities and differences. In the 20th century, the nation is an amalgam of
a nation-state, a national economy and the nation as an imagined community. A
first attempt at Swiss nation building was made under Napoleonic pressure at the
turn of the 19th century, but it ultimately took off in 1847, after the liberal cantons
had defeated their Catholic conservative adversaries in a brief civil war (Zimmer,
2003). The Swiss nation was a creation of the “Bürgertum”, a social stratum that
consisted of entrepreneurs, crafts- and tradesmen, professionals and the educated.
As an incarnation of the middle classes, the Bürgertum regarded itself as society’s
centre. While elsewhere modern mass parties brought its political hegemony to an
end, in Switzerland it did not lose its grip on parliamentary politics and the national
imaginary. Instead, it succeeded in co-opting peasants and ultimately labourers to
its liberal-conservative version of Switzerland. It fused an Alpine imaginary with
the acknowledgement of industrial craftsmanship and high-quality services. This
enabled decentralised and nonetheless highly consistent work to be done on the
image of Switzerland and Swiss products (Tanner, 2015; Hettling et al., 1998).
When the Habsburg Monarchy disintegrated in 1918, the Republic of Austria
was formed as one of its successor states. There was no question that Austria had
all the attributes of a state. However, particularly the upper and middle classes
were dissatisfied with the outcome of World War I. Furthermore, neither elites nor
ordinary citizens considered the new state the political expression of their national
 Promoting nation, Austria and Switzerland 147
sentiment. If asked for feelings of national belonging, Austrians could be relied
upon to voice their attachment to the German nation (Bruckmüller, 2003; Thorpe,
2011). Austria existed as an independent state because the Allies, the victors of
World War I, had wanted it that way. Doubts about its economic viability bolstered
the lack of affection for the Austrian state. At a time when Switzerland showed all
the characteristics of a nation-state, Austria did not. The persuasiveness of promot-
ing an image that links nation, state and economy hinges on the self-evidence of
this linkage. It makes the state a correlate of the nation and renders the national
economy the object of worry and pride with which we have become familiar. In
the interwar years the Republic of Austria could not boast of having a national
economy; nor did it serve as the focal point for national sentiment.
This changed after World War II. In the 1950s the Austrian economy experi-
enced spectacular growth. Austria became an affluent country, a popular tourist
destination and a successful exporter of industrial goods. The Austrian trajectory
thus came to resemble that of its Swiss neighbour in terms of economic and social
development. Furthermore, both countries now based their foreign policy on a
declaration of permanent neutrality, served as seats of the UN and prided them-
selves on their humanitarian commitments. However, substantial differences con-
tinued to exist between the two. While corporatist power-sharing was important
to both, Austria did not emulate Switzerland’s idiosyncratic political system with
its emphasis on constant civic involvement and direct democracy. On a related
note, liberal belief in market forces and private business played a larger role in
Switzerland than in Austria, for state-owned industries and banks held a highly
prominent place in the Austrian economy until the 1990s. Furthermore, whereas
Switzerland was economically and politically decentralised, Austria had Vienna
as its somewhat diminished, yet still overbearing capital city.
Branding the nation and national products to the outside world or to co-nationals
are not mutually exclusive options. Still, we have to sort out where the priorities
lay. We can expect economic data to give some hints and to demonstrate the spe-
cific situation of small countries.1 When the value of exports and imports of goods
is added up and related to the gross domestic product (GDP), it provides a measure
of a country’s integration into international trade with respect to its primary and
secondary sectors. Typically, there is a significant difference between large and
small countries. In 1966, merchandise trade represented just 7 percent of US GDP
but 46 percent of Swiss and 37 percent of Austrian GDP. In the case of Germany,
a comparatively large country famous for its export orientation, the figure was
32 percent.2 Figure 8.1 compares Austria and Switzerland. It depicts the respec-
tive share of merchandise trade in the GDP for all years with available data. The
Swiss economy started the 20th century as heavily outward-oriented. Among small
European states, only the Netherlands, the trading nation par excellence, registered
a higher share of the international exchange of goods in the GDP. Switzerland
remained outward-oriented throughout the century, albeit to a lesser degree than
before. Everywhere, the mid-century decades marked the highpoint of conceiving
economic relations in the framework of national economies: Nationalistic dreams
of autarchy, often to be shored up by imperial expansion, dominated the 1930s; a
148 Oliver Kühschelm

Figure 8.1 Austrian and Swiss merchandise trade in percent of GDP, 1900–2010
Sources: Austria, data until 1913: South-Eastern European Monetary and Economic Statistics (2014);
trade figures (1924–60): Butschek (2011), 595–597; Nominal GNP (1924–60): Mitchell (2003). Switzer-
land: Historical Statistics of Switzerland Online, tables Q16a (1900–48), Q16b (1949–1960, 1970–79).
Austria (1961–2010), Switzerland (1961–69; 1980–2010): World Trade Organisation (2015).

more benign version of concentrating on national economies as closed circuits of

exchange characterised the post-war decades. When the Fordist production regime
showed increasing signs of crisis in the 1970s, a new cycle of globalisation began.
The Austrian story was at first very different from the Swiss one. Until 1918
the provinces that were to become the Republic of Austria formed part of a large
empire with more than fifty million people. International trade played only a
minor role in national income. The Republic of Austria, though, had to import
and export on a wholly different scale. During the interwar years, trade figures
resembled closely those of its equally small Swiss neighbour. After World War II,
Austria lagged behind the internationalisation of Switzerland. In the post-war
era, it was a relatively closed national economy. However, merchandise trade
gradually increased until the 1980s, when it reached the level of Switzerland
again. Internationalisation has since continued. Nevertheless, towards the end
of the century the Austrian path showed signs of again diverging from the Swiss
template. Austrian companies benefitted enormously from the opening up of the
former socialist countries, which did not have the same importance for Swit-
zerland. Furthermore, in contrast to its Western neighbour, Austria opted for an
unreserved participation in the European Common Market and full membership
in the European Union.
 Promoting nation, Austria and Switzerland 149
Promoting the nation – the development
of institutional networks
The second half of the 19th century gave rise to a governmentality that com-
bined the nation-state as its most fundamental reference with an ever-increasing
role for expert knowledge that was part (social) technology, part (social) science.
Promotional communication thereby became a field for experts. However, the
pathos of the nation and the logos of the expert were never an uncontroversial
match. Campaigns that promoted national products, especially when targeting a
co-national audience, had to negotiate between a technocratic approach and a
claim to authenticity that supposedly resided in the nation. In a 1928 article, which
appeared in the renowned magazine Der Österreichische Volkswirt, a manager
from Vienna assessed Austria’s image in the US. He warned that since the end of
the First World War, “German-Austria” had disappeared from the mind of the aver-
age American. In his opinion Austria should employ a “public relations director”
in order to engage with a US audience (Hryntschak, 1928). He informed readers
that this would be in the spirit of what Americans called “national publicity”, a
practice that he deemed of the utmost importance for export and tourism. If there
were a constant flow of persuasive information about Austria, according to his
argument, it would increase demand for Austrian products and elevate some of
them to models of quality and good price. Tellingly, the editors of the journal
thought it necessary to distance themselves from the opinion expressed in the
article. Commenting that the idea of a public relations director did not conform to
European notions of propriety, they suggested that it was less a model to emulate
than an aberration to avoid. However, the use of advertising techniques to promote
the nation has its European roots, too. Britain, for example, provided examples that
were widely admired. From 1926 to 1933 the British Empire Marketing Board ran
highly sophisticated campaigns on behalf of national and imperial products (Con-
stantine, 1986). In 1932 the Board’s secretary wrote an influential pamphlet, fit-
tingly titled The Projection of England (Anthony, 2012). And the British Council,
founded in 1934, served as a model of cultural propaganda for many later efforts
of this kind (Taylor, 1981).
Let us now look at institutional developments in Austria and Switzerland over
the long run from the nineteenth to the early 21st centuries. I will consider the
emergence of different institutions whose mission resided in persuasive commu-
nication and which aimed at promoting the nation, its goods and services. Their
activities included tourism advertising, the promotion of trade and export, calls
on co-nationals to mind the national origin of products, and cultural propaganda.
In Switzerland and Austria, with the former taking the lead, tourist promotion
started from regional initiatives, which then were integrated on a national level.
An important actor that projected touristic images nationally and internationally
were the railway companies that in both Austria and Switzerland were heavily
involved in the development of tourism. In 1908 the Swiss Federal Railway, SBB,
founded an agency in New York that promoted Switzerland in the US through
ads and features in the press as well as brochures. In the mid-1930s, the agency’s
150 Oliver Kühschelm
director boasted that thanks to their close contact with publishers no U.S. textbook
on geography and history failed to present Switzerland to young Americans “as
one of the most unspoiled and yet most progressive, best governed and most scenic
countries” (Dossenbach, October 1935: 91).
Since the mid-19th century, efforts to increase exports deployed an ever-wider
array of policies reaching from commercial treaties to informational, diplomatic,
logistical and financial support for exporters. These policies also began to include
communication with a broad public as a way of honing the country’s image. It
was the heyday of world’s fairs and industrial exhibitions.3 These aimed to make
people proud of their country’s achievements while also impressing an interna-
tional audience. The Swiss national exhibitions, deemed “factories of cohesion”
(Kreis, 2003: 13–35), furnished conspicuous examples (Arnold, 2001). Vienna for
its part held a world’s fair in 1873 (Kos, 2014; Felber et al., 2000: 55–69). It did
not bring the success that its organisers had hoped for because it coincided with
the beginning of a global economic depression. Still, it gave a push to the insti-
tutional establishment of export promotion in the Habsburg Monarchy. Its most
important institution, the k.k. Handelsmuseum, was founded in its wake (Meyer,
1991: 65f.). At the beginning of the 20th century, an era of globalisation came to a
close. Economic liberalism had largely run its course. The turn towards organised
capitalism benefited the institutionalisation of joint efforts to promote the nation
and its products. At the same time, imperialism together with a move towards
protectionist trade regimes created the impression that an increasingly aggressive
global competition of nations and empires was taking place (Hobsbawm, 1987).
Higher fences seemed to demand higher ladders. On the one hand, that meant that
commercial diplomacy intensified; on the other, apart from tariffs and administra-
tive barriers to trade, it seemed a smart idea to persuade citizens to prefer national
products whenever they had a choice. The exhortation to mind the national origin
of goods had long been a weapon of movements pursuing national independence
(Breen, 2004; Gerth, 2003; Bayly, 1992). Now promotional campaigns in this vein
began to spread in established nation-states. This phenomenon even took root in
Britain, at the heart of the world’s most vast empire, in which All-British and Impe-
rial Shopping Weeks became popular (Trentmann, 2008: 228–240).
World War I and its aftermath added to these developments. Although Switzer-
land remained neutral, the war put the country under heavy strain, economically
as well as ideologically. French- and German-speaking Switzerland sympathised
with different sides. Concerns about the danger that the war posed to national unity
originated a push for deeper cultural integration. The idea of federal interventions
in the market to organise the economy and prevent society from harm became more
acceptable as well. However, the slim federal bureaucracy would not have been
able to take charge of a wide array of promotional activities. The state lent them
limited financial support and sought representation on the institutional boards of
promotional organisations that were increasing in number. Initiatives in Lausanne
and Basle were formed to organise sample fairs, with the German and the French
regions in a characteristic competition against each other (Kury & Baur, 2016).
The first Comptoir took place in Lausanne in 1916, the Mustermesse in Basle
 Promoting nation, Austria and Switzerland 151
followed a year later. Both became regular events. Since their organisers wanted
to present Swiss manufacturing prowess to the broader public, they ruled out any
participation of foreign companies. The fairs in Basle and Lausanne belonged
to a wave of new trade fairs in Europe, and many of them allowed only national
exhibitors. While the fairs in Lausanne and Basle were centralised events, the
Swiss Week was its decentralised counterpart (Kühschelm, 2012). In autumn 1917,
a massive propaganda campaign reminded citizens to choose nationally manu-
factured goods. For about a week, retailers all over the country displayed Swiss
products in shop windows. The first national body for tourism advertising was
also founded in 1917. The establishment of export promotion on the national level
came in 1927 when three organisations merged into the Swiss Centre for Export
Promotion (‘office suisse d’expansion commercial’) (Buschor, 1931: 19–40). The
Centre supported Swiss companies in their endeavour to present their products
abroad. It facilitated participation in trade fairs and exhibitions, it organised its
own exhibitions of Swiss products, and it edited illustrated books and commis-
sioned promotional films (Debluë, 2015). The activities of the Swiss Centre for
Export Promotion encompassed cultural propaganda. Yet, when in 1939 Pro Hel-
vetia was established, cultural propaganda had finally received its own organisa-
tion as well (Kadelbach, 2013; Milani, 2013). On the one hand, Pro Helvetia was
intended to strengthen the sense of national belonging among the Swiss. This fol-
lowed the logic of spiritual defense (“Geistige Landesverteidigung”), the rallying
of the Swiss around the nation in the face of looming war and the threat to Swiss
sovereignty that it entailed. On the other hand, Pro Helvetia worked systematically
towards improving the image of Switzerland abroad.
In Austria the build-up of promotional institutions suffered a severe blow from
the outcome of World War I. The new republic looked back to a long tradition of
centralising bureaucratic ambitions headquartered in Vienna, when it had been a
different state with an entirely different territorial reach. The republic’s inheritance
was not balanced, to say the least. In matters of trade promotion it lost many of the
most active institutions and their global network (Meyer, 1991: 132). It took about
a decade to adapt export promotion to the changed situation. In November 1918
the provisional parliament of the fledgling republic had declared that it considered
the new state an integral part of Germany. Already from this beginning, one can
surmise the obstacles for promoting Austria as a sovereign nation, that is, as an
independent state as well as an imagined community with which a majority of
people identify. In an era of nationalist overdrive, the Austrian elites did not have
access to nationalism as a resource to stabilise a state that was confronted with
deep political, social and cultural cleavages. Regarding the republic’s international
position, Austrian elites hoped to regain some of the ground that had been lost with
the end of the empire. Since 1921 Vienna held an annual trade fair, an important
promotional event situated on the grounds of the world’s fair from 1873 (Neudhart,
2011). Contrary to the big Swiss fairs in Basle and Lausanne, the Vienna Fair did
not represent a nation but the ambition of the former imperial metropolis to sustain
its role as a trade hub in Central Eastern Europe. Consequently, the Vienna Fair
admitted foreign exhibitors. However, they constituted only a tiny fraction of the
152 Oliver Kühschelm
participants, and the fair’s international character gradually faded. In the late 1920s
the conservative newspaper Reichspost (17 March 1929) observed that the fair was
evolving into an “Austrian-national” event.
Since the mid-1920s the Austrian government retreated from its former liberal
stance on foreign trade because the other successor states of the Habsburg Mon-
archy proved hesitant in adopting a similar policy. Business organisations pinned
some of their hopes on the domestic market. The Swiss Week had been an annual
event ever since 1917. Now a similar initiative started in Austria, too. The Vien-
nese Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Industry, discreetly supported
by the Ministry of Trade, pushed for promotion on behalf of Austrian products.
In 1927 they led the establishment of the working group “Buy Austrian Goods”.
As its first major activity, the group arranged an Austrian Week. Unlike the Swiss
Week, it did not grow into a regular event, but the organisation managed to employ
other, less-costly means of promoting Austrian products.
In the interwar years, it was timely to promote nationalistic or patriotic consump-
tion. In nearly every country across the world, governments, business groups, con-
cerned citizens, national/ist media, etc., coalesced around this idea. ‘Buy national’
campaigns were a truly global phenomenon. There certainly was something odd
about the call to buy Austrian goods because it lacked the ideological support of a
broadly accepted national identity. In this respect Austria and Switzerland were far
apart. However, for a more nuanced overall picture, we should not overlook that
the ‘Buy Austrian’ campaign commenced when an increased attention for the inter-
nal market was converging with the precarious political and economic stabilisation
of the republic (Hanisch, 1994: 159). Moreover, Christian Social politicians and
intellectuals toyed with the idea of promoting a distinct Austrianness. They drew
on conservative traditions of opposing the image of Catholic Austria to Protestant
Prussia. They continued to emphasise the German character of Austrians. It was
a vision that was anti-modern, and it excluded Social Democrats and urban work-
ers. And yet, it was the trial run for promoting a national mythology that political
elites – again with a visibly conservative tilt – repeated with more success after
World War II.
In the 1920s and early 1930s, Austrian governments took foreign loans twice to
stabilise the economy. In exchange, they had to accept control from the League of
Nations, which recommended austerity. This was much to the liking of a govern-
ment that espoused an anti-modern ideological orientation, yet it proved disastrous
in the Great Depression (Senft, 2003). With international trade caught in a down-
ward spiral, the dictatorial regime of Engelbert Dollfuß and Kurt Schuschnigg
staked all its hope on export-led growth. As a result, the institutional develop-
ment of export and tourist promotion made significant progress (Burtscher, 1978:
99–104; Meyer, 1991: 83; Senft, 2002: 344–346). The government fused the activ-
ities of several organisations. In 1934 it created a new body for tourist promotion
and expanded its budget. In May 1933, the Nazi regime had introduced a prohibi-
tive fee for Germans who travelled to Austria, thus creating enormous pressure
to diversify the target regions of tourist promotion. It was necessary to persuade
foreigners from Western Europe and North America to step in and spend a winter
 Promoting nation, Austria and Switzerland 153
holiday in Austria or visit cultural attractions. The renowned festival in Salzburg
was compelled to become internationalised. It came to be, in the words of Stefan
Zweig, a “world attraction”. At the same time, it catalysed the confection of a high
cultural version of Austrianness for domestic consumption (Kriechbaumer, 2013:
42–52, 59–80, 188). As for export promotion, the government merged the perti-
nent activities of the Viennese Chamber of Commerce with the Handelsmuseum
in 1936. At the world’s fairs in Brussels in 1935 and in Paris two years later, the
regime advertised Austria to foreigners, presenting the country as an ideal Alpine
tourist destination. The pavilion’s design showed the world a moderately modern
face (Felber et al., 2000: 116–141). While this image was at odds with the regime’s
utter conservatism at home, it went a long way towards crafting an appealing
country brand that would draw tourists to Austria. The government also created
an office for economic propaganda at the Ministry of Trade that was supposed
to coordinate promotional activities abroad and at home. As part of the Vienna
Fair in 1935, the office designed an exhibition with the title “Austria’s Economy
on the Upswing”. Still, there was little that the government achieved along the
lines of improving the economic situation of the broad population. The regime
relied on political repression and propaganda. But the amalgam of anti-Marxism,
authoritarianism, and the celebration of Catholic peasant life did not look like the
real deal, which increasing numbers of Austrians considered to be Nazi Germany.
The Great Depression hit Switzerland less hard than Austria, and nationalism
did not endanger its existence as an independent nation-state. Right-wing move-
ments, the Fronts, took their cues from Italian fascism and National Socialism.
Yet at the same time a liberal-conservative consensus could affirm itself and even
began to make room for a cooperative social democracy (Hettling et al., 1998: 47,
53, 57–59). The rising tide of fascism all over Europe and the mounting threat
of war at the end of a decade impinged on the promotion of national products
and services. It suggested that integrating different promotional activities under
a common ideological umbrella would better contribute to the spiritual defence
of the homeland. The national exhibition, which opened in Zurich in May 1939, was
the most conspicuous example of the overriding goal of rallying the Swiss around
the national cause and strengthening the imagined community of a linguistically
diverse country.
The idea of pooling advertising expertise and of coordinating messages, ‘umfas-
sende Landeswerbung’, gained considerable traction. It did not lead to a unified
nation branding agency, but the central commission of Swiss propaganda organ-
isations represented a step in this direction. The commission, created in the early
1930s, was meant to bring together organisations that aimed ‘to increase the repu-
tation of our country and to strengthen its economy’ (Kaestlin, 1948). This would
do for any mission statement of a nation branding campaign today. Admittedly, the
commission did not accomplish a great deal. Organisational egoism and differing
interests always haunt attempts to implement cooperation between institutions
with overlapping briefs. But in a longer perspective, the commission also suffered
from being tied to an increasingly obsolete concept of relating the nation to its
economy. The members of the commission started to gather at the height of the
154 Oliver Kühschelm
depression when “beggar your neighbour” had become the standard maxim of
trade policies. Protectionism merged with the vision of autarchy and the internal
market seemed more important than ever before, even for a country like Switzer-
land. The call for patriotic shopping enjoyed broad acceptance. The Swiss Week
and the national trade fairs staged the purchase of products made in Switzerland
as a civic duty and a demonstration of love for the nation. As of 1931, the Central
Agency for the Swiss Trademark promoted the use of a national label for Swiss
products. As the symbol that guaranteed the Swissness of products, it had chosen
the crossbow, a nod to the myth of Wilhelm Tell and clearly a defensive call to
arms. This was in tune with the general mood of the 1930s, but less so with the
optimistic spirit of the post-war boom.
In the post-war era, the promotion of national products shifted towards crafting
an image that would foster sales abroad. Switzerland, though, started to pursue this
path earlier and more systematically than Austria. In the mid-1960s, dissatisfac-
tion about the international reputation of Switzerland spread among Swiss elites,
resulting in the creation of a new commission to coordinate promotional activities
abroad (Kadelbach, 2013: 249–277). It proved to be more effective than previ-
ous attempts. In 2000 the commission was eventually transformed into Presence
Switzerland, an institutional body attached to the Federal Department of Foreign
Affairs (Presence Switzerland, s.a.). Its task is to monitor foreign opinion on Swit-
zerland and steer the Swiss image clear of possible damage. When establishing
these organisations, Swiss authorities had feared precisely that: lasting damage for
the Swiss brand. In the 1960s, right-wing politicians stoked fears about migration
and a potential ‘Überfremdung’, an excess of foreignness. However, Switzerland
was exceedingly rich and unemployment virtually non-existent (Church & Head,
2013: 239f.; on the origins of this discourse see Kury, 2003). Hence, this did not
look good from abroad. In the late 1990s, it was the Swiss banks’ profiteering from
the Shoah that became a source of international controversy, threatening the image
of a peaceful country with a strong humanitarian commitment. In both cases, the
perceived crisis of the brand provided the motivation to improve how the brand
was cultivated.
In Austria, the Chamber of Commerce built an extended network of foreign
trade offices (Meyer, 1991: 190–194), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs greatly
expanded its cultural diplomacy after the Iron Curtain had been removed (Brix,
2013). The national office of tourist promotion has also been an active advertiser
of the Austrian brand. As of 1989 it calls itself ‘Österreich-Werbung’. Rather than
indicating a touristic focus, the name suggests a broader mission, and indeed tour-
ism advertising has deeply impacted how Austrians themselves see their coun-
try (Woldrich, 1997: 57). Nonetheless, Austria has not yet arrived at anything
similar to Presence Switzerland, a federal institution explicitly in charge of nation
branding.
In 2005 Simon Anholt started to publish a nation brand index. It greatly
enhanced the marketing potential of the concept of a nation brand. Media and
the public cannot resist rankings because they convert a complex phenomenon
such as the image of countries among diverse audiences in different parts of the
 Promoting nation, Austria and Switzerland 155
world into a simple listing. It is the perfect example, if there ever was one, of how
discourse creates its objects. The nation brand index from 2013, which comprised
fifty countries, showed Switzerland in eighth place. Switzerland beat all the other
small states in the list, yet Austria did not trail far behind at number thirteen. Apart
from Switzerland, the only other small countries that were ranked more highly
were Sweden and Holland.
At this point, the Austrian Ministry of Economy had already started to ponder
concerted nation branding, and it commissioned Simon Anholt to assess Austria’s
perspective. In background interviews, Anholt showed himself sceptical about
nation branding as an advertising ploy but when talking to officials, he knew how
to instil a sense of urgency. He described Austria’s image uncharitably as “the
other small German-speaking country but not Switzerland” (Anholt, 2013). Anholt
had a point though. Earlier country image studies indicated that among foreign
audiences Switzerland enjoys a higher profile than Austria (Schweiger, 1992),
which came in second on many matters such as high mountains, neutrality and
humanitarian commitment that Swiss elites had tied to the Swiss ‘brand’ long ago.

Conclusion
We can discern several factors that shaped the co-promotion of the nation and
its products. An obvious element of this story is the emergence of advertis-
ing and propaganda as a professionalised field. Since the late 19th century,
together with the rise of mass media and mass consumption, the importance
of persuasive communication became more and more evident to decision mak-
ers in business and government. Furthermore, the modern state, the Leviathan
2.0, as Charles Maier has called it, and businesses, from the corporation to
small and mid-sized companies, had greater resources at their disposal than
before. They developed institutional networks that sought to advance the
interests of the social groups they represented: each and every sector of the
economy created a plethora of institutions that were linked under the common
umbrella of the nation-state. In Austria, the central state played a more con-
spicuous role than in Switzerland, where associations of all stripes, but above
all business-related organisations, acted with greater independence from each
other and from the federal state. But Swiss associations also – and earlier than
in Austria – established cooperation in order to merge the promotion of Swiss
products and of the Swiss nation.
While nation branding primarily targets audiences abroad nowadays, this has
not always been the principal goal of attempts to connect the nation with a realm of
national products. Such activities often addressed both domestic and foreign audi-
ences. Partly these went together well; partly the communication had to adapt to
its audience. The reasons for this are obvious. For example, one cannot expect the
same level of knowledge or a similar emotional involvement from foreigners, and
one cannot advertise national belonging to them. However, stereotypical references,
such as the Alps, which refer to both Switzerland and Austria, the quality of the
Swiss brand and Viennese music culture have worked effectively with foreigners.
156 Oliver Kühschelm
At the same time, they have been a motivation for Austrians and the Swiss to be
proud of their country.
More than colonial empires and large power states, small export-dependent
countries had a clear motive to sell their wares to foreign audiences, and to keep
those expectations constantly in mind. Admittedly, the importance of branding
the nation for export varied to a significant degree during the 20th century. It
reached a low point in the interwar years but regained importance in the post-war
era. However, the Keynesian national state remained inward looking. At that time
Switzerland and Austria revelled in their exceptionalism and praised themselves
as “islands of the blessed”. Finally, since the 1970s, foreign audiences have come
to the foreground again.
This essay has traced the development of institutional networks that form the
basis for promotional practices which today are labelled as nation branding. It
has thereby stressed continuity between earlier institutional structures and current
attempts at nation branding. This clearly applies to Switzerland, but in Austria
there is also reason to see continuity in important respects. Nation branding offers
a new language of talking about promoting the nation, it is embedded in neoliberal
ideology and it is arguably accompanied by new marketing techniques. Nonethe-
less, in many affluent countries, nation branding did not have to start from scratch;
rather, it has been a way of legitimising and expanding a well-oiled machinery of
persuasive communication that has already been promoting the nation-state, its
products and its services for many decades.

Notes
1 For the economic history of Switzerland see Halbeisen et al. (2012); for Austria Butschek
(2011).
2 US, Switzerland, Germany: Halbeisen et al. (2012: 347); Austria: own calculations, data
from OECD.
3 For an overview, see Greenhalgh (2011).

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Index

Aaker, D. 18 Basle 150, 151

abstraction 6 Beebe, B. 9
Adidas 7 Belgium 4, 131
Adorno, T. 54 Belgrade 136
Alabama 41, 44, 45 Benjamin, W. 54, 55; phantasmagoria 54, 55
Alaska 35, 37–40, 43, 55 Berlin 9
Amazon 6, 93 Bieber, F. 11
American Apparel 15–16 Bilkey, W. J. 21, 24
American Samoa 37 Billig, M. 126
Andalusia 114 Birkenstock, A. 112, 117, 118, 120
Anderson, B. 7, 33, 84, 128, 144 Bloch, E. 106
Anderson, J. 81 Bombay 55
Andrejević, M. 92, 134 Boone, D. 42
Anholt, S. 32, 111, 112, 154 Borda, L. 119
Annapolis 45 Bosnia and Herzegovina 129–131; Republika
Aphrodite 94, 95, 99, 101, 102, 105, 106 Srpska 131
Appadurai, A. 55 Boston 46, 82
Apple 25, 144 brand: equity 17–19; global 19; society 17
Arctic island 55 branding: actors 16, 18–23, 26; Cyprus 96;
Argentina 11, 111–122; Tango Argentino definition 3–4; function 10; process 2, 6,
11, 111–122; Tango Nuevo 113 10; strategies 17
Arizona 38 branding techniques 121; city 53, 56–58;
Arkansas 37, 38 cultural 91; geographies of 17
Armenia 126, 127 Brändli, S. 144
Armstrong, H. 2 Brazil 11
Arnold, M. 150 Bridge, G. 54
Arvidsson, A. 17, 32 Brighenti, A. 58
Ashcroft, B. 91, 106 Britain see United Kingdom
Ashworth, G. 56, 57 Brix, E. 154
associations 18; geographical 17, 19–22, 26 Brubaker, R. 4, 126
Atlanta 46 Brunn, S. 10, 32
Australia 93, 138 Brussels 153
Austria 1, 5, 12, 146–156; Austro-Hungarian Bucharest 59
Empire 128; Habsburg Monarchy 146, 150 Budapest 8
authenticity 4, 17, 18 Buenos Aires 114–120
Bulacio, M. 120
Bad Reichenhall 2; Reber 2
Balkans 12, 133, 135, 138 California 15, 22, 25, 35, 37
Baltimore 46 Callon, M. 6
Barilla 80 Cameron, D. 112
162 Index
Cameron, E. 55 design 3, 6, 18, 20, 25, 30
Canada 55 Detroit 45, 46, 55
Carreras, S. 117 Dinnie, K. 96, 144
Catalonia 114 Disneyland 71, 77, 79, 85
Ceausescu, N. 59 distinction 5
Charlotte 46 Dollfuß, E. 152
Charney, D. see American Apparel Donfried, M. 144
Chevalier, M. 32 Dortmund 55
Chicago 45, 46, 70, 74, 75, 77, 79 Downing, M. 55
China 15, 25; Chinese shadow play 54 Draus, P. 55
Chrysantou, P. 97, 102, 106, 107 Dubai 68–70, 74, 77, 78, 81
Church, C. 154 Dubrovnik 129, 137
Cincinnati 46
Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee 30, Eataly 11, 67–86
44, 46 Edensor, T. 55, 62
Cleveland 46 Elsaesser, T. 105
CNN 133 Elsner, M. 112
Coca-Cola 5, 144 emotion 112, 119, 122
Coddington, K. S. 55 enosis (Union with Greece) 95; EOKA 101
Colombino, A. 9, 11 Ermann, U. 32
Colorado 38, 43 ethnic, national group 4
Comaroff, J. 55, 134, 135 ethos 15
Comaroff, J. L. 134, 135 European Common Market 148
commodification 9 European Union 103, 148
Connecticut 37 Eurovision 137
Constandinides, C. 11, 95, 100–102 Everglades National Park 43
consumerism 60, 134, 138 Evian 5
consumers 3–6, 15–18, 30, 143, 144
corporate transcendence 9 Fahy, J. 3
Croatia 125, 128–131, 133, 137 Falco 2
cultural icon, value 10, 11 Felber, U. 150, 153
Cyprus 11, 91–108 Felsted, A. 16
Cyprus Film Days 98 Ferndandes, L. 60
Czechoslovakia 129 Ferrero 80
FIAT 70
Dallas 46 Filis, G. 99
Dalmatia 128; Istria 129, 131; Kvarner Finland 114–116, 121, 122
128, 129; Serb Republic of Krajina 129 Finnish tangos 114–116
Davies, D. J. 55 Fishbein, R. 79
Davies, O. 55 Florida 37–40, 44, 45
Davis, E. A. 104 Florides, A. 105
Dayton Peace Accords (1995) 130 Fola, M. 96
de Brosses, Charles 9 Foley, H. 3
de Chernatony, L. 17, 144 Foley, M. 62
Declaration of Independence 3 Fort Harrod 42
decontextualisation 6 Fort Worth 46
Degen, M. 68 Foster, R. 3
Delaware 35 Foucault, M. 12, 146; governmentality
del Carril, H. 113 12, 146
del Pilar Blanco, M. 55 Foursquare 61
Demetriou, C. 100, 101 framing 6; national 24
Demetriou, E. 102 France 8, 114, 128, 143
Denver 46 function 18
Derrida, J. 54 Fürst 2
 Index 163
Gálvez, M. 115 India 55, 60
Gapper, J. 15 Indiana 36–42
Gardel, C. 113, 119, 121 Instagram 61
generic landscapes 40 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 98
Georgia 37 Iowa 38, 41, 43
Germany 1, 4, 24, 114, 143, 151 iPhone 4, 6
Gerth, K. 150 Istanbul 70, 77
Gettysburg 43 Italy 4, 11, 67, 70–75, 80, 83, 84, 114, 117
ghost 53–56, 61–63; tourism 55
Gibas, P. 55 Jackson, P. 20, 24, 32
Gienow-Hecht, J. 144 Japan 11, 25, 82, 114
Gille, Z. 5 Jessop, B. 23
Glaser, M. see New York Jobber, D. 3
Goldsworthy, V. 138 Jocz, K. 26
Goodman, M. K. 69, 79 Johansson, M. 96–98
Gordon, A. 55
Goss, J. 9, 67, 68, 79 Kadelbach, T. 151, 154
Greece 93, 95, 99–101, 128, 130 Kamenou, N. 101
Greenberg, M. 17 Kaneva, N. 132–134
Greenfield, L. 143 Kansas 31, 37–41, 43
Gries, R. 144 Kärki, T. 114
gross domestic product (GDP) 147 Kaurismäki, A. 115, 116
Kavaratzis, M. 57
H&M 15 Kawada 25
Hannigan, J. 69, 85, 86 Kendrick, J. 3
Hantel, S. 135 Kentucky 38
Harding, R. 24 Kizilyürek, N. 97, 107
Harrison, W. H. 42 Kleanthos-Hadjikyriakou, S. 95
Harvey, D. 17, 19, 23, 32 Klein, N. 9, 70
Hauge, A. 19, 23, 32 Klerides, E. 95
Hawaii 35, 37–41, 43 Kohli, C. S. 20
Head, R. 154 Korčula 128
Hegel, G. W. F. 145 Kornberger, M. 17, 18, 23
Heholt, R. 55 Kosmatos, G. P. 94
Heilbrunn, B. 91, 93, 96 Kosovo 126, 132
heritage 7, 37, 43, 111, 131; industrial 55; Kotler, P. 2
landmarks 38 Kriechbaumer, R. 153
Hetherington, K. 54, 55 Kühschelm, O. 12, 144, 151
Hill, L. 55 Kuppinger, P. 59
Hobsbawm, E. 7, 84, 150 Kvitko, D. 116
Holland 155
Holloway, J. 55 Laborde, W. 116
Hollywood 34, 44, 94, 103 Las Vegas 69, 70
Holt, D. B. 112 Lausanne 150, 151
Houston 46 Lavazza 80
Hudson, R. 22, 23 Lennon, J. 62
Hutchinson, R. 57 Lewis, N. 32
Hvar 128, 136 Light, D. 59
Lindbergh, C. 43
Idaho 38, 44 Lindemann, J. 19
identity 5, 11, 18, 91, 95, 97, 103, 111, 112, Linn’s Stamp News 33
125; politics 92 Lipman, C. 55
Illinois 40, 41, 45 London 70
Indap, S. 16 Los Angeles 15, 16, 22, 46, 70
164 Index
Louisiana 35–37, 45 national framing see framing
Luckhurst, R. 55 national identity see identity
Luhrmann, B. 93 national visibility see visibility
Lukákcs, G. 54 nation brand index 12, 138, 155
Lury, C. 17 nation building 7, 11, 33, 92, 115, 128
Native Americans 41
Macedonia 125, 130–137 NatWest 25
magic 9, 11, 67–71, 80 Navaro-Yashin, Y. 97
Maier, C. 155 Nebraska 35, 37, 38, 41, 43, 45
Maine 45 Needham, G. 93
Maiola, M. 117 Nes, E. 21, 24
Makarios III, Archbishop 94, 100, 101 Nestlé 80
Malcher, I. 117, 119 Nevada 37, 38, 41
Manchevski, M. 131 New Hampshire 37, 43
Manning, P. 3 New Jersey 31, 37, 38
Mariana Island 37 New Mexico 41
Mariotto, J. 114, 121 New York 7, 35, 43–46, 70, 75–78, 82,
Marshall Islands 37 83, 149
Marshall Plan 43 New Zealand 8
Marx, K. 9 Nicolaides, T. 105
Maryland 36 Nicosia 104, 105
Massa, S. 71, 72 Nielsen, C. 114, 121
Massachusetts 45 Nieme, R. 116
Matless, D. 55 Nike 4, 7
Mazzolovo, G. 32 Numminen, M. A. 114, 116
McCormack, D. P. 55 Nutella 3, 77
McDonald’s 82, 144
Međugorje 131 Oglethorpe, J. 37
memory 106 Ohio 38, 40
Miami 46 Oklahoma 35, 37–41
Michigan 37, 40, 44 Olins, W. 145
Micronesia 37 Omaha 46
Mikelides, M. F. 99 Oregon 35, 37, 38, 41
Milan 77 Oregon Trail 43
Milošević, S. 130, 136 Orientalism 127
Minnesota 37, 38 origin 4, 15, 17, 24–25, 116, 144, 145
Mirabell 2 origination 23–26, 72
Mississippi 38, 41, 44, 45 Ottoman Empire 127
Missouri 45
Molotch, H. 20 Palau 37
Mononen, U. 114 Pallota, D. 29, 32
Montagnini, F. 71, 79 Panama Canal 37
Montana 40, 41 Papadakis, Y. 95, 100–102, 105
Montenegro 130, 131 Parasecoli, F. 85
Montevideo 114 Paris 8, 70, 153
Moor, L. 17 Parma 6, 73
Moscow 70 Paterson, W. E. 24
Mostar 130 Peeren, E. 55
Mozart, W. A. 1 Pelinski, R. 114
Mozartkugel 1–2 Pennsylvania 35, 37
Munich 70, 73 Pepsi Cola 5
Mylonakos, I. 93 Percopo, L. 105, 106
Perón, J. 121
Nagle, J. 55, 63 Peroni 80
Nashville 46 Perrier 5
 Index 165
Petrini, C. 70, 72 Saragoza 8
Phau, I. 24 Sarajevo 130
Philadelphia 46 Schneider, P. see American Apparel
Philippines 37 Schuschnigg, K. 152
Philippou, N. 100 Scotland 21
Philippou, S. 95 Scott, A. J. 19
Phoenix 46 Scottish Widows 20
Piazzolla, A. 113, 118, 121 Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue 33
Pike, A. 2, 4, 10, 29–32, 45, 46, 67 Seattle 46
Pile, S. 54, 55 Sebastiani, R. 71, 79
Piperides, M. 105 Seferis, G. 99
place: attractiveness 9; image 8; narratives 7; Senft, G. 152
placelessness 45 Seoul 70
Popescu, D. 132–134 Serbia 114, 130–135
Potthast, B. 117 Sharpley, R. 62
Power, D. 19, 23, 32 Shoah 154
Prada 4 sign 3
Prague 55 Simmel, G. 54
Prendergast, G. 24 simplification 6
Pretes, M. 128 Singapore 55
public diplomacy 145 Skopje 131, 133, 137
Puerto Rico 37 Slovenia 114, 130, 132
Pugliese, O. 113 slow food 70–73, 79, 80
smart city 60
Québec 114 Smith, A. 23
Quelch, J. 26 Smith, K. 97
Solingen 4
Rabbiosi, C. 67, 79 Soper, K. 144
Rancière, J. 58 South Carolina 38, 41
Ranger, T. 7, 84 South Korea 16
Red Bull 5 Spain 8, 42, 82, 117, 118
Reichardt, D. 119 spatial circuits 23, 26
Revolutionary War 35 spatial differentiation 19
Revsine, B. 79 spatial histories 21
Rieger, R. 11 spatial levels 21
Rio de Janeiro 60 spectre see ghost
Robb, G. 127, 128 Split 128, 137
Roddy, J. 55 St. Augustine 42
Roja, R. 115 Stone, P. R. 62
Rolex 4 storytelling 58, 62
Romania 59, 60 Stubbs, J. 98, 99
Rose, G. 68 Stuttgart 59
Rossi, U. 57 Stylianou-Lambert, T. 100
Roy, A. 55, 93 Surowiec, P. 32
Ruez, D. 58, 59 Swanton, D. 55
Russia 115, 116 Sweden 155
Switzerland 4, 12, 145–156
SABMiller 80
Sakofaros, A. 94 Tango see Argentina
Sakofaros, T. 94 Tanner, J. 146
Salzburg 1, 2, 153 Tell, W. 154
Sandercock, L. 58 Testa, S. 71, 72
San Francisco 45, 46 Texas 35, 37, 38, 45
San Pellegrino 80 Thailand 25
Sao Paolo 70, 77 Thakor, M. V. 20
166 Index
Thrift, N. 54 Vincennes 42
Tokatli, N. 22 Vincent, L. 99, 104
Tokyo 70, 77 Virginia 35
Tolkien, J. R. R. 8 Virgin Islands 37
Tonet, R. 118, 120 visibility 2, 7, 9, 10, 53, 58, 126
tourism 7, 8, 11, 30, 32, 55, 62, 93, 95, 96, Volcic, Z. 92, 134
105, 111, 125–138, 143 Voogd, H. 56
Trentmann, F. 144, 150 Vukonić, B. 128
Trieste 128
TripAdvisor 61, 78 Wählisch, M. 127, 132
Troilo, A. 113, 121 Washington 37, 40, 46
trust 5 Watson, S. 54
Turin 70–74, 83, 86 Watts, M. 19
Turkey 11 Welch, R. 94
Whipp, L. 16
Uniqlo 15 Willmott, H. 23
unique selling proposition (USP) 3, 6–9 Wintrop, M. 97
United Arab Emirates 11 Wisconsin 36, 40
United Kingdom 25, 98, 99, 143, 149, 150 Wolseley, G., Sir 9
United States of America 11, 15, 29–46, Wowereit, K. 9
76, 82, 114, 143, 147–150 Wylie, J. 55
Urry, J. 19 Wyoming 38, 41, 43
Uruguay 115
US Bicentennial (1976) 35 Xharra, B. 127, 132
Utah 38
Yelp 61
value/values 3–5, 9, 10, 15–30, 33, 36, 72, Young, C. 59
75, 76, 91, 92, 104, 119, 127, 128, 147; Yugoslavia 11–12, 128–132
cultural 4; economic 5; historical 12
van Ham, P. 134 Zagreb 128, 130
Vanolo, A. 10–11, 57 Zara 15
Vázques-Rial, H. 113 Zeppelin, F. 43
Vermont 36–38, 43, 45 Zubieta, Y. 118
Vicksburg 43 Zurich 153
Vienna 128, 147, 149, 151, 153, 155 Zweig, S. 153