ABSTRACT
When Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs hired an advertising agency in 2002 to create a new face – logo, slogan, and symbol – for its national persona, observers wondered about the agency’s choice of a red-and-white toy kite as Poland’s metonymic mark of identification. Why a kite? After all, the country already has a red-and-white flag as a stock symbol of national identity. And the flag has been around for centuries: history texts note that a red flag decorated with a white eagle accompanied King Władysław Jagiełło during the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.1 But according to an interview with branding expert Wally Olins, “flags have nationalist, military or political connotations.” The kite is “postpolitical.” It represents “a break from the past,” he added. “It is joyful, modern” (Boxer 2002).
