ABSTRACT
During a recent trip to a European capital, I found myself in a hotel room, flipping through television channels. I landed on CNN’s weather report and paused to listen. As the forecast ended, a colorful logo popped up on screen and an off-camera announcer declared: “The weather, brought to you by Croatia.” This matter-of-fact promotional tag is but one example of a global phenomenon that has come to be known as nation branding. Yet, the seemingly trivial plug for Croatia on CNN would have been unthinkable only 20 years ago. To begin with, Croatia was not an independent nation-state then, but a member of the Yugoslav federation. At the time, CNN did not receive advertising revenues from Eastern Bloc countries, whose economies and media were largely closed off to the rest of the world. Most importantly, the very idea that a nation could be thought of as a brand—comparable to the commercial brands that typically underwrite television programs—had not entered popular discourse. A lot has changed in the past two decades.
