FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION
5.1 Building a New Nation Brand of Taiwan
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5.1 Building a New Nation Brand of Taiwan
Despite the burgeoning IT industry, Taiwanese branding strategies are focusing on tourism and culture, instead of technology and manufacturing and brand-branding.
Papadopoulos (2004, in: Amine and Chao, 2005: 202) holds that it is a natural path of nation branding to shift from a focus on technology and manufacturing to nature. This was also the case with Taiwan. However, Taiwan should not stop advertising its brands when they are just beginning to establish strong global positions. Indeed, it should use these brands to cultivate its own nation brand.
As it was shown in the subchapter 4.3.1.5, most countries with the best reputations did not achieve such positions by building on tourism and culture, but by emphasizing their biggest strengths. Singapore is well known for doing business; German, American and Japanese products are synonymous with high quality; and all of them have democratic political systems, which are consistent with global values. As the 2005 Gallup Poll showed only 32 percent of about 8500 respondents were aware of the fact that Taiwan is a democratic nation. In addition, Taiwan is an acknowledged technological and manufacturing powerhouse, but the advantages of such a feature are not utilized to their fullest extent.
The current branding project of Taiwan attempts to emphasize the nation’s cultural and tourist attractions. Besides, Taiwan claims to be the best in these among all Asian countries. The new nation branding slogan ‘The Heart of Asia’ with the logo which brings together many symbols of Taiwan (Taipei 101, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, fireworks, lanterns, teapot, a bird, flower blossoms, a butterfly, two people eating and an aboriginal motif) unequivocally refers to Taiwan’s strong intention to become a first-choice tourist destination in Asia. However, for a nation which is still mixed up with
Figure 16: Taiwan’s New Nation Branding Logo
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Thailand and which has a confusing political situation, such a strategy might be premature. In addition, the logo does not clearly explain how Taiwan is actually different from the rest of Asia and why travelers should choose Taiwan instead of other Asian destinations.
The vast literature introduced in this study showed that national image matters for numerous reasons. It attracts tourists, but also supports diplomacy, attracts investment and builds a better image for companies and products associated with a nation as well. Therefore, a nation-branding project cannot entirely concentrate on one specific issue, since they all reinforce each other. The most important is to be well known for some positive features, which then will bring benefits to other areas.
This paper demonstrates that Taiwan’s most valuable assets are its products, and that Taiwan has value as a country-of-origin. This characteristic is derived from its strong information and communication technology industry. Taiwan has promoted itself as a good country of manufacture with the slogan ‘Very Well Made in Taiwan’ since 1992 or ‘Taiwan – Your Source for Innovalue’ since 1997, but these aspects got less attention with the introduction of tourism promotion programs. However, the purpose of nation branding is not to support the areas in which the nation is merely good, but where the nation has a comparative advantage. Taiwan’s comparative advantage is technological production and innovation. It is the author’s opinion that this should be emphasized in order to direct public attention toward Taiwan. In addition, it is clear that most people will never have the chance to travel to Taiwan, meet with its people and try its food, however, they can buy its products in a local store. High familiarity and satisfaction with products, in turn, brings associations with the nation brand itself, which later can result in an increase in tourism.
With regard to Taiwan’s political values, it clearly has a big advantage over China as it is the first Chinese democracy. However, most people do not care about politics nor do they value this in Taiwan. Politics and political systems are mostly seen as something abstract,
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being beyond of the influence of the average person. I would again emphasize that people care more about products than these abstract values that do not influence their lives directly.
Public diplomacy by exploiting soft power sources is intended to attract the general public abroad and not official representatives of countries. This fact indicates that the focus should be on that which the general population is concerned.
As a consequence, this paper concludes that Joseph Nye’s soft power categorization should be expanded by a fourth category, which is products/services. In order to enhance a country’s appearance in this category, the public and private sphere should collaborate on building better image. If a company has a good image, its products are widely bought. Then, good product experiences reinforce national image, which leads to further benefits. As Jaworski and Fosher (2003: 107) stated, a nation first has to identify its core values which give rise to a Nation Brand Identity, then that raises the Nation Brand Effect, which enhances the successes of the country’s global brands. This continues in a circle as successful brands reinforce the nation’s core values.
NBE
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Figure 17 shows how the NBE Cycle can be applied to Taiwan in that technological development, innovation and product quality are Taiwan’s core values. These values affect Taiwanese image, as Taiwan is perceived as a reliable COO and a place that creates technology. National image and COO perceptions have an impact on Taiwanese corporations, which reinforce their global success. Acer, ASUS and HTC have the biggest chances for such a development as they are the top Taiwanese companies generally, and particularly in the high-tech industry (Interbrand, 2010-2011). Corporate global successes reinforce the core values such as technology, innovation, and product quality and this improves national image, especially the country-of-origin image. After these areas are highly developed and well acknowledged, other values can step into the circle.
As it has been already mentioned, good COO and product quality image can only be achieved by an extensive cooperation between the private and the public sector. A criterion for good corporate reputation is good corporate image in all related fields. This is achieved by satisfying all the key receivers of corporate reputation and national image as well. One of the key areas in which these two overlap is Corporate Social Responsibility. Indeed, this latter is becoming more and more relevant within reputation construction. Rockower (2011:
137) claimed that middle powers, the category in which he counts Taiwan, often employ niche diplomacy in order to raise their public diplomacy profile. It means that these nations can attain leverage on the international stage by the domination of a certain issue considered relevant to global civil society. By getting involved in Corporate Social Responsibility issues with corporations Taiwan can acquire better image in all aspects.
This paper proposes that Taiwanese corporations need to pay enormous attention on CSR and that the state sector should give assistance in building a better CSR image for companies as it is also in its own interest.
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5.2 Social Media as a Means for Taiwan’s National Image Building –