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The World Loves Europe, But Brits Aren't The Only Confirmed ScepticsLatest Anholt Nation Brands Index Says European Union has number one brand appeal London, 24th July 2006 - The latest ranking of the world’s favourite nations suggests Europe is the strongest nation brand and achieved a higher ranking than last quarter’s number one brand, the UK, according to new research by the Anholt Nation Brands Index (NBI) powered by GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.) a global market intelligence solutions provider. The NBI polled 25,903 respondents in 35 countries about how they view a country’s culture, people, quality of government and appeal as a place to visit, invest in or migrate to. These scores are aggregated to arrive at a league table of the top, middle and bottom nation brands. This quarter, the NBI decided to see how the brand appeal of the European Union would perform against real nations. Although it scored no top rankings in the individual categories, its performance is consistently strong enough to give it the highest overall score of the 35 countries and put the UK in second place, last quarter’s favourite. The NBI sheds some new light on European scepticism. Among the member states, the British appear the least impressed with Europe after the Danish, who are the world’s top Europe sceptics. Other nationalities more Euro-sceptical than the British are the Japanese, New Zealanders, Australians and Americans. Nationalities that are most impressed by the European Union include Argentina, Czech Republic, Egypt, Poland, Portugal and Russia, all of which rank Europe number one. Member states – France, Germany, Italy and Spain – would rank Europe the second most impressive nation. The NBI suggests that the reasons why the European Union ranks so high is more about the aggregated brand value of member states than the institution itself. EU countries including the UK have tended to be in the top ten of the NBI since the index started in 2005. The data also shows that the EU is perceived overall as a region of opportunity, and is fourth in the ranking of countries where best to invest and migrate to. A surprising finding about what makes Brand Europe strong is that the NBI suggests that perception of the value of European products and its people is ranked higher (equal fourth) than its culture and heritage or tourism ( all ranked equal seventh). These latter attributes are usually considered among Europe’s strongest assets. However, on quality of its governance, the European Union gets its lowest scores and is ranked ninth overall. Some countries’ respondents rated the EU even lower – for example, British, Swedish and Dutch respondents rated the EU 12th and the least impressed were the Mexicans (15th). Commenting on the research, the creator of the NBI and international government adviser Simon Anholt said: “International perception of Brand Europe is split in two. There’s high esteem for Europe the continent, its people and their products and services. But, there’s low esteem for Europe the institution. Britons and other Euro-sceptics might find this unsurprising, but it is striking how the European Union’s political machinery appears to have a low appeal outside of the Europe itself.” About the Anholt Nation Brands Index The Q2 2006 Anholt Nation Brands Index was conducted between May 18th and June 4th, 2006 on the GMIPoll platform (www.gmipoll.com), which provides integrated solutions for global market intelligence. A 200-1,000 representative sample based on age, gender, and where applicable, geographical region, race and ethnicity, was collected in each of 35 countries. For further information about the Anholt Nation Brands Index methodology, please contact GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.) at http://www.gmi-mr.com/contact/ or visit www.nationbrandindex.com. About Simon Anholt Anholt developed the concept of the Nation Brands Index in 2005. The first Index was published in May 2005. He is recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on the branding of countries, regions and cities. Anholt advises a number of national governments and United Nations agencies on brand strategy, public diplomacy, cultural relations, investment and export promotion, tourism and economic development. He is the editor of the quarterly journal, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, and the author of Brand New Justice, Brand America and several other books. About GMI GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.) is the only company that provides comprehensive integrated solutions for global market intelligence for both market research firms and corporate market research departments at Global 2000 companies. Solutions include Net-MR, a suite of software tools to manage and automate research throughout the project lifecycle, desktop analysis tools, 24/7 service bureau capabilities, and one of the world’s largest, highly profiled, double opt-in managed panels, spanning across 200 countries. In addition, GMI offers high-value, real-time enterprise feedback solutions for customer, partner and employee programs. Founded in 1999 with world headquarters in Seattle, Wash., GMI has operations on five continents. More information is available at www.gmi-mr.com or email us at http://www.gmi-mr.com/contact/. Media contacts: Helen Ablett / Carolyn Pignoly |
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