Photo from Tiina Seppel Not again! Poor Estonian people, we haven’t got over the last dull branding campaign which cost us 13 million crowns and now another bunch! Clips that were running in TV were so fragmented and message-empty that the hostess of the TV-show literally destroyed the poor spokespeople. The campaign was ordered this time by the national tourism agency and delivered by MTV in hope to be more attractive for young European people.
The main message of the campaign appeared to be “Estonia, nobody knows where is that”. And after seeing this dead-born-baby (I wouldn’t be surprised if this campaign gets destroyed by the media
soon) – I started to wonder... what’s wrong that we fail 2 times in a row and can’t really say why this amazing little country would be The place to come?
It seems to me we've been approaching this question from a wrong angle - commercialism over identity. I think really the main question is not about HOW to present it, but rather WHAT it is we're presenting.
Estonian nature photos by young photographer Mariann Kosemets
Maybe it’s our national modesty holding us back – what is here so special what wouldn’t be also in Finland, Latvia, UK, Germany? We’re just one of the many.
The truth is we’re exactly as special as we believe we are. There is a special reputation of Saaremaa people in Estonia. It's commonly believed that people from the island of Saaremaa have a special sense of humor, they are more hospitable, women are strong and men can drink more than any other man on earth without getting drunk (or whatever – again my Saaremaa sense of humor starts improvising:))? Well, having living here now after 5 years almost a month, I can say they (we:) are quite ordinary people – some more humorous than the others, some women stronger than the others as anywhere else. But once Saaremaa people get out of the island, the sense of belonging to a community comes out and you just start acting out as a person from Saaremaa - and are treated in a special way as a result.
And so the special image of Saaremaa people stands.
I feel that Estonia as a country is in search of this national identity. We just don’t know what makes us special, so we don’t know through what to bond as a nation. I had the similar feeling at Öölaulupidu (Night Song Festival) – we’re singing here together, but for what? There was no connecting message that would have given it a meaning.
So what are the other countries doing? One of a successful national branding campaigns example is Colombia, which managed to turn around the image of a drug trafficking country to a country of friendly people and lot of discoveries. The message – Colombia is passion! Honestly – I think it’s as much as what they MEAN with the message as much as what it really IS. So it works because they know what they mean. Watch the video – you will fall in love and want to visit! Colombian people responded with some kind of national awakening – these videos were spreading through Facebook, Gmail chats and other internet based communities.
The other example comes from Asia which made its slogan – “Malaysia – truly Asia” world famous and now seems to be one of the distinctive countries from the region.
I don’t know if my conclusions are right, but it seems to me that both of these campaigns were driven by a real need and were therefor much more successful than a purely business needs based campaign (eg we need more tourists). Colombians had a common enemy to fight against – the drug cartels who had destroyed the image of their beautiful country. In need to show the beautiful side of Colombia they actually managed much more than a branding campaign – more tourists and increasing positive image of the country actually decreases the real problem as people make real efforts to solve the internal problems. In Malaysian case I just
assume the “common enemy” was the image of the country as “one of the many” in South-East Asia – and they made this disadvantage their advantage.
One could argue that Estonia's case is different as we don’t have this brilliant climate and natural diversity to demonstrate. Small and grey we are, most of the year it’s dark and cold, rest of the time it’s rainy and misty, sun is a rarity and people are not ..... (put here any random positive word).
Well, it’s the self fulfilling prophecy as with anything else. You become what you believe you are, true for a person and for the whole country.
Funny enough but many of my international friends living in Estonia are far better sales agents for us than we are. What’s happening? I mean – they come back to live here, they tell stories of Estonian hospitality, calmness (the main key word, btw, I have picked up – Estonians calmness is perceived in a very positive way), natural beauty, good economy...and what do WE say? Estonians know what we say, haha:) We either laugh a bittersweet laughter over our weaknesses or – try to pimp us up in quite an insincere way: “Oh, we have Skype! And beautiful women!”
Baah! I’m talking about sincerity, true pride of our identity – and I’m not in any way talking about nationalism! I’m talking about recognizing and honoring ourselves, not because of being better or worse, but just understanding – that’s what we are! Just seeing the best of it – and being able to talk about it.
So this new MTV sales campaign is not clicking with the Estonian side of my identity. I don’t feel connected to it in any way, it’s the same as any random, a bit hysteric media message I get every day. “Please, next clip, quickly, I’m tired of the fragmented information! Give me a message YOU BELIEVE in!”
So – once again, no clear message, just a nervous attempt to “show the full diversity of the country” while actually hiding the fact becoming already tedious – we just don’t know, dear people, what makes us so special!
Do we need another national awakening to have some backbone as a nation to be proud of ourselves, to simply recognize us without any sign of bragging nor hiding the empty look in our eyes?
Experts say that it’s a tricky business to build a national brand – you don’t make it on tabula rasa and it’s never limited only through your campaign. So some countries create their positive images spontaneously – India being now perceived as a high-tech, highly educated peoples country (vs it’s previous image as a spiritual and poor country), Croatia for sports and tourism etc (source - http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=206).
So that’s the question I ask myself now – is it really the MTV to blame for a failed campaign or is it rather a question to ask from ourselves? Do we know what defines us as Estonians? Are we really proud of ourselves? Or does it come down to the self criticism again, the deep-blooded slave thinking: “Oh, never mind me...”
As part of the new generation of Estonians I’d love to see a positive awakening in our society. We don’t need an external enemy to be united, what if we do it through building positive beliefs about ourselves? What about starting to compliment ourselves? Saying out loud positive things we like in our country, people and achievements!
And if we do that – the campaign authors can just build on what is already there. Do we really hope that MTV can give us identity? Do we want them to tell us what makes it worth to come to Estonia?
Don’t think so!
So if you managed to read it through here – I would so much appreciate to know your opinion on – what do you like about Estonia and Estonians? As little or much you know – please do share in the little poll you find on the sidebar. Unfortunately I couldn't add there opened options, but feel free to leave your own opinion in the comments. Thank you so much for contributing to a better self-image of Estonians!:)
PS: The new Estonia brand campaign webpage can be found here, check out yourself - http://www.ispacetallinn.com/ (you can see the videos that irritated me from the upper side of the webpage)
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