Nation Branding: A Critical Appraisal of Incredible India

India is a vast, diverse country, which attracts much attention as a political and economic entity as well as a major tourism destination. This commentary explores the Incredible India Campaign, a Nation Branding campaign which has been running in India for approximately ten years. In doing so, we c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Macromarketing 2012-09, Vol.32 (3), p.319-327
Main Authors: Kerrigan, Finola, Shivanandan, Jyotsna, Hede, Anne-Marie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advertising campaigns
Brand equity
Studies
Target markets
Tourism
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Summary:India is a vast, diverse country, which attracts much attention as a political and economic entity as well as a major tourism destination. This commentary explores the Incredible India Campaign, a Nation Branding campaign which has been running in India for approximately ten years. In doing so, we consider nation branding as a mechanism for communicating between a nation and the rest of the world. We draw on a published account of the campaign by one of its architects, a series of images utilized in the campaign as well as a series of interviews with members of the pubic regarding their reaction to the images used. We argue that national branding campaigns can tell us much about imagined identities of those “being branded.” In doing so, we illustrate the difficultly of representing a vast and diverse population within a fast developing economy as well as the benefits of placing the target of the campaign among “the other” rather than orientalizing the citizen at the heart of the nation branding campaign.
ISSN:0276-1467
1552-6534
DOI:10.1177/0276146712445788