Are countries brands?

Chinese people are on the edge to boycott French companies implanted in China to protest against President Sarkozy's possible non participation to the Olympic Games opening ceremony. Thus, Chinese people are not boycotting companies like Carrefour because of their actions, but because of the fact that they are French companies.
That was the same scenario in the US during the memorable diplomatic crisis, when France was opposed to the war in Iraq. Some US customers decided to boycott French products because of French International diplomacy.

I don't have the intention to judge what is going on between China & France. This blog is not about politics, & it will never be. this is interesting to see Chinese customers' reactions & perceptions of this crisis. They consider France as a brand, that would be above French companies. As they would stop to by Unilever products because they don't respect environmental laws, they stop shopping in French retails.

Therefore I want to ask a question: Are countries brand? This is a very interesting issue. I already exposed my idea that Champagne could be assimilated as a brand, and I thought it would be nice to extend this thought to countries. One of the key question is to define what a brand is.

What is a brand?
 According to buildingbrands.com: 
"A brand is a collection of perceptions in the mind of the consumer."  I think it is quite a generic and accurate definition. Because it is vast, you can't limit brands to companies, because customers do not think like that.

A brand is the representation of oneself, whether it is an image (picture, icon, color...), or its values (skills, policy, mission statement...) or anything else. What is important, more than being a registered trade mark or to sell thousands of sport shoes, it is the image a customer has of something.

Examples of country's brand equity
 Some countries, because of their specificities or the imaginary world linked to their name, have a certain image. Also let's not forget that some nationality are :

• Cheap Chinese products
• French fashion & style
• Japanese good quality/price ration

Also, as some companies are assimilated to their products (the Iphone of Apple, Sony's Playstation...) some countries are known for their specialties:

• Coffee of Kenya
• Caviar of Russia
• Salmon of Norway

In our mind, countries are already brands. We all have a perception, right or wrong, about what a country is about. Countries would be like humongous companies, that would have a CEO (president) elected by the employees (citizens while it is a democracy), with an organization (government), and of course a brand and some competencies.

When countries have brand equity issues
Above is the picture of a book I have always wanted to read about and that illustrates some countries know the same problems than corporate brands. This (French) book, edited in 2003, shows how the brand "Made in America" has been weakened by the US international diplomacy after the Irak war. This decision has impacted the brand America, and as a matter of fact US brands, in a bad way.

The problem
 We have seen here some examples where governmental decision could  impact a country brand. The problem is that a company has no regard and no connections with a country foreign policy... And as we can see with what is going on in China, this is not LVMH's fault if Nicolas Sarkozy might not attend the Olympic ceremony.

That is why we can consider that a country is a brand, as it represents the value, the skills & an image of a country. And a country's international politic influence somehow the equity of its exporting companies.

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