Internet and Marketing to improve Colombia's image

I would like to share with you some news on how marketing and internet help Colombia to improve the nation's image (I really love this country!).

Working with Colombia's export, internet specialists, tourism and investment promotion agency, Mr. Lightle (a marketing consultant) devised a campaign called Colombia es Pasión, or "Colombia is Passion".

Nearly 250 companies have licensed the logo and there's even a "Colombia is Passion" bicycling team, which boasts the world champion among cyclists younger than 23 years old.

Eager to highlight their advantages, and play down their faults, Colombia and a growing number of countries are using branding strategies to set themselves apart in the global marketplace. But even as country branding campaigns proliferate, some critics say that such efforts often amount to mere sloganeering and question how much they actually enhance a country's reputation.

Rebranding requires sweeping societal transformations not just clever public relations. For instance, South Africa rebranded when it ended apartheid; Ireland when it became a prosperous nation, rather than a mass producer of immigrants; Slovenia when it embraced democracy, joined the European Union and showed that a historically unstable part of Eastern European could be different.

"Colombia is Passion" is designed to help change the conversation about Colombia.

As a matter of facts, tourism and foreign investment are rising even if Colombia is working with a limited budget, having spent just $5 million on the campaign since its inception. Even so, its logo won an American Graphic Design Award in 2006, and the "Colombia is Passion" Web page averages 77,000 monthly visits.
In fact, this campaign was really well defined in part thanks to the increasing in internet penetration in the nation.




Sources: The Internet Broadband provider companies (2010) and the CRT (September 30,2009).