recommendations for lithuania’s image improvement in denmark

7/27/2019 Recommendations for Lithuanias image improvement in Denmark

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With Pride Against PrejudiceRecommendations for Lithuanias image

improvement in Denmarkthrough the application of Nation Branding and Public Relations theoriesGintare Grabaziute

Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences

Bachelors Thesis 2012 May

Supervisor: Katrine Vanggaard Madsen

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This thesis explores what aspects have impact on the


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perceptions about the nations and how those perceptions can be

managed through Nation Branding and Public Relations. More

precisely the analysis is narrowed down to the Lithuanias image

in Denmark, which is negative due to the appearance ofLithuanian criminals in Denmark, who are often mentioned in

Danish Media in this way contributing to the overall image of

Lithuania. Inability to manage the coverage of Danish media can

negatively affect the collaboration between the governments and

citizens of Denmark and Lithuania in the areas such as politics,diplomatic relations, infrastructure and tourism. Thus it is

important to solve this problem, which could be done by

answering the question: How can the Lithuanias image in

Denmark be improved through Nation Branding?. This thesis is

action-prescribing; therefore the purpose of it is to provide

recommendations for such an improvement considering the

discussions of Nation Branding and Public Relations theories.

In brief, this thesis encompasses the analysis of Lithuanias

efforts to build the nation brand abroad, analysis of current

Lithuanias image in Denmark and the discussions of Nation

Branding and PR theories. To examine the previous efforts to

improve the Lithuanias image is relevant in order to identify the

mistakes that have been done and that need to be improved. The

analysis of Danish perceptions reveals the aspects of NationBrand that are perceived negatively, in this case general


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perception about people, because of the Medias constructed

stereotypes about Lithuanians. The secondary research is used

in order to make these two analyses. In terms of the theories, the

relation between Nation Branding and PR is discovered as wellas the importance of Media Relations in Nation Branding process

is emphasised.

All the findings assist in the recommendation and discussion

parts, where the theory is related to the analyses and this specific

issue. In brief, the recommendations for Lithuanias image in

Denmark are: the proposed appropriate stakeholders (Lithuanias

government, Danish Media, Lithuanias diaspora living in

Denmark, and a hired PR company) have to maintain an open-

dialogue communication with each other; secondly, the Media

Centre is suggested to be established, where the media

coverage in Denmark would be measured continuously by the PR

company and diaspora volunteers. Moreover, the

recommendation to establish diasporas community is proposed

in order to collaborate with them and benefit from their knowledge

about Danish society. For their communication the idea to use

Social Media as a tool is suggested to make the interactions

more open and active.

Lastly, the foundation of this thesis is Social Constructionism,

which implies that the recommendations made should not be


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considered as the only truth, but rather as a strategy backed up

by relevant theories and suitable only for the discussed situation.


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Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION....................................................... 51.1.BACKGROUND INFORMATION .......................... 7

1.2.PROBLEM STATEMENT ...................................... 91.3.DELIMITATIONS ................................................ 101.4.METHOD AND STRUCTURE ............................. 101.5.THEORY OF SCIENTIFIC METHODS: SOCIALCONSTRUCTIONISM ............................................... 121.6.THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .......................... 13

2. NATION BRANDING.............................................. 142.1. NATION BRANDING VS. CORPORATE BRANDINGAND PRODUCT BRANDING .................................... 152.2. COMPLEXITY OF NATION BRANDING ...... 19

2.2.1. THE SCOPE OF NATION BRANDING ... 202.2.2. GLOBAL TARGET AUDIENCE ............... 22

2.2.2.1. STEREOTYPES ............................ 232.2.3. DISCUSSION ON WHO OWNS THE NATIONBRAND.................................................................... 24

2.2.3.1. DIASPORA ................................... 262.3. CONCLUSION .............................................. 27

3. PUBLIC RELATIONS............................................. 283.1. PUBLIC RELATIONS APPROACH TO NATION

BRANDING ............................................................... 313.1.1.USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS INNATION BRANDING ............................................... 33

3.2 CONCLUSION .............................................. 354. LITHUANIAS EFFORTS IN BUILDING THE NATION BRAND.................................................................................... 36

4.1. LITHUANIAS IMAGE INDENMARK............. 43


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4.2. THE IMPORTANCE OF IMPROVING LITHUANIASIMAGE PRECISELY IN DENMARK .......................... 45

5. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT THROUGHAPPLYING PR............................................................ 476. DISCUSSION.......................................................... 517. CONCLUSION........................................................ 548. BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................... 569. APPENDIXES......................................................... 59

9.1.APPENDIX 1: THE NBAR MODEL ..................... 599.2.APPENDIX 2: THE NATION BRAND INDEX HEXAGON 619.3.APPENDIX 3: THE FIST APPROACH ................ 629.4.APPENDIX 4: FOUR MODELS OF PR............... 639.5.APPENDIX 5: INSPIRED BY ICELAND WEB SITE659.6.APPENDIX 6: THE ARTICLE ABOUT THE LITHUANIANCRIMINALS IN DK .................................................... 66

Total number of characters (no spaces): 54 246

1. INTRODUCTION

In todays world, which is governed by the media and information

overload, building and maintaining strong brands has become aninevitable process for companies, organisations, and even

countries in order to survive and compete in the global market.

Furthermore, the media has recently started to play a very

powerful role, and companies have adjusted by becoming more


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careful and observant about their images and reputations, which

are now more under control of customers and the media.

Tench (2008) calls this process the information revolution that

resulted in an international information society. Tench (2008)

claims that the global network society refers to the notion that

new communication technologies result in a fundamental shift in

social organisation and therefore, such a change in the control of

power has also affected individual countries (117p.). This implies

that countries are also branded to compete on a global scale and

sustain positive reputations in the world. However, this process is

much more complex for countries than it is for companies. The

reason is that countries are not "selling" just one product, but a

whole, complicated pack of them, such as people, culture,

territory, infrastructure, etc. (Metahaven, 2008).

Globalisation has had a huge impact on the growth of migration

among the countries, which directly impacts a nation's brand. For

example, after Lithuania became a member of the EU, more and

more Lithuanians have decided to use the opportunity of openborders and migrate to other countries, but unfortunately,

criminals have also realized this chance and migrated too. One of

the favorite destinations for Lithuanian immigration has been

Denmark, which has experienced both the positive and negative

aspects of the immigration phenomenon, including crime. After a


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wave of crimes committed by Lithuanians in Denmark, Lithuania

faces a huge challenge as a nation, since its reputation in

Denmark is now hanging by a thread. Inability to manage the

coverage of Danish media and insufficient efforts to improve thissituation can lead to weakened collaboration between the

governments and citizens of Denmark and Lithuania, negatively

impacting areas such as politics, diplomatic relations,

infrastructure and tourism efforts between the two countries.

1.1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION

After the end of the Cold War, when many new eastern and

central European nations emerged, those nations realized the

importance of building strong identities in order to compete for

FDI, attract tourists and be diplomatically recognized to become

members of the EU (Tench et al., 2008, 127p.). One of those

nations was Lithuania. However, even though the country was

able to implement all the requirements and became a member of

the EU, this achievement has not transformed it into an overnightEuropean country in the eyes of the international publics.

Unfortunately, similar to other post-Soviet countries, Lithuania is

still identified with communism, corruption and crime. In other

words, Lithuania does not have a strong brand and as a nation

and thus it is very vulnerable in terms of media. As it can be


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expected, unbranded and unknown states are especially

susceptible to be presented negatively by the media, which can

have an impact on the long-term image of the nation. For

example, the movie "Borat" has reshaped Kazakhstans imageinto that of a grotesque backwater inhabited by village idiots,

interspersed with Soviet-era footage of agriculture and heavy

industries (Metahaven, 2008) for the global audience. Thus,

Kazakhstan is still having problems with getting rid of this image.

This demonstrates that the world is unaware of former Sovietnations and that the media reflects it blindly through the use of its

tremendous power and influence.

A victim of this image partly built by the media, Lithuania is also

perceived negatively in most Western countries. One of the

reasons that heighten this image is crime committed by the

country's citizens in more developed and better-branded nations.

This situation is especially clear in Denmark, which has had a 63

percent increase in the number of eastern Europeans charged

with crimes since 2006; thus, its government was even

considering tightening borders (Stanners, No evidence to support

tighter borders, 2012). More precisely, such criminality done by

Lithuanians resulted in the police asking motorists to follow cars

with Lithuanian registration numbers and report their movements

within Danish territory. To crown it all, Danish far-rightFolkepartei representatives have argued that Lithuanians should


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require visas to enter Denmark, in order to protect the country

from an influx of criminals and even though other mainstream

parties have not supported their proposals (Pavlovaite, 2001).

This shows that Denmark, which is one of the major foreigninvestors in Lithuania, views Lithuanians as a danger for their

well-being, and in the same way, the Danish media is reflecting

that negative stereotype.

For such a young (concerning only 22 years of independency)

and not well-branded country like Lithuania, it is a big challenge

to cope with this issue and protect its image. Nevertheless, it is

critical to improve this image, or at least minimize the negative

perception in order to maintain good relationships between these

two countries, avoid restrictions like closed borders, and stimulate

promising communication regarding tourism, culture, policy,

people, brands, investment and recruitment.

1.2. PROBLEM STATEMENT

Considering the importance that nation branding has in ourinterconnected and media driven society, and the problems that

Lithuania faces as a result of a negative image in Denmark, the

problem identified, and thus, the question this thesis attempts to

answer is the following:


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How can the Lithuanias image in Denmark be improved through

Nation Branding?

To answer this, the relevant theories of Nation Branding and

Public Relations will be discussed in this thesis, and based onthem and the findings from the subsequent analysis,

recommendations for the improvement of Lithuania's image in

Denmark will be identified.

1.3. DELIMITATIONS

Even though nation brand is usually focused on the global

market, the scope of this thesis was narrowed down to focus

specifically on Denmark. Further, this thesis will not provide

information on how to create Lithuania's nation brand for theDanish audience. Instead, it will provide recommendations to

improve the country's image in Denmark. The recommendations

will not be specific steps for a Nation Branding strategy, but

theoretical suggestions that can be applied in reality. In addition,

this thesis will not elaborate on the connection between nationbranding and the country-of-origin effect, as it is not focused on

destination or place branding, and this is outside the scope of this

thesis, which would not support the problem solving.

1.4. METHOD AND STRUCTURE


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This is an action-prescribing thesis, and thus, the main aim is to

propose appropriate recommendations to solve the problem

presented above. The framework of the thesis is based on the

discussion of the theories of Nation Branding and PublicRelations, the analysis of the current image of Lithuania in

Denmark, and the strategies that Lithuania already applied to

improve its image. For the analysis, secondary research was

chosen, mostly because of time restrictions.

The thesis is built around four main parts supplemented by other

smaller sections in order to reach a conclusion. Section 2 is

based on the theory of Nation Branding, involves its comparison

with other forms of branding, and provides relevant aspects of

this field that flow into the whole concept of nation brand. Section

3 encompasses the theory of Public Relations, and its relation to

Nation Branding is discussed afterwards. Following this, Section

4 is an analysis of Lithuanias efforts to build the nation brand

since its independence until now, and the country's current image

in Denmark. In Section 5, recommendations are provided after

considering the findings from the previous sections. After that,

Section 6 is drawn upon the discussion of the theories applied,

and new points of view are presented. Finally, Section 7 contains

the conclusion, where all the findings are summarized.


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1.5. THEORY OF SCIENTIFIC METHODS: SOCIAL

CONSTRUCTIONISM

In order to answer the problem statement, Social Constructionismwas chosen to lay down a foundation for this thesis. According to

Social Constructionism theory, people construct their own and

others identities through daily social interactions (Burr, 2001,

9p.). However, Social Constructionism also stands for the critical

thought that there is no one truth for perceiving the world and thatthe ways of understanding it cannot be taken for grated (Burr,

2001, 3p.). This attitude towards building knowledge fits well with

the topic of Nation Branding, since some theorists argue that

Social Constructivism provides nations with the opportunity to

construct their own images (Ham, 2008, 146p.; Widler, 2007,

145p.).

Another reason for this choice is because Social Constructionism

claims that all ways of understanding are historically and

culturally relative (Burr, 2001, 6p.), which implies that eachcountry has a different perception of one nation, contradicting the

notion that nations can be branded worldwide. Therefore, this

thesis argues that Nation Branding is more successful when

applied to specific cases and specific countries (as the issue

between Lithuania and Denmark).


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The Social Constructionism view also plays a major role in

making analysis and conclusions. Based on the idea that we

construct our own versions of reality(Burr, 2001, 6p.) this thesis

and the theories discussed in it demonstrate the authorsinterpretations of the world and therefore cannot be regarded as

one and only truth. As a result, all recommendations and

interpretations proposed are influenced by the social interactions

that the author has experienced and thus, it can be regarded as a

contribution to the overall knowledge of the subject.

1.6. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Since Nation Branding is a complex and relatively new concept,

academics and practitioners hold different views on the subject.

Hence, for the theoretical framework, a number of works were

chosen to answer the thesis question. However, since this thesis

is framed by the Social Constructionism theory, this implies that

none of the interpretations should be regarded as absolute truth.

To explain the Nation Branding theory, the main research chosenis from Ying Fan, Keith Dinnie and Anholt, apart from additional

academics to supplement their approaches. Ying Fan is chosen

to define the general concept of Nation Branding and differentiate

it from other forms of branding, whereas Dinnies findings provide

the practical framework that corresponds to the analysis part by


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identifying the difficulties and complexities that Nation Branding

practitioners may confront in the process of re-branding the

country. On the other hand, Anholt's research is also critical,

since as the father of Nation Branding, he identifies the relationbetween the nation's image and the influence of the media in the

process of Nation Branding, which is relevant to answer the

question of this thesis.

Regarding PR theory, Ralph Tench and Liz Yeomans are

selected, as they provide the framework of this theory. PR was

chosen because the theory concerns itself talks about the long-

term relationships with the stakeholders, and another researcher,

Gyorgy Szondi, explains the importance of these aspects in

Nation Branding relating to both theories, which is important for

this thesis in order to provide relevant recommendations for

improvement.

The research was specifically chosen on the premise of Social

Constructionism that the knowledge of the world is constructed

through social interactions. As such, the research usedemphasises the importance of relationships between people and

their social interactions.

2. NATION BRANDING


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In this chapter, the Nation Branding concept will be presented in

order to understand how to successfully apply Nation Branding

strategies. First, the differences between nation, corporate and

product branding will be listed in order to clarify the concept, andsecondly, the challenges for practitioners when building a nation

brand will be discussed.

2.1. NATION BRANDING VS. CORPORATE BRANDING

AND PRODUCT BRANDING

What is a brand?

To understand the origins of Nation Branding, the term brand

has to be clearly defined. According to the Chartered Institute of

Marketing (UK) a brand is:

"a symbol that represents the consumers experience with an

organisation, product or services. A brand is a product or service

whose dimensions differentiate it in some way from other

products or services designed to satisfy the same need.

Alternatively it can be viewed as a holistic, emotional and

intangable experience or both. A Brand can be strong enough

to evoke feelings of belonging, love and affection (Kotler, 2009,

426p.).


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This implies that branding helps products to be differentiated and

gain a competitive advantage in a global market.

How did the branding process begin for products,

corporations and nations?

Because of globalization and increasing competition, customers

became more cautious about the products they buy, their brands,

and the corporations that stand behind them (Machkova, 2010,

115p.), which was the reason why corporations began to build

their own brands (called corporate brands). Corporate brands are

much more complex than product/service brands, since they also

have to maintain the reputation of the corporation and develop

long-term relationships with customers.

Similar to corporations, countries were forced to build their

brands too. As Peter van Ham (2001) states: having a bad

reputation or none at all is a serious handicap for a state seeking

to remain competitive in the international arena. The unbranded

state has a difficult time attracting economic and political

attention (2p.). However, even though it might appear that

product branding, corporate branding and nation branding are

very similar concepts, some differences need to be analysed to

prove the complexity of the Nation Branding process.


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What are the main attributes of product, corporate and nation

brands?

Fan (2010) distinguishes between these three concepts

analysing nine categories: offer, attributes, benefits, image,association, purpose, dimension, ownership and audience (99p.).

In his analysis, Fan (2010) states that corporate and product

brands clearly offer a product, a service, or a sector and their

attributes are clearly defined, while nation brands are too

complicated to define, and the brand by itself has nothing to offer

(99p.).

In contrast, Dinnie (2008), based on her Nation-Brand

architecture (NBAR) (198p.), suggests that nation brands actually

contain many other sub-brands, such as sports, exports, tourism,talent attraction, etc., which also have other sub-brands (see

appendix 1). Therefore, nation brands have many

products/services to offer, contrary to the other two forms of

brands. However, it is important to mention that there is no brand

architecture panacea that would suit for all nations. Depending onthe strategic purpose of each nation, it is important to develop the

synergistic linkage between the different sub-brands while

creating a nation brand.

Nation brands are significantly more complex than product or

corporate brands


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Turning to the benefitssection, according to Fan (2010), a nation

brands benefits are purely emotional, whereas product brand

and corporate brand provide the customer with little emotional

benefits (99p.). The image of Nation Branding is complicated,diverse and vague because of multiple stakeholders and

uncontrollable factors influencing the image, whereas product

brand holds a simple and clear image, and corporate brands

image might be a little hiddendespite its visibility.

The major purpose of nation brand is to enhance a nations

reputation, similar to the corporate brands purpose to enhance

reputation and develop relationships with stakeholders. In

contrast, the goal of a product brand is mostly focused on

boosting sales. While the dimensions of a nation brand can vary

from political and economic to social and cultural, product and

corporate brands are mostly focused in the economic dimension.

In addition, the audiences of Nation Branding can be international

and diverse, while a product brand audience is a targeted

segment and a corporate brand audience can vary from general

public to targeted audiences(Fan, 2010, 99p.).

Nations brands share similarities with corporate brands

The indicated differences above show that Nation Branding is

more familiar with corporate branding than product branding;

therefore, "many of the tools developed in the corporate world


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can be used in the nation branding process (Cromell, 2012).

However, the most obvious similarity is that nation and corporate

branding are focused on creating good relationships with their

stakeholders and enhancing their reputations. Consequently,Public Relations is an appropriate choice as a communication

tool to establish effective corporate and nation brands by building

the relationships with stakeholders through image and reputation

management. As defined by the Institute of Public Relations

2004, PR:

it is all about reputationthe result of what you do, what you say

and what others say about you. Public Relations is the discipline

that looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding

and support and influencing opinion and behaviour(Tench et al.,

2008, 5p.).

Szondi (2010) also maintains that PR can help for the nation in a

case of reputational damage (338p.). Later in the thesis the

relation between PR and Nation Branding will be discussed (see

section 3.1.).

2.2. COMPLEXITY OF NATION BRANDING

Having explained the nature of nation brands, this section

examines the challenges for practitioners when branding a

country, as well as the complex structure of nation brands. The


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scope of Nation Branding, the target audiences of Nation

Branding, and the potential stakeholders of Nation Branding will

be discussed by raising a question: who owns the nation brand?

2.2.1. THE SCOPE OF NATION BRANDING

Nation Branding is a relatively new phenomenon. Thus,

practitioners agree that there is much confusion about this

concept (Fan, 2005, 5p.). Dinnie (2008) defines Nation Branding

as an exciting, complex and controversial subject (13p.). She

argues that it is exciting because it is highly used in practice

despite little theory existing on the subject; that it is complex

because it encompasses many more disciplines than

conventional brand strategies; and that it is controversial because

Nation Branding is closely related with the politicized activity that

generates passionately held and frequently conflicting viewpoints

and opinions(13p.). It is important to emphasize that the process

of nation branding is complex because it covers many political,

economic, historical and cultural dimensions (Fan, 2010, 98p.).Moreover, in 2005, Anholt developed a Nation Brand Index (see

appendix 2) to measure the reputations and images of nations.

The hexagon model involves six main dimensions of Nation

Banding: exports, governance, culture and heritage, people,

tourism, and investment and immigration. Each dimension has a


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huge impact on the overall nations image and in order to assess

nations, people from different countries are interviewed to

evaluate other nations performancesin those dimensions, which

lead to various responses depending on the pre-conceptionsabout the country held by interviewees. It is important to note that

in this thesis, a Nation Brand Index only serves as a model to

illustrate the dimensions that are assimilated by the overall nation

brand.

Considering the above dimensions, it becomes apparent that all

of them are too different to encompass one aim. Even though the

general purpose of Nation Branding is to promote a nations

image and compete in the international market, in practice there

can be many other more specific aims, such as boosting tourism,

improving economic development, or attracting more FDI.

Moreover, Nation Branding can be necessary to gain a political

advantage. For example, in 1919 the Lithuanian National Council

hired the father of PR, Edward Bernays, "to generate support for

the country in the United States and achieve official recognition

from the United States when Lithuania sought to become an

independent nation, since at that time American politicians and

society were ignorant about Lithuania and its aspirations. In order

to achieve this goal, Bernay created a campaign to inform

ethnologists about Lithuanias ethnic origins, linguists about the


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development of its language from Sanskrit, and sports fans about

its athletics contests (Szondi, 2008, 3p.).

2.2.2. GLOBAL TARGET

AUDIENCE

The mentioned dimensions have an impact on the perceptions of

international audiences. Therefore, even though the country is

not putting any efforts to build a brand - the nations already have

their nation brands the mental image of the country held by

foreign people(Fan, 2010, 98p.). In a Nation Branding process,

foreign audiences become the target group. Their perceptions

are the current image of the nation and the Nation Branding task

is to change or alter that image in order to compete successfully

on the world stage.

However, the problem is that international audiences have a

different degree of knowledge and experience about the nation,

and each country has different cultural values that will affect its

decoding and perception of image(Fan, 2005, 9p.). Thus, whenplanning a Nation Branding strategy it is critical to make the

analysis of the target group and narrow it down, which implies

that it is more successful to choose different strategies of Nation

Branding for different countries.


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However, one would argue that nation brand has to be a

consistent unit and it would not be a good idea to have dissimilar

strategies for each country, but as Fan (2010) states: the biggest

challenge in nation branding is how to communicate a singleimage or message to different audiences in different countries

(101p.). All existing images about a nation form one big picture,

but at the same time, in one country it is better to emphasize

certain features of the nation brand, while in other it can be useful

to promote one dimension more than another.

2.2.2.1. STEREOTYPES

Nation is a socially constructed concept (Widler, 2007, 145p.).

Widler (2007) argues that people might think that nations exist

because they take it for granted as a common sense. However,

the concept of Nation Branding is reconstructed all the time by

the media, various institutions, and in practice. She also claims

that social constructs need to be constantly re-constructed in

order to survive, which means that Nation Branding is a processof re-constructing the nation. This might be a reason why Anholt

(2002), a Nation Branding practitioner, states that he is often

accused of rewriting the history of the nations (Ham, 2008,

135p.).


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Unfortunately, stereotypes are one result of the social construct.

Anholt (2005) finds that as a consequence of globalisation,

people tend to use shorthands to make sense of the world

(Widler, 2008, 148p.) and stereotype nations because of the lackof knowledge about them. Similarly, the media also is

stereotyping nations (Anholt, 2009a, 178p.). This becomes a big

problem because the media is constructing this concept of nation

and proposing it to the audience.

As such, Nation Branding practitioners should use stereotypes to

develop a nation brand. However, they should also clarify those

stereotypes and clearly define the nation, so journalists become

more knowledgeable when writing about a nation, and transmit

objective information to the public.

2.2.3. DISCUSSION ON WHO OWNS THE NATION

BRAND

Another complexity of Nation Branding arises when considering

coordination of the nation brand. Dinnie (2008) argues thatNation Branding cannot simply belong to brand managers or

corporations, but is owned bythe nations entire citizenry(15p.).

In contrast, Fan (2005) states that without strong leadership, any

campaign in nation branding is doomed to fail (8p.). An

alternative is to combine these two approaches conveyed, which


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leads us to the principle of inclusiveness, a method that involves

all relevant stakeholders for the specific cases of Nation Branding

(Dinnie, 2008, 187p.).

This inclusive approach is discussed by Prof. Leslie deChernatony, who identifies two forms of inclusiveness: fully

inclusive approach and programme-specific inclusiveness. Fully

inclusive stakeholder approach (FIST) (see appendix 3)

represents the ideal state, rather than any actual state. In this

model, the government plays a major role and controls all other

stakeholders. However, the government also has to ensure that

the long-term Nation Branding strategy is independent from

politics to sustain stability and consistency for the next

government (Dinnie, 2008, 189p.). The lower stakeholders in the

figure have their own agendas and therefore, many nations that

apply this model are able to coordinate Nation Branding activities

successfully.

The FIST approach is considered suitable for nations that need

the full inclusiveness and are facing economic threat, that are inthe process of emerging in the international stage for the first time

or need a radical change in their international image (Dinnie,

2008, 189p.). Nevertheless, this method might be difficult to

implement in reality. Because of the extent of the stakeholders,


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the government or other responsible parties might have

difficulties to empower all of them.

However, another way to make a strategy for Nation Branding is

to embody a programme-specific inclusiveness (Dinnie, 2008,190p.). This approach can be applied only when a country has

already implemented some Nation Branding strategies before or

is already well recognized in the world. This means that some

deficits in the overall countrys image are found and therefore, in

one or another dimension the country has to be re-branded.

Particularly because of that, the choice of the stakeholders in this

approach depends on the branding strategy and its goals.

Usually, the government is involved only "in the initial stage, in

order to kick-start the campaign of nation branding and

galvanize stakeholder participation, but afterwards the private

sector engages in the Nation Branding development and the role

of the government decreases (Dinnie, 2008, 192p.). This

approach would be more suitable for proposing the

recommendations to answer the problem statement of this thesis.

2.2.3.1. DIASPORA

Another very important stakeholder that should be considered in

both mentioned approaches is diaspora. According to Dinnie

(2008), diaspora networks are the representatives in another


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country and have a huge impact on the nation brand in the

foreign country where they live (228p.). This can be justified by

Social Constructionism theory, because as it was mentioned

previously, people construct knowledge about the world betweenthemselves (Burr, 2001, 4p.); therefore, immigrants can change

people's pre-given perceptions about the nation, as word-of-

mouth has almost the same impact on people perceptions as

direct experience or media (Anholt, 2009a, 179p.).

On the other hand, the government can gain some advantage

from the nations diaspora by supporting their networks abroad.

For example, there are many diaspora networks that are

professional associations dedicated to helping members advance

in their professional field, as the South African Diaspora

Network, which focuses on developing knowledge and

entrepreneurial connections between South African firms and

well-connected, strategically placed individuals in the UK

(Dinnie, 2008, 228p.). Szondi (2010) also agrees that it is critical

to engage diaspora living abroad in the Nation Branding strategy

especially in PR context (if it is included in the strategy of

branding) (340p.); however, this will be further elaborated in

section 3.1.

2.3. CONCLUSION


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Nation Branding is by far the most complex branding form of all

existing forms of branding, as it encompasses multiple

stakeholder groups, depends on many uncontrollable factors, can

have many different target audiences with completely differentbackgrounds, and can be divided into many other nation sub-

brandings.

However, Nation Branding cannot embrace one method or

strategy that to be used by all nations, because every nation has

different culture and values, and therefore, the best option for

nations is to create their own strategies and carefully target the

audience, as well as to select the appropriate stakeholders

through the programme-specific inclusivenessto remedy country

image deficits.

Moreover, it is highly recommended to involve diaspora as a

stakeholder group in the Nation Branding process, since the

strategic development of diaspora networks might be a more

effective way in building a strong brand than establishing

advertisement campaigns.

3. PUBLIC RELATIONS

Definition of Public Relations


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Practitioners and academics are still debating the definition of

Public Relations. However, Grunig and Hunt (1984) suggest a

brief definition of PR, which is the management of

communication between an organisation and its publics(Tench,2008, 3p.). Despite this description, it is essential to discuss the

aims of PR to understand its importance in the communication

process with publics. According to White and Mazur (1996: 11)

PR can be used to influence the behaviour of groups of people

in relation to each other. Influence should be exerted through

dialoguenot monologue () acting as a strategic resource and

helping to implement corporate strategy(Tench, 2008, 3p.).

In this definition, two important concepts are mentioned that

require some discussion. First, the authors emphasise "dialogue

as opposed to "monologue", since PR provides practitioners with

many different channels and tools to communicate with

stakeholders, helping them to establish a mutual beneficial

relationship. Secondly, the authors mention that PR is used to

"influence the behaviour" of people, but it is important that

"influence is not confused with "propaganda.

Even though many journalists assert that propaganda describes

what PR is (Tench et al., 2008, 267p.), the main difference

between the concepts is that propaganda is a one-way

communication tool, while the essence of PR lies, as already


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discussed, on the dialogue between the organization and its

audience. Furthermore, while propaganda seeks to manipulate

public opinion, PR influences the attitudes of the public in a

trustworthy and open-minded way (Machkova et al., 2010, 176p.). Models of Public Relations

Two PR scholars, James E. Grunig and Todd Hund, have

developed four models of PR in the 1980s. The models mainly

differ in terms of communication and purpose (see appendix 4).

The fact that propaganda is included as a purpose of the first

model "press agentry / publicity also shows that it currently

exists. Szondi (2010) asserts that negative branding, as the one

in relation to Kazakhstans case (see section 1.2.), could be

attributed to this type of PR model (338p.). The possibleexamples and explanations of other models will be proposed in

the next section. Moreover, since in some cases propaganda can

be considered as a part of PR, practitioners should pay more

attention to the ethics of communication and eliminate

propaganda in PR messages.

Impact of media on Public Relations

Lastly, it is very important to mention the media, since it is the

major intermediary of PR (Machkova, 2010, 176p.). According to

Tench (2008), practitioners of PR should have the skills and


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experience to choose the most suitable channels to reach target

audiences with appropriate messages(312p.). Collaboration with

the media is called Media Relations or publicity. In comparison to

advertising, there is no payment for publishing PR messages.This is because PR practitioners cooperate with the media, and

try to persuade journalists to publish specific messages, which is

a reason why those messages are more effective than expensive

advertising (idem, 176p.).

However, this is a challenge for PR practitioners, as they have

limited control over journalists, who possess creative

independence. Thus, it is critical to provide journalists with

interesting information to gain their attention and influence them

to produce desirable press releases. Finally, since the media is

constructing the general publics opinion, Media Relations

becomes an influential technique in offsetting negative publicity,

protecting brand reputation, and informing the audience

(Machkova, 2010, 176p.).

3.1. PUBLIC RELATIONS APPROACH TO NATION

BRANDING

Use of Public Relations for Nation Branding

Practitioners are highly interested in PRs contribution to Nation

Branding. The link between these two concepts is apparent in the


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previously given example about Lithuanias efforts to inform the

United States public about Lithuania through hiring a PR

practitioner for this job (Szondi, 2008, 3p.). Nowadays, this

activity would be regarded as a typical Nation Brandingcampaign. Referring to the four models of PR, this strategy could

be attributed to the second model, because the purpose was to

inform the society about Lithuanias history and culture, but the

fundamental plan was to influence the politicians of the United

States. In short, Lithuania was "selling itself to the United States(see section 2.2.1.).

Models for Public Relations in Nation Branding

According to Szondi, the most popular model between nations

that are branding themselves is a mix of the public informationmodel and the two-way asymetric model (339p.). The latter is

focused on research about audiences and their attitudes towards

the nations to develop more persuasive and effective campaigns.

However, the System Theory maintains that the ideal PR

communication model is the two-way symmetric (Tench, 2008,153p.). This might be true considering that it reflects the essence

of PR in its best way the mutual understanding between the

organization and its publics.

Application and role of Public Relations in Nation Branding


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When all four models are defined, it is important to look at how

practically PR can be applied for Nation Branding. Szondi (2010)

finds some typical examples on how PR could contribute to the

Nation Branding process both internally and externally. First ofall, PR can play a significant role in creating a favourable

atmosphere and culture between the stakeholders, and providing

strategic leadership and coordination among the institutions and

other participants involved in the Nation Branding process

(Szondi, 2010, 339p.). Another important role of PR is to buildand maintain strategic relationships with domestic and

international media.

It also must be stressed that PR monitors and evaluates media

coverage abroad and identifies whether any improvements in

Nation Branding are required. Referring to Anholt (2009) it would

be a good idea to establish a national Media Centre, where the

appropriate actors (e.g. Embassies) could facilitate and

coordinate Media Relations domestically and abroad, with

particular attention and emphasis on diaspora communities to

engage communities (Szondi, 2010, 339p.).

3.1.1. USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR PUBLIC

RELATIONS IN NATION BRANDING


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Moreover, to engage in open dialogue internally and abroad,

nations should be more credible and build those relationships

implementing Social Media tools, but countries are still focusing

only on their country name dot com domains in order toengage with worldwide communities (Szondi, 2010, 340p.).

One highly successful example that used Social Media for re-

building its brand (in terms of tourism) is Iceland (Murphy, 2012).

The countrys website (see appendix 5) is full of links to social

networks like Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo and Tumblr. Page visitors

can watch videos about Iceland that are very modern, playful,

and creative. In one of the videos, the president of Iceland, lafur

Ragnar Grmsson, is inviting tourists to visit his house and

mentions that his wife would make pancakes for them (Vimeo:

Inspired by Iceland).

The idea behind this project was to promote tourism by

introducing Iceland as a person that is friendly and welcoming.

According to Hauksson of Nordiac eMarketing, "Iceland has

experienced a nearly 20% growth in tourism in 2011 (Murphy,2012). Undoubtedly, this case is one of the most successful

examples on how to engage worldwide communities through

relationship building in Social Media, and involving all citizens

into the Nation Branding process.


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Strategy development for Public Relations in Nation

Branding

One could agree that advertising through mass media is no

longer powerful in todays highly critical society. As Sheth and

Sisodia (2005) claim, people are consciously avoiding any

marketing messages (341p.), and as a result, organizations and

companies are making new and creative decisions to turn away

from marketing and advertising. Nation Branding practitioners

should do the same and consider the new customer behaviour

trends. The successful Iceland case could serve as a perfect

example on how to build relationships with the audience.

Lithuania once tried to promote the nation through mass media

channels as BBC and CNN (Park, 2008, 78p.), but the strategy

did not bring any expected outcomes, which again proves that

typical brand building processes through one-way communication

and image management are not effective anymore.

3.2 CONCLUSION

In the section, the relevant aspects of PR were discussed in

terms of Nation Branding. First of all, the importance of

relationships between the stakeholders was stressed. Moreover,

it was outlined that Media Relations play a significant role in the

Nation Branding process, and that the nation has to establish a


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Media Centre. Finally, similar to the Nation Branding section, the

relevance of diaspora was maintained, and the suggestion to

engage them into the communities was made. At the end it was

claimed that Social Media can serve as a new and effectivemethod to build relationships.

The following chapter will be based on the analysis of Lithuanias

efforts in building a Nation Brand and current perceptions of

Lithuania in Denmark will be revealed. Afterwards, the final

section of recommendations for Lithuanias image improvement

in Denmark will be proposed, considering the findings and

discussions about Nation Branding and PR theories.

4. LITHUANIAS EFFORTS IN BUILDING THE NATION

BRAND

In this section, the inputs to build Lithuanias brand will be

discussed. This is necessary in order to analyse the current

knowledge of Nation Branding in Lithuanias government and

whether improvements are required. The recommendations for

improvement will be proposed in Section 5. With reference to

Park (2008), the history of Lithuanias Nation Branding strategies

will be outlined. Furthermore, Saffrons (2009) strategy for

Lithuanias economic brand will be discussed.


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Initial branding efforts as a newly independent country

The need for Nation Branding became critical in 1990, when

Lithuania became an independent country that few people had

knowledge of. In order to survive and "put itself on the map in

the minds of foreigners, the country had no other option than to

join the brandwagon (Metahaven, 2008) as Van Ham calls it,

and compete for FDI, tourists, and enhance the countrys cultural

and political influence by getting as much and as positive

coverage in international media as possible. Indeed, Anholt

(2009a) found that Nation Branding is all about Public Relations

the attempt to persuade the media to cover your country as

positively and frequently as possible(178p.).

When Lithuania first hit the international newspapers headlinesby becoming the first Soviet Republic to announce

independence, the image of Lithuania was mostly constructed as

a small, weak, but fearless country (Park, 2008, 69p.). During the

first years of independence, Lithuania tried to attract FDI by

transitioning from a state-owned to a market economy, but whenthe 1992 elections were won by an ex-communist party,

Lithuanias image became unattractive for potential investors,

who associated the country with communism.

Further government efforts in 1994 in launching a PR campaign

for international media were also unsuccessful in changing the


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negative perceptions of Lithuania. In addition, Lithuanias

diplomats were unable to shape country coverage in the foreign

media, leading Lithuanias reputation to be continuously

constructed by stereotypes and prejudicial media coverage. Subsequent branding efforts as an established democracy

Lithuania realized the need of branding when NATO and the EU

started debating the invitations of new members in the mid-

1990s. To be accepted by these institutions, Lithuanias Ministry

of Foreign Affairs had to propose recommendations to improve

the country's image. However, not all the recommendations were

implemented and Lithuania was not invited to join NATO in 1998

(Idem, 73p.). Lithuania also did not either receive an invitation

from EU, which the European Commission explained by blamingthe poor country image (Ibid). Despite all these failures, the

process of Nation Branding was still uncoordinated. According to

Park (2008), many government-related structures were

launching their own ad hoc campaigns on the countrys image at

various events without any coordination (74p.), which explainsthe ineffectiveness of coordination in branding process?

Factors that affected Nation Branding efforts

Significant events that had a major, negative impact on

Lithuanias image were crimes committed by Lithuanians after


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emigrating to countries such as Spain, Germany, Britain, and the

Scandinavian region (Idem, 75p.), around the year 2000. Media

coverage of such activity resulted in terrible branding for the

country. Even though at that time the economy was strong andhad the highest GDP growth in the Baltic countries, the

Economist wrote that Lithuania was the biggest but the most

backward of the three Baltic States(Ibid).

However, achievements in 2003 and 2004 finally improved

Lithuanias image. Lithuanias basketball team won the gold

medal in the European basketball championship, and Lithuania

became a member of EU and NATO. These actions were

probably affected by some of the Nation Branding strategies

applied by the established Lithuanian Institute in 2001, which was

responsible for the representation of the countrys cultural, artistic

and diplomatic achievements abroad. In addition, the government

was emphasising the opportunities for FDI in Lithuania and

coordinating information on the Lithuanian state in 2003 (Ibid).

Unfortunately, the information was not controlled effectively, sincethe international media was successfully spotlighting the

surprising facts about Lithuania. This includes some articles

written by the European media, where Lithuania was depicted as

an extremely poor country, or the BBC report of Lithuania


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supplying military equipment to Sudan in violation of an

international embargo imposed on this country(Idem, 76p.).

Moreover, since Lithuania was still not familiar to the rest of the

world because of the poor branding, it has experienced similarcase as Kazakhstan (see section 1.1.) whenpopular fiction

writer Jonathan Franzen, in his best-seller "The Corrections

decided to depict Lithuanias capital Vilnius as a place of hell,

where shortages of energy resources and food were common,

where people had to eat horses to stay alive, and where criminal

groups allegedly ran the citys life(Ibid). Without a doubt, these

and other similar contributions to Lithuanias image are

constructing the overall perceptions of the nation in the minds of

foreigners even though they are not true.

Government's response to recent negative branding

As a consequence, Lithuanias offices started debates about

more serious Nation Branding strategies to remedy this

uncontrolled situation. For this purpose, in 2005 the government

announced the competition "Vivat, Lithuania! in order to receive

the proposals from private PR companies to implement

Lithuanias image (Idem, 77p.). After a year, three winners were

announced, including two companies from Lithuania and one

from the UK. Even though a lot of good ideas were proposed,

most of them were not implemented. Much confusion arose when


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the local media reported information about another company that

was favoured by the government, resulting in the winning

recommendations not being implemented (Idem, 78p.). As a

result of this fiasco, no efforts in engaging various stakeholdersinto the process led the nation to being negatively viewed or

barely known by foreign audiences.

Private companies' efforts in Nation Branding

Despite this, in 2009 Lithuanias capital Vilnius got the

opportunity to become the European Capital of Culture. In order

to promote Lithuania and enhance its image and profit from this

spotlight, Lithuanias development team agency hired Saffrons

brand consultants, as well as Wally Olins, one of the worlds

leading branding gurus. In their guide, titled "Selling Lithuaniasmartly (Saffron, 2009), several recommendations for Lithuanias

branding strategy encompassing the period between 2009 and

2014 are outlined. Finally some tangible benefits were apparent.

However, it has to be stressed that the guide is mostly focussed

on the economic development of Lithuania and how to attract

FDI. No analysis is made to discover to what extent the

perceptions about Lithuania abroad might influence the

foreigners decisions to collaborate with Lithuanias businesses,

to visit Lithuania for holiday or to show interest in Lithuanian

culture and arts. Moreover, even though Saffrons guide suggests


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many specific recommendations, such as changing Lithuanias

perception from a post-Soviet nation to a Northern European

(19p.), taking an advantage of holding European presidency in

the second half of 2013 (147p.), organizing more jazz festivals orexporting Lithuanian music, the recommendations are still being

implemented and thus it is not exactly known how advanced the

development process is.

Summary of Nation Branding efforts

Considering all the mentioned strategies, several major mistakes

were done, which resulted in a lack of successful in changing the

perceptions of Lithuania. First of all, it becomes apparent that for

Lithuania the main difficulty is to manage its reputation, but it is

not clear whose responsibility that should be. Lithuanias

government was unable to decide upon the companies to create

the Nation Branding strategy, and the information about it was

kept away from the citizens.

It should be noted here that the citizens of the country are also

very important stakeholders that play a major role in the process

of Nation Branding. Thus, it becomes critical to engage them into

the strategy and dialogue with other stakeholders, which was not

done in Lithuanias case. Besides bad communication or lack ofit between stakeholders, too little attention is paid on Media


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Relations. As Saffrons guide (2009) outlines, the ability to

manage negative coverage in other countries would pay off

hugely over time (128p.) Thus, the process of Nation Branding

could be improved with communication between all stakeholders,and collaboration with foreign media.

4.1. LITHUANIAS IMAGE IN

DENMARK

This section will draw upon the analysis of Danish peoples

perceptions about Lithuania and its people. However, even

though the perceptions of Lithuania may vary individually, this

analysis will only reveal the general image that dominates in the

minds of Danish people and are mostly reflected in the media

coverage.

There is a lack of information about Lithuania in Denmark

First of all, it was identified that 70 per cent of Western

Europeans did not know what, or where Lithuania is, which also

includes Danish (Park, 2008, 77p.). This implies that Lithuania is

not promoted enough in Western Europe. In addition, lack of

information also shapes the image of the nations (Ham, 2008,

133p.), especially if the country is only known for two or three

things, because then negative news in the media about the

nation can constitute for a third or quarter of its entire reputation


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(Anholt, 2009a, 175p.). In brief, this might be the case for

Lithuanias bad reputation in Denmark.

Negative information about Lithuania dominates Danish

media

Enevoldsen (2011) has made a study where she investigated all

the articles about Lithuania in the biggest Danish National

newspapers in the period from the 17th of June, 2010, to the 17thof June, 2011. Results revealed that in 13 out of 37 articles,

Lithuania was negatively mentioned in the Danish media, for

reasons such as crimes, immigration, working conditions, low

industry salaries, outsourcing and homophobia(52p.).

Moreover, recently there was an article published in The

Copenhagen Post (see appendix 6) with a direct link to

Lithuanians: "Middle and West Jutland Police have clearer

statistics about the prevalence of foreign criminals and report that

every third person they arrest is from Lithuania (Stanners, 2012).

Despite this clear emphasis on Lithuanians criminality, the article

includes another statement that reinforces negative perceptions

and prejudices about Lithuanians: We have a real problem with

Lithuanians coming here simply to commit crime, the police

forces deputy chief superintendent, Michael Kjeldgaard, toldBerlginske."(Ibid).


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Even though the name of the article does not involve reference to

Lithuanians (it is called "Rise in burglaries blamed on

foreigners), only Lithuanian nationality is directly mentioned. No

further analysis is required to realize that in the latter quote,Lithuanians are depicted stereotypically as criminals. As Anholt

(2009) confirms, bad news seems to travel faster than good

news(173p.), so for such a small country as Lithuania, the given

example of negative coverage is a big challenge to overcome.

4.2. THE IMPORTANCE OF IMPROVING LITHUANIAS

IMAGE PRECISELY IN DENMARK

The relation between peoples perceptions of a nation and their

willingness to visit or cooperate with it is critical; therefore, it is

important to manage the reputation of the country abroad.

Moreover, a nations negative perceptions of another country can

also have an impact on that countrys decision to cooperate, e.g.

as it is reported in Saffrons guide (2009) Lithuanian business

confessed to a reluctance to operate in Scandinavia, citing in parta vague feeling of being out-classed there by local business

(81p.). Specific reasons for Lithuania's image improvement in

Denmark are presented next.

First, as it was previously mentioned (see section 1.1.), Denmark

is one of the major FDI in Lithuania. The poor image of Lithuania


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in Denmark could have a negative impact in the eyes of the new

potential investors from Denmark, since they would consider

other similar options, as Latvia or Estonia.

Another reason is the increasing importance of Lithuanians inDanish daily life and its consequences. Many Lithuanians are

choosing Denmark as an opportunity to study, work and live, and

Anholt (2009b) argues that immigration can () create

relevance between countries. British citizens might have become

more interested in Lithuania as a result of encountering many

workers in Britain (256p.). Therefore, negative perceptions and

stereotypes could cause Danish employers to hesitate choosing

Lithuanian employees, and Danish private enterprises to question

contracting Lithuanian service providers.

A third reason is that according to Eurostat statistics (2009),

Danish are one of the best holiday spenders, but because their

lack of awareness about Lithuania, they rarely choose it as a

holiday destination (Enevoldsen, 2011, 4p.).

Finally, a fourth reason is that negative perceptions might also

have an impact on political and economic decisions, such as the

Danish far-right Folkepartei representatives, who have already

argued that Lithuanians should require visas to enter Denmark

(Pavlovaite, 2001), which would obviously result in worsened

relationships between the countries if it happened.


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In conclusion, it is not only relevant for Lithuania to improve its

image in Denmark and be able to compete with other states in

the eyes of Danish investors, tourists, and employers. Denmark

as a country could also benefit from an improved. In order tochange this situation, some actions have to be implemented, and

in an effort to accomplish this, the next section outlines

recommendations and suggestions.

5. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT THROUGHAPPLYING PR

In Saffrons guide (2009) it is well noted that perceptions cannot

be erased, but only created (19p.), which implies that it is unlikely

to erase negative Danish perceptions of Lithuania, such as crime.However, it is possible to change these negative perceptions by

creating new ones. In this section, recommendations to improve

Lithuania's image will be presented, considering the findings from

the previous sections and applying the theories of Nation

Branding and PR.

Negative stereotypes about people is the main deficit in

Lithuania's brand in Denmark

In regards to the analysis of Lithuanias efforts to build the Nation

Brand and Danish perceptions of Lithuania, it becomes apparent


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that different aspects of Lithuanias image in Denmark are good

(e.g. economic image, taking into the consideration that Suffrans

recommendations are being implemented at this time), neutral

due to lack of knowledge (e.g. tourism) and negative (e.g.stereotype that most Lithuanians are criminals). Thus, one could

say that the deficit in Lithuanias brand in Denmark is precisely

the perceptions about the people.

The first recommendation is to involve all relevant

stakeholders

According to Dinnie (2008), to remedy a nation image deficit, the

programme-specific inclusiveness has to be applied for the

specific cases, and the appropriate stakeholders have to be

chosen. Considering that Lithuanias government was not able toidentify the relevant stakeholders for the branding, the first

recommendation is to involve the following stakeholders to

improve the image in Denmark: government(only involved in the

initial stage since it is programme-specific inclusiveness), Danish

media(Danish newspaper editors, journalists, etc.), diasporaanda PR company.

The PR company is the most active stakeholder in Nation

Branding efforts


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The government should hire a PR company capable of managing

all long-term improvement processes. Nation Branding does not

happen overnight and therefore, in order to change the existing

perceptions of Danish people, a long-term strategy needs to beprepared. The PR company would also be responsible for good

Media Relations with the Danish Media, and a Media Centre has

to be established in order to coordinate the articles and

information about Lithuania in Danish Media. The PR company

could monitor those findings and in the case of incorrect orexaggerated information, contact the editors and ask for

changes. Also, due to the importance of creating and maintaining

relationships with Danish Media, the PR company should be

responsible for providing Danish journalists with interesting

events, encompassing positive news about Lithuania that would

have to surpass the negative news. As it was discussed in the PR

section, the organization (in this case PR company) cannot

force the journalists to write positive news, but it can only

persuade them by creating awareness and providing interesting

information.

The diaspora could be a valuable asset for Nation Branding

efforts

Another important stakeholder that should be involved is

diaspora, which until now, has been excluded from the


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Lithuania's Nation Branding process. Nevertheless, the diaspora

has a huge impact on Lithuanias image in Denmark. Because of

this, the Lithuanian community living in Denmark should be

established, as it is possible to benefit from it. Diaspora's inDenmark have relevant knowledge, such as Danish language,

and might have relevant contacts to reach and collaborate with

the Danish Media. Lithuanian diasporas could even work or

volunteer in the established Media Centre. Besides the

diasporas engagement in Media Centre activities, it would be a

good idea to engage it in cultural activities too. Lithuanian

students and immigrants could promote Lithuanian culture and

arts in Denmark, increasing the overall awareness of Lithuania in

Denmark.

The second recommendation is the use of Social Media

Considering the mistakes done by Lithuania when branding the

nation, it seems that one of the main problems was a lack of

dialogue between the public and the government. The example of

Icelands use of Social Media to interact with the public (see

section 3.1.1) serves as an example on how to successfully

create transparency and engage various stakeholders by using

Social Media. Moreover, Social Media as a tool should also be

used in engaging diasporas into the community by establishing a

creative website and other platforms (Facebook, Twitter, blog,


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etc.) for their communication and ideas sharing, creating a

dialogue between all project stakeholders.

6. DISCUSSION

In this part of the thesis, new points of view and questions

regarding this thesis will be presented in order to come up with a

conclusion.

To begin, the methodology used can be criticized because of the

choice of secondary research. Primary research could have been

a better option to make a survey for understanding to what extent

the image of Lithuania constructed by the Danish media is

influencing the perceptions of individuals, as well as

understanding how it is affecting diaspora living in Denmark. This

could have provided a completely different perception about therelevance of this issue, and would have possibly led to more

specific recommendations based on empirical findings. Moreover,

such a choice would give more knowledge about stereotyping

construction and the extent to which people tend to believe in

them.


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In terms of the theory, Nation Branding is a relatively new field

and therefore, not researched enough, since practitioners are still

discussing its validity and practical application for nations based

on product and corporate branding theories. However, the authorof the thesis realized the importance of stakeholders when

discussing Nation Branding theory and therefore, PR was chosen

to complement it.

Moreover, with the discussion of Nation Branding complexities

(see section 2.2.), it became apparent that this theory can create

confusion in the minds of practitioners because there is no one

model that can be applied for all nations, and thus, the theory in

practice becomes very specific and difficult to apply, depending

on context and nations involved. As previously elaborated in this

thesis, Nation Branding strategies are usually focused on global

audiences. However, the discussion held in section 2.2.2 shows

that the differences between cultures have a huge impact on

peoples perceptions about other countries, which implies that the

practitioners of Nation Branding should consider the differencesof all the countries when (re-) branding the image of a nation on

the global scale. For example, if Lithuania presents itself as a

brave nation to the world, Georgians may interpret it as

Lithuanians not being afraid to stand against more powerful

countries as Russia, because Lithuania was (and still is) the main


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initiator in supporting Georgia during their war with Russia

(Durnan, 2009), whereas Danes might interpret it as Lithuanians

being rebels with criminal tendencies.

Because of these different national contexts and histories, thepractitioners of Nation Branding should focus more on the

communication between publics to establish mutually beneficial

relationships, and through dialogue with stakeholders, find

solutions to the specific deficits of the Nation Brand in particular

countries. The ineffectiveness of advertising discussed in section

3.1 makes clear that the establishment of communication

between the publics and the nation are more critical than ever

and should be highly discussed by the Nation Branding

practitioners.

Last but not least, it is important to mention that the overall Nation

Brand is affected by many external factors. The Nation Brand can

barely be controlled and that becomes a huge challenge for

nations. Thus, Lithuania should take into consideration that it is

not enough to establish a Media Centre and engage diaspora,but that the problem of criminality also has to be solved. Nation

Branding is nothing but a cherry that is just the final part of the

cake.


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7. CONCLUSION

In this thesis, the problem of Lithuania's negative image in

Denmark was proposed. The identified reasons for this issuewere Lithuanians' criminal stereotyping in Denmark, negative

Danish media coverage concerning Lithuanias image, but

mainly, Lithuanias inability to control its image in Denmark.

Hence, the solution to improve the current image through

applying Nation Branding and Public Relations theories wassuggested.

The discussion of Nation Branding theory revealed the fact that

the process of building and maintaining the nations brand is

relatively complex. However, it was found that Nation Branding

shares many similarities with Corporate Branding, including the

two main ones: managing reputation and relationships with

stakeholders. As PR theory encompasses solutions for both

issues, it is well suited to improve the nation's image.

Moreover, the analysis of Lithuanias efforts in building its brandand improving its image abroad was presented, and the findings

revealed that Lithuania was incapable of managing its reputation

because there were no efforts made in establishing relationships

with the media, which is partly responsible for Lithuanias image.

Later on, it was discovered that Lithuania is depicted in Danish


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media as a nation of criminals and therefore, appropriate

recommendations were given, always considering the findings

from the theories used.

The answer to the problem statement, "How to improveLithuania's image in Denmark?" was presented. In order to

achieve this, several recommendations were chosen considering

Nation Branding, PR theories and the mistakes previously

committed by Lithuanias government in branding the nation

abroad.

First and foremost, it was established that all relevant

stakeholders must work together in the Nation Branding efforts.

The relevant stakeholders were identified as follows: Lithuanias

government, Danish Media, Lithuanias diaspora living inDenmark, and a hired PR company. Also, appropriate roles were

suggested for the two most active stakeholders in the Nation

Branding efforts. The PR company would be responsible for

managing and maintaining good relationships with the Danish

media, which would be done through Media Relations and theestablishment of a Media Centre. The diaspora would be

engaged by establishing a community that seeks mutual

collaboration and country promotion with the local population.

Moreover, it was also recommended to use Social Media to


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interact with the public and exchange ideas between the project

stakeholders.

Lastly, in terms of Social Constructionism, it has to be stressed

that the recommendations made should not be considered as theonly truth, but rather as a strategy backed up by relevant theories

and suitable only for the discussed situation.

8. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brand States: Postmodern Power, Democratic Pluralism, and

Design.(2008, December). Retrieved May 2, 2012, from e-flux: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/brand-states-postmodern-

power-democratic-pluralism-and-design/

The Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index.(2012). RetrievedMay 2, 2012, fromhttp://www.gfkamerica.com/practice_areas/roper_pam/placebranding/nbi/index.en.html

Anholt, S. (2009a). The media and national image. PlaceBranding and Public Diplomacy, 169-179.


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Anholt, S. (2009b). 'Is this about me?' - The critical issue ofrelevance. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 253-259.

Burr, V. (2001). What is social constructionism? .An introductionto social constructionism, 1-38.

Consultants, S. B. (2009, March). Selling Lithuania Smartly: Aguide to the creative-strategic development.

Cromell, T. (2012). Why Nation Branding is Important forTourism. Retrieved May 2, 2012, from East WestCommunications: Branding Nations to Compete Globally:

http://eastwestcoms.com/res_why.htmDinnie, K. (2008). Nation Branding: concepts, issues, practice.

Elsevier Ltd.

Evevoldsen, V. V. (2011). Attracting Danish tourist to Lithuania.Master Thesis. Copenhagen Business School.

Fan, Y. (2005). Branding the nation: What is being branded? .Journal of Vacation Marketing, 5-14.

Fan, Y. (2010). Branding the nation: Towards a betterunderstanding. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 97-103.

Inspired by Iceland.(n.d.). Retrieved May 2, 2012, from

http://www.inspiredbyiceland.com/

Inspired by Iceland. (n.d.). Vimeo.Retrieved May 2, 2012, fromhttps://vimeo.com/38434839

Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2009). Marketing Management (13thEdition).New Jersey: Pearson International Edition, Prentice

Hall.


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Machkova, H., Kral, P., & Lhotakova, M. (2010). InternationalMarketing.Prague: Vysoka kola ekonomicka v Praze,Nakladatelstvi Oeconomica.

Murphy, S. (2012, March 16). How Iceland Is Rebuilding Its

Economy With Social Media.Retrieved May 2, 2012, fromMashable Social Media:http://mashable.com/2012/03/15/iceland-technology/

Park, A. (2009). 'Selling' a small state to the world: Lithuania'sstruggle in building its national image. Place Branding andPublic Diplomacy, 67-84.

Pavlovaite, I. (2001, March 19). News from Lithuania: all theimportant news since 10 March 2001.Retrieved May 2,2012, from Central Europe Review: http://www.ce-review.org/01/11/lithuanianews11.html

Pratkanis, A. (2009). Public Diplomacy in International Conflicts:

A Social Influence Analysis. In N. Snow, & P. M. Taylor,Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy(pp. 111-144).New York: Taylor & Francis.

Stanners, P. (2012, April 24). Rise in burglaries blamed onforeigners.Retrieved May 2, 2012, from The CopenhagenPost: http://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/rise-burglaries-

blamed-foreigners

Szondi, G. (2008). Public Diplomacy and Nation Branding:Conceptual Similarities and Differencies. NetherlandsInstitute of International Relations 'Clingendael'.

Szondi, G. (2010). From image management to relationship

building: A public relations approach to nation branding.Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 333-343.


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Tench, R., & Yeomans, L. (2006). Exploring Public Relations.Financial Times, Prentice Hall.

van Ham, P. (2001). The Rise of the Brand State: ThePostmodern Politics of Image and Reputation. Foreign

Affairs, 80 (5).

van Ham, P. (2008). Place Branding: The State of the Art. TheANNALS of the Americal Academy of Political and Social

Science, 126-149.

Wally Olins will work on Lithuanias economic image.(n.d.).

Retrieved May 2, 2012, from Nation-Branding: http://nation-branding.info/2009/03/07/wally-olins-lithuania-economic-image/

Widler, J. (2007). Nation Branding: With pride against prejudice.Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 144-150.

9. APPENDIXES

9.1. APPENDIX 1: THE NBAR MODEL

(Dinnie, 2008, 200p.)

Nation brand

Tourism ExportsInward

investmentTalent attraction Sports


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Umbrellabrand

Endorsed

brands

Standalone

Brands


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9.2. APPENDIX 2: THE NATION BRAND INDEX

HEXAGON

http://www.gfkamerica.com/practice_areas/roper_pam/placebranding/nbi/index.en.html
http://www.gfkamerica.com/practice_areas/roper_pam/placebranding/nbi/index.en.htmlhttp://www.gfkamerica.com/practice_areas/roper_pam/placebranding/nbi/index.en.htmlhttp://www.gfkamerica.com/practice_areas/roper_pam/placebranding/nbi/index.en.htmlhttp://www.gfkamerica.com/practice_areas/roper_pam/placebranding/nbi/index.en.html


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9.3. APPENDIX 3: THE FIST APPROACH

(Dinnie, 2008, 188p.)

Government

Public sectororganizations

1. Tourism board

2. Inward investmentagency

3. Economic developmentagency

Private sectororganizations

1. Trade associations

2. Chambers ofcommerce

3. PSC brands

Citizens

1. Not-for-profitorganizations

2. Diaspora


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9.4. APPENDIX 4: FOUR MODELS OF PR

(Grunig and Hunt 1984:22)

(Tench, 2008, 147p.)

Characteristics

Pressagentry /publicity

PublicInformation

Two-wayasymmetric

Two-waysymmetric

Purpose Propaganda

Dissemination ofinformation

Scientificpersuasion

Mutualunderstanding

Nature ofcommunication

One-way;completetruth notessential

One-way;truthimportant

Two-way;Imbalanced effects

Two-way;balancedeffects

Communication model Source ofreceiver Source ofreceiver Source toreceiverandfeedback

Group togroup andfeedback

Nature ofresearch

Little;countinghouse

Little;readability,readership

Formative;evaluativeof

attitudes

Formative;evaluativeof

understanding


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9.5. APPENDIX 5: INSPIRED BY ICELAND WEB SITE

http://www.inspiredbyiceland.com/
http://www.inspiredbyiceland.com/http://www.inspiredbyiceland.com/


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9.6. APPENDIX 6: THE ARTICLE ABOUT THE

LITHUANIAN CRIMINALS IN DENMARK

http://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/rise-burglaries-blamed-foreigners
http://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/rise-burglaries-blamed-foreignershttp://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/rise-burglaries-blamed-foreignershttp://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/rise-burglaries-blamed-foreignershttp://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/rise-burglaries-blamed-foreignershttp://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/rise-burglaries-blamed-foreigners


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recommendations for lithuania’s image improvement in denmark

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