When a preview of Vogue’s October 2022 cowl story on Ukrainian first woman Olena Zelenska hit Twitter on July 26, 2022, reactions on social media had been swift and polarized. Some critics stated {that a} photograph shoot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz for a trend journal was a “unhealthy concept” and glamorized conflict.
Others lauded the journal and Ukraine’s first woman for bringing consciousness to the struggling of Ukrainians, 5 months after Russia first invaded its neighboring nation.
Within the cowl photograph, 44-year-old Zelenska wears a cream-colored shirt with rolled up sleeves, black trousers and flats. She sits on the steps of the Ukrainian Parliament, leaning ahead with palms intertwined between her knees. Her make-up is minimal, her hair casually tossed as she appears immediately on the digicam. Inside hours Ukrainian ladies began utilizing the hashtag #sitlikeagirl to share pictures of themselves in the identical pose as a present of solidarity.
Vogue’s profile of Zelenska, headlined “A Portrait of Bravery” and written by journalist Rachel Donadio, suits into a bigger communication technique, mounted by Ukraine’s authorities, that’s meant to maintain the world targeted on the nation’s combat in opposition to Russian aggression. As a part of that effort, Ukraine additionally initiated a nation branding marketing campaign in April with the tagline “Bravery. To be Ukraine.”
As a communications scholar, I’ve studied how former communist international locations like Ukraine have used advertising and marketing methods to burnish their worldwide reputations over the previous twenty years – a observe often called nation branding.
Ukraine, nonetheless, is the primary nation to launch an official nation branding marketing campaign within the midst of conflict. For the primary time, model communication is a key a part of a rustic’s response to a army invasion.
Nation branding and the top of communism
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The concept nations could be branded emerged originally of the twenty first century. This sort of work makes use of promoting, public relations and advertising and marketing strategies to spice up international locations’ worldwide reputations. Campaigns are sometimes timed to coincide with main sporting, cultural or political occasions – just like the Olympics.
After the autumn of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, previously communist Jap European international locations had been notably wanting to rebrand themselves and get an up to date worldwide picture.
When Estonian musicians received the worldwide singing competitors Eurovision in 2001, Estonia turned the primary post-Soviet nation to carry this prize. Subsequently, the nation’s authorities employed a world promoting firm to design a contemporary nationwide model for Estonia because it ready to host Eurovision the next yr.
Analysis has proven, nonetheless, that former communist international locations’ nation branding efforts weren’t meant only for worldwide consumption. In addition they supplied a brand new solution to speak about nationwide identities at residence, and re-imagine nationwide values and objectives, by way of advertising and marketing phrases.
However till 2022, no nation had used nation branding to combat a conflict.
‘Bravery is our model’
Executives from the Ukrainian promoting company Banda first pitched the thought for Ukraine’s Bravery Marketing campaign to the federal government shortly after Russia invaded in February 2022. Based mostly in Kyiv and Los Angeles, the company had already labored earlier than the conflict on government-sponsored campaigns, advertising and marketing Ukraine as a tourism and funding vacation spot.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy endorsed the wartime branding marketing campaign and publicly introduced its launch on April 7, 2022, in a video handle. “Bravery is our model,” he acknowledged. “That is what it means to be us. To be Ukrainians. To be courageous.”
Within the following months, Banda produced quite a few messages in codecs starting from billboards, posters and on-line movies, to social media posts, T-shirts and stickers. A marketing campaign web site gives downloadable logos and pictures and asks guests to share the message of bravery and donate to Ukraine.
Some billboards characteristic photographs of brave, strange Ukrainians and troopers. Different billboards are emblazoned with daring slogans within the blue and yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag. They urge audiences to “Be courageous like Ukraine” and say that “Bravery lives perpetually.”
Inside Ukraine, the marketing campaign’s messages seem on every thing from juice bottles to 500 billboards in 21 cities. The marketing campaign can also be working within the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada and 17 international locations in Europe, together with Germany, Spain and Sweden, based on AdAge.
This large communication effort is going on at a minimal value to Ukraine. Banda is donating its providers, and the Ukrainian authorities pays just for manufacturing prices. Media house, together with high-profile billboards in Occasions Sq. and different main cities, was donated by a number of world media corporations.
Branding as a weapon of conflict
Banda’s co-founder, Pavel Vrzheshch, has stated the marketing campaign goals to strengthen Ukrainians’ morale as they proceed to combat Russia. However the deal with bravery can also be about Ukraine’s future, he says.
“The entire world admires the Ukrainian bravery now, we should consolidate this notion and have it signify Ukraine perpetually,” Vrzheshch stated in a media interview.
At its core, the marketing campaign makes an attempt to rework an intangible worth, like bravery, into an asset that may be transformed into actual army, financial and ethical assist. In different phrases, it goals to domesticate optimistic public opinion within the West that can assist additional help to Ukraine to be able to assist combat the conflict.
This manner of utilizing model communication in a conflict is unprecedented in a minimum of 3 ways.
First, moderately than relying solely on diplomatic channels to hunt worldwide assist, Ukraine is harnessing well-liked media and social media networks to talk on to residents of different international locations. It provides strange individuals all over the world an opportunity to point out solidarity by way of donations or by sharing marketing campaign messages and pressuring their authorities to assist Ukraine.
A proper model marketing campaign additionally permits Ukraine to increase the visibility of the conflict past information protection. Because the battle continues, it’s more likely to fade from information headlines in worldwide media. However billboards, social media posts and the strategic use of leisure publications like Vogue can maintain it in entrance of audiences.
Lastly, the very best model messages join with shoppers by inviting them to think about higher variations of themselves. Well-known advert slogans like Nike’s “Simply do it” or Apple’s “Assume completely different” illustrate this concept. So does Ukraine’s name to individuals all over the world to “Be courageous like Ukraine.”
It’s notoriously tough to measure the effectiveness of nation branding campaigns, as model consultants level out. The method is expensive and time-consuming, and outcomes are sometimes contested.
The direct influence of the Courageous Marketing campaign might not be clear for months to return. It is usually not clear how lengthy its message will proceed to resonate. However it’s clear that Ukraine is remodeling nation branding into a brand new propaganda weapon, tailored for the age of shopper tradition and fixed media stimulation.
This text is republished from The Dialog, a nonprofit information web site devoted to sharing concepts from educational consultants. It was written by: Nadia Kaneva, College of Denver.
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Nadia Kaneva doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or group that will profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their educational appointment.
