While many countries are associated with stereotypical images, a long-term brand strategy must move beyond them to broaden a country's appeal.
Creating a compelling nation brand requires a strategic approach to ensure internal perspectives about a brand's strengths are aligned with external perceptions. Charel van Dam, from the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions (NBTC), explores how the Netherlands is developing a strong brand that reflects its contemporary identity and future aspirations.
Creating a compelling nation brand requires a strategic approach to ensure internal perspectives about a brand's strengths are aligned with external perceptions. Charel van Dam, from the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions (NBTC), explores how the Netherlands is developing a strong brand that reflects its contemporary identity and future aspirations.
Creating a compelling nation brand requires a strategic approach to ensure internal perspectives about a brand's strengths are aligned with external perceptions. Charel van Dam, from the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions (NBTC), explores how the Netherlands is developing a strong brand that is not only recognised, but respected and admired on a global stage.
Many countries are associated with stereotypical images, often involving a combination of a city, national icon and food. While these associations can be useful, a long-term brand strategy must move beyond them to broaden a country's appeal. This should be linked with planned destination developments and enable longevity by considering cross-generational connotations. Ultimately, the goal is to develop a brand that reflects a country's contemporary identity and future aspirations.
For NBTC, building this comprehensive strategy requires a shift from traditional marketing to a more holistic management approach. With the Netherlands predicted to have 60 million overnight visitors by 2030, Perspective 2030 outlines the necessary approach, defining clear objectives that go beyond increasing visitor numbers to ensure that tourism benefits every Dutch resident. This means focusing on attracting the right visitors at the right time and place, rather than simply improving conversion rates. This is aided by the Glocalities segmentation model based on the values and lifestyles of five visitor groups, while international marketing has been streamlined down to four core markets.
Supporting the destination management focus, a common framework is essential for aligning all stakeholders with the destination's goals. The backing of all partners is required to succeed and management actions cannot be prioritised and implemented solely by NBTC. This involves establishing a shared understanding of destination management and fostering collaboration between DMOs and the private sector, ensuring everyone is working together effectively. This also ensures consistent messaging for visitors and residents alike. Through this collaborative approach, ten challenges have been identified at a national level. NBTC is actively involved in tackling seven of them, with two having a direct impact on shaping national branding:
Complementing this approach is the transition from being a travel brand to a place brand, supported by an international positioning strategy that was developed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This strategy outlined the so-called 'Dutch DNA'. This was initiated through the decision at the end of 2019 to stop branding the country as 'Holland', representing only two of the countries twelve provinces, and using the official country name across all communication. Alongside this, NBTC began using seven 'passions' as a framework for their branding and marketing. These passions are based on research into the reasons people visit the Netherlands:
During the rebranding process, these seven passions were further analysed to determine which will be most impactful in amplifying the new brand of the Netherlands. From this, Cycling, Water and New Dutch were identified as the key focus areas. NBTC's content creation, marketing and experience development activities all concentrate on these three thematic areas, while more subtly touching upon the other four passions. This strategic approach ensures that marketing efforts are aligned with what the country has to offer.
Working with the Anholt-Ipsos Nation Brands Index, an annual benchmarking survey, the Netherlands is ranked as the 13th strongest brand in the world. As a global platform, this index acts as a key indicator for monitoring the evolving brand performance strength. With tourism one of the six pillars, this framework provides a clear direction as to the areas that need to be strengthened to enable a long-term improvement in the way the Netherlands is viewed internationally. However, it's important to understand that as brand perceptions remain relatively consistent and require time to evolve, annual fluctuations are only minor.
Nevertheless, considering the factors that impact the intention to visit the Netherlands, the perception that it is a nice country to live and work is a leading factor in attracting visitors, alongside natural beauty. Yet, when analysing the nation branding scores, the Netherlands has a relatively low ranking for natural beauty. With this guiding insight identifying key attention points, NBTC has linked the passion of Water with natural beauty and seen an improvement in this ranking between 2020 and 2023. On the other hand, while the Netherlands ranks well for openness and inclusion, another attention point was identified by the realisation that the Netherlands is not perceived as being among the ten most innovative countries. This unfortunately contrasts with the country's brand positioning of an open, inclusive and inventive country that helps solve global challenges. As such, this index is a vital tool in shaping investment decisions about communication priorities for enhancing the Dutch brand.
The New Dutch passion is the key theme for highlighting the Netherlands' innovative potential and placing attention on relatively unknown inventions from the country. This includes cutting-edge technology, design and solutions for global priorities, such as sustainability. Looking for the new Dutch icons and innovations of the future helps with the long-term ambition of changing the connotations people have of the Netherlands. This approach helps to reposition the Netherlands as a forward-thinking nation.
As a collaborative effort, New Dutch was launched in 2021 with support from Eindhoven365 and Rotterdam Partners. Now, 13 destinations are involved in compiling innovative solutions across the country, with over 400 examples identified. From this angle, New Dutch is not focused on promoting tourism and has established a new way of looking at branding. Cross-sector partnerships with representatives from trade, investment, education, talent and a wide range of industries demonstrate how a somewhat unconventional approach to destination branding can create synergies.
A core element of the Dutch brand's positioning strategy emphasises how instead of simply stating what the country represents, the focus needs to be on demonstrating it through tangible actions and initiatives to reinforce the message. One notable activation linked to the New Dutch passion is the Bring Yourself, We'll Do The Same campaign which highlights pioneering individuals and the freedom of Dutch society. This not only portrays the warm welcome visitors receive, but also encourages responsible travel.
Another example of how NBTC proactively demonstrates the Dutch brand through symbolic actions is the award winning Cycling Lifestyle AI tool. With the Netherlands well-known for its cycling culture, it can be used beyond marketing to act as a means of promoting positive change. Global interest in improving living environments provided a framing for the Netherlands to share its 'Cycling Intelligence' with the world by using AI to provide inspiration for reimagining urban streets worldwide as cycle-friendly environments. The development of an AI tool also builds upon the rising global awareness of this technology. The positive buzz established by applications of this technology provided an extra incentive to experiment in this field.
However, with such an innovative application, as one of the leaders in image-based AI applications, challenges arose in automating modifications to Google Streetview images to replace cars with bikes and flowers in an aesthetically pleasing manner. As such, it required plenty of trial and error and significant investment in training a customised Stable Diffusion model. Launching with a small digital out-of-home campaign in neighbouring markets, the reimagined street were shown on billboards. This provided a clear contrast in urban planning techniques and presented the Netherlands as a sustainable place to live or visit. The simplicity of the tool to 'add a touch of Dutch' brought global traction and significant exposure, with over 1.5 million engagements globally. This even directly led to people asking their local governments to implement the Dutch-style approach within their community.
While symbolic actions can be planned, there are also opportunities for them to grow organically. For example, the well-received marches of Dutch supporters at the Euro 2024 football tournament reinforced the national brand. Contrasting with the way football supporters tend to be portrayed, these peaceful marches captured international attention for the party-focused atmosphere they created. This sort of always-on moment for destination branding is key to remaining top of mind and enabling long-term change in outdated perceptions.
Marketing Director
NBTC
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