Martin Roll is CEO of VentureRepublic, a leading strategic advisory firm for branding. He was recently in Singapore to speak at the SiTF ICT Business Outlook Forum 2007. In an interview with iN.SG, Martin shared about what makes a brand thrive and the components that contributes to creating a successful Singapore infocomm brand.

Mr Martin Roll, a world-renowned thought-leader on value creation through excellent leadership, shares that a successful brand is first and foremost driven shareholder value. A strong brand is one that resonates with customers, offers customers a superior value proposition, engages customers both at a transactional and emotional level, and becomes a part of customers' lives through their culture and practices

Q: What makes a successful brand? What are the various components?

Martin: A successful brand is one that can build long-term loyal relationships with customers. In fact, the very concept of customer-based brand equity (which to a great extent has become the underlying principle of examining and understanding branding) is based on the fundamental premise of differential response of customers to a brand's marketing activities.

The success of a brand can be examined and measured from various perspectives (or components of success) such as:

• The financial value of a brand
• The size and value of the loyal customer base
• Extent of market awareness and recognition of a brand
• Leadership position of a brand in a category
• Ability of a brand to spawn product and line extensions
• Potential of a brand to muster powerful alliances
• Extent of loyalty of a brand's customers

Each one of these measures views a brand's success from a different perspective. Of late, there has been considerable debate on the brand's contribution to a company's market capitalisation and shareholder value. Irrespective of a company's multiple objectives, the ultimate goal in the current business world is to maximise shareholder value. As such, the financial value of a brand's and the brand's contribution to a company's top and bottom line growth is an important attribute of a brand's success.

Further, a successful brand is one that resonates with customers, offers customers a superior value proposition, engages customers both at a transactional and emotional level, and becomes a part of customers' lives through their culture and practices.

Q: What do you think of the Singapore Government's efforts to develop the Infocomm Singapore brand? What can be further done to develop this?

Martin: Singapore has a very good starting point. As a country, Singapore enjoys immense positive brand equity in the global scene. Compare this with that of China, which even today is struggling to shrug off some negative connotations that come along with its name. It takes time to build a strong and successful brand – as it did for Singapore over the years. As such, Singapore's 'country of origin' effect is highly positive. For example, I estimate that Singapore Airlines has probably contributed to approximately 20% of Singapore's brand equity over the years – as a nation and a label of "country of origin" – if not more. Singapore Airlines with all its quality, service excellence and warm hospitality is a flying face of Singapore. But that is just a starting point. To leverage that positive 'country of origin' effect, Singapore has done many things in a very systematic manner:

• Managing multiple customer touch-points with consistency: The Singapore government has branded Singapore with as much care as a fast-moving consumer goods company would do of a product. The Singapore brand of infocomm solutions has ensured that all possible touch-points – such as setting up of a company, infrastructure needed, approval procedures, fairness in government dealings and such – not only meets the needs of companies but exceed expectations most of the times. Further, the government has been able to maintain this consistently over a period of time. Such consistency has certainly increased companies' confidence in Singapore as the promise and actual delivery of the brand has been led very well.
• Regulatory mechanisms: Regulatory mechanisms in Singapore are probably the best in the region (even though some may complain of Singapore's bureaucracy and strictness). Intellectual property right laws, constant monitoring of online fraud with the intention of preventing them from happening, strict enforcement of copyrights and such have endeared Singapore to many regional and global companies.
• Technological infrastructure: Singapore has invested heavily in developing world-class technology infrastructure on which companies can customise their operations. Telecommunications, broadband connectivity, and the other fundamental infrastructure provided by the government indeed 'force' companies to set up in Singapore.
• Stable government: Singapore also has one of the most stable governments in the whole of Asia. Without going into the political debate about the quality and structure of governance, the Singapore government has indeed offered companies a sense of long-term confidence of transparency, order and justice. This is a major factor given that many countries in Asia are prone to frequent military coups, civil unrest and unstable business environments.

In spite of such attractive measures taken by the Singapore government, many other locations such as China, Vietnam and Indonesia have started to compete purely on price. These countries have started to attract companies from Singapore. India on the other hand, with its software power and educated masses, is posing a very strong competitor. Given these challenges, Singapore would do well to constantly revise its policy not just to offer competitive prices, but also to constantly update and develop attractive value propositions.

Q: How important is branding to a company and a country?

Martin: Given the nature and extent of global competition in literally every industry sector, branding either for a company or a country is no more an option. The need for branding for companies is well documented. The brand superiority of Samsung over LG, of Toyota over Kia, of Nokia over Pantech, of Apple iPod over Creative Zen, of INSEAD over other business schools and many others are examples of the power and need for branding.

The case for countries is similar. With increased globalisation, and heightened global travel, tourism is one of the chief income generators for countries. Singapore competes with Malaysia and Thailand. Switzerland competes head on with France and Germany, and others. As such, branding the offerings of countries and giving them a unique personality and identity will enable countries to strongly create a strategic advantage over the long run. Incoming investments are also benefiting strongly from a positive and strong country brand.

Q: Are there differences in approach between corporate branding and a country-specific branding?

Martin: Conceptually, there is no difference. A corporate branding strategy involves branding an organisation (with its multiple product brands, brand extensions and line extensions) as a whole entity. The logic of branding an organisation is that a company should be able to create value independent of all the product brands that make up the company. A classic example of this is Coca Cola. Even if everything Coke owns is lost except the Coke name and the secret formula, leveraging those two can create value.

Similarly, country branding involves branding the country (with its multiple industries, people of difference religions, races and places of interests) as a whole. The purpose of this branding exercise is simple – if by creating a brand (a country brand) that collectively represents the values and underlying beliefs of all the components (people, industries, places and history) that make up the brand, then it will be much more effective in not only conveying a uniform message, but also to attract people and money across all the components.

The basic reasons for branding a country may be very similar to branding an organisation, but the challenges are indeed very different:

• Control: In corporate branding, the product brands, brand extensions and line extensions are all within the ultimate control of the company. As such, in implementing a corporate brand strategy, the company can easily control the activities, strategies and actions of each of the constituent brands. But such control is not easy when branding a country. Attaining consistency across sectors and getting all constituents on board towards a common goal are highly difficult as not everyone can be easily controlled in a manner required for country branding.
• Drivers: In corporate branding, the main driver of the branding exercise is to present a credible identity of the company to multiple stakeholders in order to create value. But, in country branding, there might be various drivers: for government agencies, the driver could be to attract foreign investment; for tourist destinations, the driver could be to attract tourists; for private companies, the driver may be to attract talent; and so on. These drivers more often than not end up conflicting with each other. Such conflicting drivers cause immense challenges for country-branding initiatives.

Q: Are there any countries that have successfully implemented a countrywide branding exercise?

Martin: Singapore is probably one of the most successful countries to have implemented a countrywide branding exercise with a very strong focus and dedication from the highest levels of the government. New Zealand, with its '100% pure New Zealand' branding, has taken a very assertive step towards creating a unifying country-branding exercise. Malaysia, with its "Malaysia – Truly Asia" campaign, has been successful in creating a strong country-branding exercise.

Q: How can companies ride on this Singapore brand to success?

Martin: A quick glance at many successes across categories reveals one factor – contribution of the country in creating very strong positive perceptions of products coming out of those countries: Swiss watches, German engineering, Danish design and architecture, French wine, Italian leather, Japanese technology and so on. It is undeniable that the image and perception of countries do influence people's perception of companies and products coming out of those countries. Therefore, infocomm companies in Singapore do have a great start. Infocomm companies that have set up their offices in Singapore can easily claim top-class infrastructure, attract talent, data security, protection of intellectual property and government support for innovation as positive factors and ride high.