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The world’s traditional soft power infrastructure is being dismantled. In Washington, the Trump administration has cut more than 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts, amounting to roughly $60 billion in overseas assistance. The BBC World Service has cut 130 jobs and experienced a 21% budget decline between 2021/22 and 2025/26. The British Council has been warned it might have to close in as many as 60 countries if aid budget reductions continue. Radio Free Europe nearly lost its federal grant entirely before emergency legal and EU intervention prevented its closure.

For those of us in PR and communications, this is not just a policy story. It is a signal. As the old instruments of public diplomacy corrode from budgetary neglect, a different and arguably more powerful approach to building a nation’s reputation is ready to step up. It is called nation branding. And it may be the most relevant strategic discipline our profession has yet to fully claim. A full disclosure is in order. Until 16 years ago, I worked for the FCO on public diplomacy. At that time, I was deeply interested in the concept of nation branding. I often met Simon Anholt, the UK expert on the topic. Simon has since advised the leaders of more than 50 countries. His Nation Brands Index remains the most authoritative annual measure of international perceptions of countries.

What is nation branding?

The term was introduced by British policy advisor Simon Anholt in a 1998 article for the Journal of Brand Management. Essentially, it involves applying brand management principles to a country: understanding and shaping how a nation is perceived internationally. Importantly, Anholt himself has become the field’s strictest critic of its misuse: he has explicitly stated that marketing campaigns, slogans, and logos are “utterly futile” as tools to alter a country’s global image. He contends that national reputation cannot be simply created; it must be earned through meaningful, coordinated policy and action.

This distinction is crucial for communications professionals. Nation branding is not just a campaign; it is a framework for aligning what a country does with what it communicates, spanning government, business, civil society, culture, education, and tourism simultaneously.

Anholt developed his thinking into what he calls the Competitive Identity model, represented by a hexagon of six dimensions: tourism, exports, governance, people, culture and heritage, and investment and immigration. Each dimension is a channel through which a country’s reputation is built or damaged. A strong nation brand is one where these six dimensions tell a coherent, credible, and consistent story to the world.

How it differs from Public Diplomacy and Country of Origin

These three concepts are frequently confused, and PR practitioners need to understand the differences.

Public diplomacy is a government-to-public activity, traditionally delivered through institutions such as the British Council, the BBC World Service, Chevening Scholarships, the Goethe-Institut, or USAID-funded programmes. Its aim is to build relationships: fostering understanding, goodwill, and influence, especially among opinion-formers and future leaders. It is elite-focused, subtle, and primarily state-funded. Its strength lies in dialogue, cultural exchange, and educational engagement. Its weakness, now clearly exposed, is reliance on government funds.

The Country of Origin (COO) effect is an economic and consumer behaviour phenomenon where the perceived quality of a product is influenced by its country of origin. “Made in Germany” suggests precision engineering; “Made in Switzerland” denotes watchmaking excellence. However, in an era of fragmented global supply chains, where a shirt might be designed in Milan, cut in Bangladesh, and assembled in Vietnam, COO is becoming harder to assign and less relevant as the main factor influencing purchase decisions. Consumers and procurement professionals are more knowledgeable, and the complexity of supply chains has weakened COO’s impact.

Nation branding is broader than either. While public diplomacy is a government-led communication activity aimed at elites, nation branding involves every sector of a country in shaping the narrative. Whereas COO is a passive market effect, nation branding is an active, managed strategy designed to simultaneously influence perceptions across all six dimensions of Anholt’s framework. As Gyorgy Szondi’s academic analysis notes, nation branding targets the general public rather than diplomatic elites, relies more on visible symbols and behaviour than behind-the-scenes relationship-building, and is inherently multi-actor and multi-sector.

Why it matters more now than ever

The timing is critically important. As state-funded soft power diminishes, the reputational gap is being filled, not with silence, but by competitors.

China overtook the UK to secure second place in the Brand Finance Global Soft Power Index 2025, marking the first time it has achieved this in the six years the ranking has been published. Beijing has strategically invested in Belt and Road projects, cultural initiatives, state-backed media, and international education. Meanwhile, Russia has expanded its disinformation and propaganda efforts into the spaces left vacant by Western public diplomacy. The Soufan Centre has assessed that US cuts to cultural and humanitarian organisations are “actively ceding” the ability to influence international discourse to rival powers.

Meanwhile, the UK, which still ranks 6th in the Anholt Nation Brands Index 2025, with Culture rising to 4th place, is at risk of losing a genuine national brand asset through institutional neglect. The British Council’s own research states that “investment in soft power is essential for any nation aspiring to play a significant role on the global stage.” A 2025 UK Soft Power Group report, co-produced with 20 of the UK’s leading soft power organisations, notes that the UK is the third most attractive nation brand worldwide but warns that this strength is not assured, especially as the UK lacks a cohesive whole-of-government strategy.

This is the context where nation branding becomes not only interesting but also urgent. When budgets for traditional public diplomacy decrease, the multi-sector nature of nation branding, which does not rely on a single government grant, becomes its greatest strength.

How it works in practice

The neighbouring country, Estonia (I live in Latvia now), is the most frequently cited contemporary example of successful nation branding. A country with fewer than 1.5 million people, Estonia has established a globally recognised identity as a digital society: coherent, credible, and consistently demonstrated across government (e-governance, digital citizenship), business (a thriving start-up ecosystem), tourism, and international diplomacy. This was not achieved through advertising. It was realised because the digital identity was lived before it was communicated. Enterprise Estonia, the organisation managing the country brand, is purposely structured to be non-partisan and resilient to political change, lasting beyond elections because its strategy goes beyond party agendas.

New Zealand’s story provides another instructive example. The 100% Pure New Zealand campaign, launched in 1999, started as a tourism promotion but evolved into the core of a wider national narrative about values, innovation, and environmental integrity. Branding expert Anholt himself noted: “A national brand is national identity made tangible, robust, communicable and useful.”

These examples highlight what Anholt has identified as the key element: nations that enhance their international reputation do so by changing their behaviour and policies in meaningful ways, then allowing those changes to be communicated genuinely through natural channels such as media, cultural exchange, export reputation, and citizen interaction.

The role of PR and communications practitioners

This is where the profession can make a truly meaningful contribution, and it extends beyond media relations.

First, as architects of narrative strategy. Nation branding requires a coherent central idea: the kind of strategic positioning work that PR practitioners do every day for organisations. Identifying what is authentic, distinctive, and credible in a country’s identity and translating it into an overarching master narrative is a fundamental communications skill.

Secondly, as stakeholder coordinators. One of the biggest challenges in nation branding is that no single actor has full control. Tourism boards, export promotion agencies, cultural institutes, universities, diaspora networks, and government departments all contribute to, and sometimes contradict, the national narrative. PR professionals are trained to manage complex multi-stakeholder environments and create aligned messaging amid competing interests.

Thirdly, as reputation auditors. Using tools like the Anholt Nation Brands Index, which annually surveys 40,000 people across 20 countries on all six dimensions of national identity, PR practitioners can provide governments and national bodies with the kind of reputation tracking and gap analysis that they routinely apply to corporate clients.

Fourthly, as crisis communicators, reputation damage can be swift and spread quickly. When a country faces an international crisis, whether political, environmental, or reputational, crisis communication skills become a form of nation brand management. The principles remain the same; however, the stakes are higher.

The field also encourages innovative thinking. Anholt’s shift from the Nation Brands Index to the Good Country Index, which assesses what countries contribute to humanity’s collective well-being rather than just their competitive image, reflects a philosophical deepening that communications professionals should fully embrace. In a world facing growing global challenges, the most influential nation brands will be those that stand for something beyond self-interest. Yes, I’m talking about MAGA!

A Call to Action

The institutional framework of traditional soft power, including the British Councils, the World Services, and scholarship programmes, took decades to establish and is now being dismantled in a matter of years. That loss is real and significant. However, it also opens up space for a more decentralised, more resilient, and potentially more authentic approach to managing national reputation.

Nation branding, properly understood as a coordinated effort rather than advertising propaganda, as earned reputation rather than manufactured image, is a discipline that our profession is uniquely positioned to promote. We comprehend how reputations are established and damaged. We know how to navigate complex stakeholder ecosystems. We can translate strategic intent into a clear, credible narrative.

The countries that navigate the coming decades most successfully will not be those that shout loudest. Sorry, America, I am thinking of you again. They will be those who do most, coordinate best, and communicate most honestly. That is, in essence, what good public relations has always been about.

Perhaps it is time we said this at a national level.

[Satellite image of the UK and Europe at night from Unsplash+]