U.S. News and World Report’s 2017 “Best Countries Ranking” was released earlier this month and it hit the United States in the gut. The survey of 21,362 people from 36 countries across the globe ranks the world’s largest countries on a set of 65 attributes ranging from “most business friendly” to “best to visit” to “richest traditions.” America slipped from #4 in the previous ranking to #7 in the current report.

Branding consultancies have developed methods to estimate the value of global product brands and regularly publish rankings based on those estimates. I teamed up with US News & World Report and WPP’s BAV Consulting on the “Best Countries” study to measure nation brands—and how nations’ brands affect their economies.

While global leaders who gathered at the World Economic Forum's meeting debate solutions to social, political and economic uncertainty, quietly a new force is gaining credibility around the world: the desire for "soft power."