With its image battered by the conflict in Ukraine, Russia is accelerating its push to rebuild, modernize and expand its Soviet-era foreign media apparatus. One country of focus is Germany, the European economic powerhouse that has both close ties to Russia and rising public resentment of the U.S. 

The reputation of a country is comparable to the brand images of companies and products and it’s very essential for its progress and prosperity. The need to understand and embrace nation branding is therefore very critical. Subsequently, managing a country brand is about national, regional and international identity and the politics and economics of competitiveness. But what happens when a nation brand goes through a crisis?

"The difference between cool Korea and earlier Asian pop culture waves is that Korea has been working to make this happen for almost two decades. Korea is cool because it decided to be cool — it's the first country in history that has made being cool a massive policy priority, backed by the Korean government to the tune of billions of dollars."

“Saudi Arabia has been a riddle wrapped in an enigma available to view only in the abyss of the world stage. To the rest of the world we are a very big question mark,” Hafez explains, meaning the world is eager to know this country beyond the stereotypes generated by 9/11 and as the “oil capital of the globe.” According to him, the first way to discover a country is by looking at its cultural elements – literature, poetry, cinema, TV, and paintings. 

PRWeek understands that the agency will be advising senior levels of the government, including the office of Prime Minister Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani. The retained work was won through a pitch and is understood to cover a broad remit ranging from government affairs through to nation branding. It comes as the country, which has the highest GDP per capita in the world, finds itself under increasing scrutiny internationally, and facing anger from its neighbors in the Middle East. 

As Israel seeks to end Hamas's latest war against it, the Obama administration flounders. In fact, the response of the president and his secretary of state has made the situation positively worse with regard to every relationship we have in the region. Opponents of terrorism and supporters of Israel struggle to understand the administration's approach.

It is an established fact that despite the mammoth assistance, both military and economic, the US has failed miserably to achieve its objective of winning hearts and minds here. In contrast, China is perceived by the general public as a trustworthy and long-standing ally even though the aid and loans provided by China are nothing close to that given by the US. 

South Korea has gotten some less-than-desirable feedback in its campaign to raise the country’s international profile: many foreigners can’t tell South Korea apart from its nuke-loving northern neighbor. Over 30% of respondents in a government-sponsored survey of 6,000 people in about a dozen countries said they couldn’t “easily distinguish between South Korea and North Korea when [they] encounter news, articles, movies, websites or other content about Korea.”