The SHOUT campaign is a great initiative...However, this should be done through chords, bass lines and rhythms that are proudly South African. We don't see Australians importing music for "Australia Day", so why do we import their music for usage in what is a SA challenge?

The most-populous nation has been throwing tens of billions of dollars at its prestige deficit for a decade, all part of an effort to enhance China’s soft power, something of which the U.S., for all its crises, has a surplus.

By investing in a sporting event the magnitude of the FIFA World Cup as part of its public and cultural diplomacy exercise, South Africa was able to promote the country’s passion for an international game and to portray South Africa as a hospitable nation and host to the world.

...a wide adoption of .ng by Nigerians shall constitute a good tool in the effort to project the good people of Nigeria and the nation, noting that, “The ‘bad image’ war will be won on local and international fronts when institutions of government; credible, real and legal persons and entities in Nigeria, adopt the use of the .ng, not just from a consumerism perspective, but by generating Nigerian content on the Internet.”

In a couple of recent postings I have tried to elaborate the notion of a nation brand, to identify some of the salient issues surrounding the relationship between public diplomacy and branding, and to illuminate the more subtle distinctions. In this entry, I would like to drill down further into each of these, and several related issues.