"Emphasis is to increase the leisure market and position Rwanda as a major leisure destination. We have done a good job in branding Rwanda as a safe destination, so now we need to talk more about leisure," observed Rica Rwigamba, the Head of Tourism and Conservation at RDB.

America's got a new tagline: "United States of Awesome Possibilities." The country's new positioning comes courtesy of the Corporation for Travel Promotion, which this summer hired JWT to handle a global marketing campaign and is worked with branding firm The Brand Union to create a logo for Brand U.S.A.

The concept of “nation branding” is well established, and it’s clear what Medvedev has in mind, but it’s equally clear that calling an expression of high culture such as the Bolshoi Theater a “brand” like some commercial product merely demeans it.

Hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup was supposed to provide an unalloyed boon to Brazil’s global image. Yet tournament preparations have highlighted many structural weaknesses in Latin America’s largest country, and predictions that the World Cup will deliver enormous economic benefits should be treated with skepticism.

Tourism, a buttress of the economy upon which an estimated 15 million people depend, remains in a tailspin. Desperate to reverse the trend, the tourism authority even test-marketed the uprising.

The single most important requisite to Korea’s success in attracting foreign investors is nation branding, pure and simple. The planet serves as a global display case.

Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said on Wednesday that Indonesia had a clear blueprint for developing its creative economy, promising that there would be no overlapping authorities... “The benefit of a creative economy is that we will elevate the nation’s branding and create more jobs.”