Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 3 (2014) 122132

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Journal of Destination Marketing & Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jdmm

Research Paper

Towards a holistic understanding of county of origin effects? Branding

of the region, branding from the region
Nick Clifton n
Cardiff School of Management, Cardiff Metropolitan University, CSM Building, Western Avenue, Llandaff, Cardiff CF5 2YB, UK

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 2 July 2013
Accepted 21 February 2014
Available online 24 March 2014

Nations and regions have images, or brands that stakeholders often attempt to manage or at least
inuence. In turn, many products have an association with a region or place, sometimes positively, and
sometimes negatively so. These associations interact and shape each other. In this paper we thus argue
that for a holistic view of country-of-origin effects, an understanding is needed of both branding of the
region, and branding from the region, nation or place in question. Country-of-origin (COO) research has
tended to focus upon how geographical associations may assist the marketing of certain products (halo
effects) and indeed protect brand images from negative place-based associations (shield effects). The role
of symbolic value here is discussed with the explicit assertion that its importance is increasing and that
COO effects can be seen as an example of thereof; although these are likely to vary with the product or
indeed place under consideration. We seek to develop these ideas by investigating the existence of
branding spillovers in the opposite direction i.e. from product to regional image. This is done using the
case of Wales via an investigation of three companies engaged with the changing meaning of their own
country of origin and also of the recent marketing initiatives of the Welsh Government itself. In this
way the paper seeks to contribute a place-based bridging of the destination management literature and
the brand management literature.
& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Country-of-origin
Place-branding
Product branding
Regional culture
Symbolic value
Wales

1. Introduction
Many products present intangible or immaterial qualities in the
market place, which in turn may be implicitly linked to their region
of origin (Kotler & Gertner, 2004; Liu & Johnson, 2005). Moreover,
this relationship between place and product is a potentially complex
one, as we discuss below. The marketing literature typically
addresses the relationship between place and product in a unidirectional way around country of origin effects on products; such a
relationship consequently suggests that public policy aimed at
inuencing the perception of a region can in turn inuence the
symbolic qualities of physical products associated with that region.
In addition we propose that there is a simultaneous transfer in the
opposite direction whereby the immaterial qualities of products can
inuence perceptions of the home region. In this way the
paper seeks to contribute a place-based bridging of the destination
management literature and the brand management literature.
Furthermore, the region as an entity in itself also competes against
others for inward investment, major sporting and cultural events,
tourists, and skilled knowledge workers (Anholt, 2009; Florida,
2007). Thus as Fetscherin (2010) notes, although the interest in

Tel.: 44 2920 2041 7159.

E-mail address: nclifton@cardiffmet.ac.uk

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2014.02.003
2212-571X & 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

nation/country branding emerged from the marketing literature, in

recent years it has become apparent that it has a much broader
cross-disciplinary relevance. To this end Dinnie (2008, p. 15) has
usefully dened country brand as the unique, multi-dimensional
blend of elements that provide the nation with culturally grounded
differentiation and relevance for all of its target audiences.
After providing an overview of the concept of symbolic value,
and how this relates to both products and places, empirical
evidence from Wales is then presented as the determining case
study in order to understand the current position and its response
to the challenges faced in an increasingly globalised and competitive environment competitive in all senses, i.e. not only for
products, but also for talented people, visitors, and inward investment. This is consistent with the view of Wales as a region in need
of upgrading the tangible economy while simultaneously nding
new images and symbols with which to project itself in external
markets (Clifton, Grtner, & Rehfeld, 2011). It is argued that
product-branding and regional branding is a co-evolutionary
process of cultural exchange between the private and the public,
institutions and individuals, and a tentative agenda for further
research across regions is proposed. Within this co-evolving
regional product and regional image branding landscape aspects
of regional culture are manipulated, reinvented and in turn fed
back between the private and public sectors. At present these
changes typically involve only a relatively small number of

N. Clifton / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 3 (2014) 122132

companies, albeit signicant in terms of prole, who are consciously stepping away from the past, more conservative images,
symbols and cultural references in order to become more successful. In turn these rms are themselves impacting upon and
framing the cultural shift, raising the scope for the use of more
self-condent, humorous, and self-deprecating symbols and manifestations of regional identity. As such, this study is placed in the
context of Welsh political and economic devolution as a process
rather than an event. Finally, we attempt to draw some wider
conclusions for understanding these issues and for further
research. For example, although potentially transformative as
Pike (2009) notes, the local frame for considering geographically
entangled brands and branding in regional development can also
be conservative, insular and exclusionary, at worst encouraging
forms of economic nationalism and parochial patriotism (Harvey,
1996; Hinrichs, 2003). Conversely, but no less potentially damaging, is the danger of a focus on past cultural references acting as
Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) describe as a ywheel to innovation through the legitimising of resistance to change. Moreover as
Turok (2009) has described although many places have recently
begun to pursue what might be called strategies of distinctiveness, upon closer examination many commonalities are seen
around a fairly unsophisticated focus on nascent industries,
high-level occupations, signature buildings and consumer identities. Thus he argues for a deep understanding of existing capabilities rather than off the shelf or transplanted policies when
seeking to build sources of advantage that other places cannot
readily reproduce. In keeping with this view, Morgan (2012) has
suggested the need for mindful destination management if long
term success is to be achieved which encompasses productive
and ethical internal coalitions between civil society, government
and business, rather than chasing a band of Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs) focused around narrow growth outcomes.

2. Branding, symbolic value, and place

Location-based sources of industrial advantage are well rehearsed
in the economic geography literature (clusters, innovations systems,
creative cities, etc.), but as Jansson and Power (2010) highlight, in
addition to providing the industrial systems required to deliver
innovative products, successful places will also offer what they term
a set of spaces and channels for the negotiation and communication
of immaterial value (p. 890). This is interesting in suggesting that the
attributes needed for the production of successful functional products
and those required for realising their successful immaterial or
symbolic aspects (or indeed brands) are thus both place-based. These
authors highlight that such platforms or brand channels are
different from the one-dimensional place-branding initiatives associated with the boosting of lagging regions/declining cities, rather
they are a more complex set of interactions that enable the
transmission of what they term concurrent place myths. The key
point here then is that this puts the interaction between product and
place rmly on the policy agenda. Similarly both policy-makers and
academics share a focus around the whole idea of innovation (see for
example, Clifton, Pickernell, Keast, & Senior, 2010); this is justiable,
but in many cases however the biggest impact on a product's success
lies in the post-production phase, through the branding and marketing strategies that are employed (Power & Hauge, 2008). Such
symbolic meanings have in fact always been related to the consumption of goods and experiences as Veblen (1949) has described. These
activities are driven by the need to differentiate one's product from
the many others that exist in the market place with similar
functionality or technical specication, doing so with reference to
immaterial qualities or symbolic value. As such the race for
innovation that has dened the post-Fordist economy has given us

123

high quality products. Increasingly, we take this functionality of

products for granted, and our consumer choices are determined by
the symbolic value of the product or the company behind it. The
strength of a brand thus stems from a combination of how it
performs and what it stands for. Park, Jaworski, and Macinnis
(1986) proposed three broad categories of brand concepts: functional
(i.e. solving an externally generated consumption need), symbolic
(fullling internally generated needs for self-enhancement) and
experiential (providing sensory variety or cognitive stimulation),
essentially suggesting that once dened a concept should remain
constant. More recent authors such as McEnally and Chernatony
(1999) have however challenged this view, given that external
variables and consumer preferences may change over time a view
which is consistent with our own analysis. Specically with regard to
the functional vs. symbolic aspects of branding, Bhat and Reddy
(1998) question the mutual exclusivity of these dimensions and
argue that brands can be successfully positioned with both functional
and symbolic qualities. This is again consistent with ndings presented here which highlight the temporal evolution of branding and
the interaction between the different aspects of a brand.
Successful global brands typically originate from a place that
has a brand image of its own, and the product is quite often
strongly linked with that image whether it is an Italian sports
car, associated with the qualities of style, speed and innovative
design, French perfume with chic and classiness, or Japanese
consumer electronics that associate implicitly with the merits of
high-tech expertise and affordable quality. Goods produced within
in any given region are imbued with an associated symbolic value
whether this is weak or strong, positive or negative (Anholt,
2003), and moreover these associations are typically activated
implicitly in the mind of consumers by the mere presence of
country-of-origin (COO) information (Liu & Johnson, 2005). The
basic idea that a product's COO can inuence consumers' judgment of it in a consistent manner is though a simplistic one, and
Pharr (2005) has called for more nuanced understanding of the
concept in the age of globalised supply chains, complex corporate
ownership structures and the international division of labour. Thus
as she describes it COO is an evolving construct. This evolution
has incorporated the consideration of cultural values, country
stereotypes, and the explicit recognition that design, assembly,
manufacture and so on of a single product can increasingly occur
in different places and indeed there is evidence that COO
might often be incorrectly identied by potential consumers
(Rosenbloom & Haefner, 2009). In addition Thakor and Lavack
(2003) highlight that the majority of COO research is focused at
the level of the product rather than the brand, and in this way
brand is treated as an extrinsic variable when in fact it may itself
provide origin-related cues (particularly with regard to largeticket items). From this they propose that knowledge of brand
origin may be a more signicant factor than is country of
manufacture or assembly. This is consistent with the views of
Laroche, Papadopoulos, Heslop, and Mourali (2005) who suggest
that the view of country image purely as a halo that consumers
use to infer the quality of unfamiliar foreign products is in need of
further investigation, with the simultaneous processing of (agship) product beliefs and country image as a fertile ground for
future research. Interestingly, Jo, Nakamoto and Nelson (2003)
found that a positive brand image can serve as a shield for
certain products against negative COO effects so the key question
for us here is can this go a stage further and provide positive
spillovers back to the COO image or brand, essentially a kind of
reverse halo effect? Pharr (2005) argues that product related
factors should be used as moderators of COO effects, i.e. that
different products can have different relationships with their
country or place of origin, but stops short of suggesting that
product brands can potentially inuence COO effects per se. As an

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N. Clifton / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 3 (2014) 122132

example of Pharr's moderating factors, Piron's (2000) nding that

COO effects were stronger for luxury or publicly consumed goods
is signicant in that this can be interpreted as conrming that [1]
symbolic factors are more important for such goods and [2] COO is
an example of such a factor.1
Thus the entangled geographies of brands and branding
(Pike, 2009) are reinforced by research that suggests country
image identiers (Papadopoulos, 1993) and product nationalities (Phau & Prendergast, 2000) are growing in importance
because competition and standardisation in globalising markets
reduces uniqueness and stimulates the demand for authenticity
and provenance. Related to this there has been growing discussion
regarding what some authors term the experience economy as a
shorthand for the many intangible qualities which surround the
consumption decisions (Lorentzen & Hansen, 2009). As such there
is an iterative movement back and forth between how people act
(both as consumers and as social citizens) and the representation
of a place. This process may also take place particularly at the
regional (or small nation) level; indeed this is closely related to
concept of terroir. A French term without direct English translation it essentially refers to being of a dened geographical area or
terrain, but also the customs and idioms inherent in that particular
location; so it is about the physical environment but also the
constructed and the cultural one (Barham, 2003). More generally,
there is growing realisation that this does not apply solely to
physical products; different nations (and the sub-regions thereof)
possess their own set of intangible assets or specializations
places and destinations are in many ways also directly in competition with each other for highly skilled labour, for inward
investment projects, and also for tourists and visitors. There are
then spatial outcomes in all this as suggested above. Typically,
place-marketing, city-branding and the like have essentially been
described and understood from a predominantly marketing perspective (Hospers, 2009). However as Voase (2012) has shown the
branding process is more straightforward when relatively simple
products are involved (he employs the examples of chocolate bars
or zzy drinks) ones which represent a blank canvas onto which
a personality can be drawn.2 Conversely destinations by their
nature are complex entities which are likely to have some preexisting resonance with potential consumers. There is also a body
of work going back to Lynch (1960) through Urry (1990) which
stresses the role that the built environment in combination with
more socially-constructed factors plays in forming pervasive
images. More recently work by Florida (2002), Jansson and
Power (2006), and Fetscherin (2010) suggests that places which
have strong and dynamic brands are more successful in attracting
businesses and talent within the knowledge economy, in addition
to improved performance in export markets and in tourism. Van
Ham (2001, p. 2) has gone as far as making the assertion that
brands and states often merge in the minds of the global
consumer and that in this crowded arena, states that lack
relevant brand equity will not survive (2001, p. 6). This then
suggests a clear role of and mechanism for state-level policy in all
this as brands and places can intertwine to become the focus
of successful collective regional institutional action (Morgan,
Marsden, & Murdoch, 2006; Pike, 2009). As noted above as
globalisation increases, pressures driving homogenisation and
deregulation have grown. More specically, much of the focus of
competition policy within the European Union over the previous
four decades has been around the creation and expansion of a

1
Something which is reected in our choice of case study examples for
this study.
2
Indeed Voase (2012) makes the point that destination branding has been
said to be a misuse of a term; that it is very often merely place promotion by a
different name.

single market for goods and services within the member states.
Indeed, the fundamental aim of the EC Treaty itself was to remove
all unnecessary barriers to trade and to create a common market
within the community. There is however potentially a fundamental paradox in that the removal of such articial transaction costs
both increases the efcient working of the market but may
simultaneously erode sources of distinctiveness which are of value
to local producers. This issue has to date been addressed most
extensively by the EC in the eld of agriculture. Increases in
efciency meant that by the 1980s farm production had created
a glut in supply for many basic products; a key shift in policy was
thus the move from quantity to quality proposed by the Commission in late 1980s. One means of doing this was by protecting the
geographical origin of agri-food products; geographical indication
(GI) protection was seen as a means of encouraging producers to
diversify and to concentrate on quality. Less directly, the intention
was that this would also help in the promotion of these products
the key point here being that unlike GI, trademarks essentially
convert the attributes of a place into a property which is tradable
and thus potentially vulnerable to de-localisation (Morgan et al.,
2006). The case has been made therefore that GIs are a real
embodiment of glocalisation i.e. products participating in global
markets and at the same time supportive of local culture and
economies (Giovannucci, Josling, Kerr, OConnor, & Yeung, 2009).3
This is perhaps overstating the signicance somewhat; although a
detailed examination of the role that GIs play in linking local
culture and the market is beyond the scope of this paper, they do
represent an explicit manifestation of symbolic value and product
differentiation associated with place indeed in her comprehensive review of COO research Pharr (2005) terms such protected
origin status markers as meta-brands.
Returning to the destination branding theme directly and the
need for more nuanced understandings thereof, Voase (2012)
highlights the subtle yet signicant change in the strap line
from Morgan, Pritchard, and Pride (2004) Destination Branding:
creating the unique destination proposition to the later (2011)
iteration of Destination Brands: Managing Place Reputation, which
suggests that destination branding is more about what can be
thought of as curating the various qualities inherent in a place
rather than an instrumental exercise or linear policy intervention.
This is borne out directly by Morgan (2012) himself in suggesting
that the role of Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) is
actually quite limited within the wider place-based development
agenda, and they are more realistically destination stewards
rather than agencies which can really manage either brands or
destinations. This is a theme to which we return later.

3. Wales: brands and branding

The case of Wales is an interesting one as it represents a place
with, on the one hand a distinct identity and history, but on the
other as a small nation within the UK which has experienced a
difcult transition to a post-industrial or knowledge-based economy (Cooke & Clifton, 2005). Moreover, in addition to the
economic shift Wales has undergone political changes in the last
decade with the introduction of devolved governance.
Howell and Barber (1990) have listed a range of attitudes (in
addition to the Welsh language) which distinguish the Welsh,
including: Their separate history, instinctive radicalism in religion
and politics, contempt for social pretentiousness, personal warmth
3
It has however been argued that as geographical indications essentially
confer legal monopoly rights on local producers, they are actually to a certain
extent incompatible with the idea of a common market and the interests of the
consumer more generally (Rovamo, 2006).

N. Clifton / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 3 (2014) 122132

and exuberance, sociability, and love of music. Dening Welsh

identity is, however, very difcult (Bowie, 1993), indeed this is
the rst point to grasp about the history of this people a country
called Wales exists only because the Welsh invented it. The Welsh
exist only because they invented themselves (Williams, 1985,
p. 2). Some historians and sociologists have suggested that for
many Welsh people these historical and political processes have
culminated in the notion that the Welsh are second class
citizens [and] that status creates a very real feeling of inferiority
(Thomas, 1992, p. 10). Thus, Davies (1987, p. 60) has described
Wales as a classic example of an internal colony, for which the
union with England marked the beginning of a sustained campaign of cultural homogenisation by the central state Welsh
was banned for administrative and legal purposes, children were
punished for speaking Welsh in schools.
The National Assembly for Wales was set up in 1999 (as a
consequence of the Government of Wales Act 1998) and possesses
the power to determine how the central government budget for
Wales is spent and administered (although the UK parliament
reserves the right to set limits on the powers of the Welsh
Assembly). The Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Government of
Wales Act 1998 provide that the Welsh and English languages be
treated on a basis of equality. English is spoken by almost all people
in Wales and is therefore the de facto main language. However,
northern and western Wales retain many areas where Welsh is
spoken as a rst language by the majority of the population and
English is learnt as a second language; 21.7% of the Welsh population is able to speak or read Welsh to some degree (based on the
2001 census). As such, at the start of the 2000s there were a
number of external and internal factors combining to facilitate a reidentication of Wales as a distinctively Welsh entity and space;
factors which were the product of counter or alternative political
and cultural discourses. Perhaps the most obvious of these were the
moves towards political devolution and the rise of the European
Union (Pritchard & Morgan, 2001).
With respect to Wales itself in relation to some of these issues,
the country has in recent years seen a clearly increasing sense of
distinct identity4 but simultaneously lacks strong commercial
brands (unlike certain other small nations Scotch Whisky, Nokia,
Guinness, Royal Bank of Scotland and the like ask people to
name a Welsh product and many would struggle to do so). The
Irish for example have also managed to establish over recent years
a successful new spirit-based drink Baileys and a new brand of
cider, Magners, both of which help to project an image of Ireland
around the world, as do the many Irish bars to be found in cities on
all ve Continents. Major Irish food brands are also familiar in
Britain and elsewhere. Moreover, as David (2007b) notes, Ryanair
may not be the worlds favourite airline but it projects an image of
a successful country with business operators able to compete in
the toughest markets.5
This lack of brand awareness on the national and international
consumer landscape, and indeed lack of what can be thought of as
core products, is a problem in that it hampers Wales ability to
control its own economic destiny, regardless of whatever political
arrangements are in place. Much of Welsh production activity is

Research from the Economic and Social Science Research Council has
revealed that some 21 per cent of a survey sample saw themselves as just Welsh,
up from 17 per cent in 1997. Around 27 per cent see themselves as more Welsh
than British, 29 per cent feel equally Welsh and British and 17 per cent feel either
more British than Welsh or completely British. Signicantly, it was among the
youngest people that the largest mainly Welsh answers were found. Devolution
and Constitutional Change Programme, ESRC London, November 13, 2006. www.
devolution.ac.uk.
5
Despite the recent and well-documented tribulations experienced by the
Irish economy, these outward manifestations of success are largely intact. Domestically may well be another matter but that is beyond the scope of this paper.

125

concentrated in the areas of Intermediate (or international) products, which is in turn largely a legacy of past industrial structure
the heavy industrial past meant relatively few consumer-facing
products. Although the majority of these industries have now gone,
this single sector and large rm dominance and the weight of its
inuence on occupational and skill structures has typically left
behind a weak local tradition of entrepreneurship and small
independent enterprise.6 Moreover, the replacement employment
during the 1970s through to the 1990s was often provided by
manufacturing FDI operations, which although providing valuable
jobs tended to lack the higher managerial functions such as nance,
R&D, marketing and the like. Some more recent FDI industries
located within Wales are different e.g. consumer electronics but
even then the brand is largely associated with the origin of the
Multi National Enterprise that produces it, rather than the region
the actual production or assembly occurs in.
Therefore, although there are a number of signs of a strengthening national identity, which have perhaps gone some way
towards creating a new Welsh image and several new Welsh
brands, authors such as David (2007a, 2007b) suggest that there is
something missing that stunts this ongoing effort the weak
Welsh presence in modern commercial elds, and particularly
those closest to the consumer. Too much of Waless image is based
on (usually subsidised) artistic, cultural and heritage icons and/or
its industrial and sporting past. In a world where the brand you
create for yourself is all-important, Wales has only half a brand.
The brand image of Wales has thus been characterised as come
and visit us and see what we used to do, or come and see what a
show we can put on (David, 2007b). If pressed to name something Welsh responses might refer to miners, mail-voice choirs,
Tom Jones or Rugby. More modern examples might include
Duffy, Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, Super Fury Animals
and the like but essentially the same principle is at work. This
raises issues for both rms and policy-makers alike, i.e. for rms
that have in the past been unwilling or unable to use regional
association in their branding strategies, and for the policy-makers
who are charged with addressing and improving this situation.
However, as described in preceding sections and despite concerns over the capacity to do so (see for example, Cooke & Clifton,
2005) there now exits at least some kind of scope for policy
divergence in Wales, from the past and from the rest of the UK,
which offers the potential to begin to tackle this issue.
As Pritchard and Morgan (2001) note, imagery is one of the
most researched aspects of tourism marketing, and many authors,
including Gunn (1988), Chon (1990), Gartner (1993) and Gold and
Ward (1994), have discussed image-related issues in destination
and tourism product marketing (Selby & Morgan, 1996). Much
more limited attention has focused on how the marketing of
destinations can reect socio-political, economic and cultural
change.7 Tourism is extremely important to the Welsh economy,
contributing d3 billion directly to GDP, and employing over eight
per cent of the workforce (VisitBritain, 2013). Wales has a range of
assets which underpin its tourism appeal and its diverse natural
environment (particularly its coastline and mountains) is the main

6
This is what Checkland (1981) called the Upas Tree effect where a single
dominant heavy industry effectively cast a shadow over the growth of the ora
of small local enterprise and entrepreneurship. In the Welsh case it can be argued
that the long term effects of this were exacerbated by the nationalisation (i.e.
taking in to state ownership) of the coal and steel industries during the immediate
post-war period, which in turn effectively placed the economic fate of large
numbers of the population into the hands of the state, a mentality that often
persists after the demise of the industries themselves.
7
McCrone, Morris and Kiely (1995, p. 5) have examined the making of Scottish
heritage and discussed how the landscape of that country is a cultural product,
greatly inuenced by 19th century aristocratic cultural representations of Scottish
landscape.

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N. Clifton / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 3 (2014) 122132

Table 1
Case Study Companies
Company Year of
Size
founding (employment)

Market
sector

Primary geographic
markets

Key Drivers & response

SA Brain

1882

2,300

Brewing &
hospitality

Wales & West/Midlands of

England

Brand re-orientation in response to a declining market (i.e. traditional beer &

associated pubs). Active pursuing of National Brand status.

Princes
Gate

1992

30

Mineral
water

UK but with focus towards

location in South Wales

Re-branding in order to appeal to a growing target market segment (younger

consumers, women). Deliberate use of more quirky imagery and shift away from
more conservative Welsh imagery.

Penderyn 1998

25

Distilling
(whisky)

Wales, the rest of UK as a niche. Company set up to produce a new productwhisky from Wales. As a quality niche
International (USA, Japan).
product the imagery needed to be authentic, but not clichd.

factor in attracting the UK and European visitors. Wales other

principal tourism asset is that it is a distinctive country with its
own language, culture and heritage. Pritchard and Morgan (2001)
provide evidence of Wales being separately and simultaneously
branded in the UK and in its key overseas markets; the promotion
of Wales language and culture used by the WTB as a marketing
advantage overseas where visitors were seeking a new, culturally
diverse experience. Conversely in the UK, it is the natural environment which forms the basis of Wales marketing appeals. This
was demonstrated by analysing WTB promotional literature and
brochures aimed at the USA in comparison to those produced for
the UK market. Content analysis of the former revealed that such
branding symbols as Celtic heritage, the Welsh language, myths
and legends, and Welsh emblems accounted for almost a third of
all the images in the brochure. Moreover, a Celtic-style typeface
dominates whilst images of the Welsh ag and the Welsh
language are central to each brochure page layout. In contrast,
unlike the overseas brochure, that for the UK tended to be
magazine-style collections of articles by celebrities with connections to Wales (such as actor Sir Anthony Hopkins, broadcaster
John Humphrys and botanist David Bellamy). Pritchard and
Morgan (2001) argue that a combination of cultural and political
processes have facilitated this promotion of a more overtly Welsh
tourism brand image in international markets. By contrast, however, they suggest that such remains the power of certain negative
discourses that a marketing strategy which promotes a distinctively Welsh brand image in the UK is still (or at least was in the
early 2000s) considered problematic by public sector marketers in
Wales. These authors do however allude to the rst signs of
marketing involving media imagery that is noticeably of a younger
generation, along with a greater pride shown towards Welsh itself
as a living language, rather than some kind of cultural curiosity.
This is a point we return to below.
Interestingly, moving outside of the tourism sector into the eld of
international business, other authors have drawn analogous conclusions with respect to inward investment; although generally over
performing in the attraction of investment from outside the UK, the
Welsh economy has tended to underperform relative to other
economic regions of the United Kingdom in attracting British investment (Smith, 1998). This author suggests that Wales does indeed have
an image problem in this area too, in that there is a negative
perception among those outside the region with little experience of
the area, and that this is compounded by perceptions of Welshness
of the people, language and culture (Smith, 1998, p. 4).

4. Product branding and place branding case study examples

from Wales

and Penderyn Whisky.8 This is intended to be a purposive sample

designed to illustrate the issues we raise within this paper i.e.
the development of successful products imbued with symbolic
value, derived from a more modern interpretation of regional
symbols and the culture thereof. The method is thus a critical
incident approach, designed to understand the key drivers and
processes involved. After collecting secondary data on the rms, in
depth interviews were conducted with a key informant (either
Marketing Director or CEO), in order to not only ask factual
questions but to systematically record and document responses
and to probe for deeper meaning and understanding.
Having discussed examples of specic products in which a
cultural exchange takes place between the company or product
and the region itself, there follows a review of the activities of the
Welsh Government (WG) in relation to its own recent branding
(and re-branding) activities. This is informed by a discussion of
some of the imagery employed by WG during this time in
combination with interview material from the then key policymaker within WG i.e. the individual with most inuence over
the nation brand. The focus here is to examine the key contribution of this paper the extent to which positive spillovers can
accrue back to the COO image or brand from indigenous products.

4.2. The case study rms overview and discussion

Table 1 highlights key characteristics of the case study companies in terms of size, age, products and markets; it also summarises key drivers of change in the companies branding
strategies and their response to these. Founded in 1882, SA Brain
& Co. Ltd. is a large family owned company with over pubs in
South East, South West and Mid Wales. The brands are also
growing in distribution in North Wales among national retail
chains and local wholesalers. Conversely, Princes Gate was
founded in 1992 by two brothers who remain as directors, with
the company remaining under private ownership. Princes Gate
employs around 30 people, producing between 30 and 35 million
bottles of mineral water per annum. Despite their differences, both
companies have faced similar challenges. In 2001, research conducted among Brains customers and employees indicated the
need to shift consumer and trade perceptions of Brains away from
its traditional, conservative reputation into a more dynamic,
contemporary and innovative brand. To this end, a strategic
energisation of the company was initiated, concentrating on
the cornerstones of the Brains brand; pubs, drinks distribution
and people, with the ultimate aim of becoming a national Welsh
brand in the early 2000s the company began to realise that it
was too embedded in Cardiff (the capital city) which was limiting
our ability to represent Wales as a whole. One of the key factors in

4.1. Research approach

In this section we present examples of branding developed
recently by three companies in Wales SA Brain, Princes Gate,

8
All producers of consumer-facing products in the drinks/hospitality sector.
These are not agship products in the traditional sense as noted above Wales
lacks these, but they are (potentially) iconic.

N. Clifton / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 3 (2014) 122132

Fig. 1. Previous logo used by Princes Gate.

this strategy was the sponsorship of the Welsh national rugby

team, as was the simple act of turning the dragon in the logo
around 1801, so that it now faces forwards rather than backwards
(and thus symbolically into the future rather than referring back
to the past) consistent with the positive thinking advertising
strap line.
Similarly for Princes Gate, the product was previously associated with a quite conservative (possibly even dull, or nondescript) brand image (see Fig. 1). As a direct response to this
issue, which was becoming a limiting factor in market expansion
and product differentiation, the board made a conscious decision
(during the early 2000s) to attempt to change this perception. The
thought process within the company was to appeal to a target
market which was female biased and between the ages of 25 and
34. Similarly to that of SA Brain, Princes Gates own market
research on this particular market segment quite clearly identifying a dislike for stereotypical emblems of Welshness, with the
comment that these do not do what is a savvy culture any
justice. In short the imagery was regarded as quite dated, and
indeed somewhat patronising to these potential consumers. The
respondent at Princes Gate speculated on nature of the customer,
and their (in some ways surprisingly subtle) perception of regional
imagery with the comment that I think what has changed is that
brands are becoming braver. The communication of regionality was
formerly done quite overtly, just Wales and it was really basicbut
it didnt give the consumer the justice of their being able to read
deeper into other symbols.
Fig. 2 shows an example of the imagery now used by Princes
Gate, which in comparison to what they were using before can be
characterised as being much more knowing, humorous, quirky,
and indeed condent. The earthiness of the branding was
intentional to reect the fact that Princes Gate is a small
company and not a blue chip multinational i.e. it is consciously
authentic. This approach is even extended to consideration of
the type font now used which was actually derived from a potato
print carving, which is unique to the authors knowledge. As the
company commented this was meant to suggest that we were
literally printing out labels on so on ourselves by hand in rural
Wales; a brave move in the words of the company respondent.
Returning to SA Brain, their mission statement is to become
the leading independent, integrated drinks and hospitality company in Wales, recognised by consumers throughout the UK9
acknowledging the dual Wales and the UK focus. It is also
signicant that the company has explicitly considered the internal
(company) and external (product, market) consistency that is
required in achieving an authentic brand. In this way the brand
works as a marketing tool but is also rooted in the organisational
culture itself, which in turn reinforces. Due to the national brand
status the company now sells into parts of Wales predominantly
the north that they previously were not able to. As the company
respondent described the situation the logistics used to drive
the marketing and branding; now the brand drives the logistics. The
graphic illustration of positive thinking was a pint glass shown

dld.

SA Brain recruitment brochure, available at: www.sabrain.com/105072.le.

127

with the top half lled, as in Fig. 3. This simple device became the
lasting expression of positive thinking, supported by Brains
market research within Wales which asked interviewees how they
would describe the picture (without a caption). Similarly 79% of
respondents identied the glass as half full, suggesting this idea
both struck a chord with the Welsh psyche and moreover could be
owned (in the branding sense) by the company. The always half
full graphic has continued in usage as the end frame to TV
advertisements and retail point of sale items while positive
thinking continues as the theme of outdoor and TV advertising.
Supercially similar to SA Brain in terms of product area,
Penderyn is however a much younger company (formed in
1998), and much smaller, with 25 employees. SA Brain actually
holds a minority stake in the company, taken in lieu of cash
payment for supplying barley mash the raw ingredient of
whisky. A prior Welsh distilling industry died out in the late
19th century, meaning that in one sense whisky from Wales is not
a totally new phenomena; a company call Welsh Distillers existed
in the 1970s, but essentially they were just producing re-badged
Scotch. The Scottish Whisky Association took legal action and the
company ceased trading the 1980s. In contrast the key aspect of
Penderyn is that they have their own unique still this uses
modern technology derived from the petro-chemical industry,
meaning much greater distilling efciency and thus requiring only
single distillation, rather than the double or triple process used in
Scotland and elsewhere.10
As such Penderyn produces a niche product which has to
appeal within Wales, but also to the important export market.
This means that in the words of the company itself the product has
to be authentic, but not too Welsh. It was vital for Penderyn,
particularly in the light of history as above, that they differentiated
themselves from Scotch whisky as the company respondent
noted the best Scotch produced in Wales was unlikely to be a
successful strap line in the market place. To this end, the decision
was taken at an early stage of the company not to use the imagery
of Welsh clichs whether these be daffodils, traditional black
hats seen in folk dress, and so on. This is interesting in that there
are clear parallels to be seen with the approaches of SA Brain and
Princes Gate the difference for Penderyn being that they were
making these decisions at the creation stage of a new product,
rather than as a re-branding exercise for an existing one. The
styling of the bottle was also key in this brand proposition a
leading designer within the industry was given the brief to
produce something that was Welsh, but modern in look and feel
(see Fig. 4).11 The key point for Penderyn was to employ tones of
Welshness and authenticity in producing and marketing a quality
product which ultimately appealed to consumers for its intrinsic
quality rather than as a kind of novelty sold purely on crass
representations of Welshness alone.
There was also a debate around the actual naming the product,
with one key stakeholder keen to use Beacon (a reference to the
Brecon Beacons National Park) as a more accessible name, particularly for the US market, but ultimately it was felt important to
use Penderyn (the village in which the distillery is based) in order
to be identiably Welsh and associated with an authentic place of
origin. This location also has the advantage of providing access to
pure ground water from the National Park, and the associated
symbolic qualities this provides, in combination with qualication
for European Funding convergence funding which were

10
As an aside it is worth noting that high-tech whisky would seem an
unlikely brand positioning.
11
This individual has subsequently been retained as a non-executive director.
Interestingly, an alternative design which could be described as faux-Celtic was
briey used for selected limited edition products; this was seriously mismatched
with other aspects of the brand image, and its use was short-lived.

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N. Clifton / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 3 (2014) 122132

Fig. 2. An example of imagery now used by Princes Gate.

imagery. The key message here is that a genuine sense of identity

actually thrives on a diversity of approaches and symbols the
multi-dimensional blend of Dinnie (2008) and thus going
beyond the established canon can actually reinforce this effect.
4.3. Branding of region new approaches?

Fig. 3. Always half full.

Fig. 4. Penderyn discovering the pioneer spirit.

important in both the companys initial start up and subsequently

in part-funding a new visitor centre at the distillery.
We see then evidence from three diverse yet related companies
in Wales which have begun to employ aspects of Welsh imagery in
more subtle and nuanced ways to either new products or the rebranding of existing ones. These rms have all in recent years
begun to grapple with the changing meaning of the country of
origin Wales for their products, and have developed distinct
yet clearly related strategies to in order to deal with this. An
important point here is that this identity and rooting in tradition
conversely does not imply earnestness or pomposity, or inherent
conservatism. As such all three brands seem to be reaching out to
their origins or local authenticity in new ways. Consumers are
typically playing a key role in shaping these strategies Princes
Gate for example highlight the fact that it is actually intermediaries (i.e. retailers) who were more resistant to their updated

In the section above we have outlined three examples of consumer

products in relation to their use of Welshness in their branding. We
now discuss the image of the region (nation) itself. As described
earlier, there were (and to an extent still are) clear problems for policy
makers to address within Wales i.e. a poor brand image, an
unwillingness to associate with this for commercial products, and also
issues around tourist attraction, particularly in terms of a downmarket
perception in certain quarters. In the past the Welsh Development
Agency (the body charged with development in Wales until its
absorption into the Welsh Assembly Government in 2006, along with
other Quangos including the Wales Tourist Board) tended to be more
focused on generating sales leads for inward investment than
building the reputation of Wales in any coherent way. The job of
connecting the business climate and the people climate offers is
now the brief for the marketing department of the WG. Although
much criticised in many quarters for restricting their freedom of
operation, it is possible to argue that the bringing of the activities of
the WDA and WTB in-house to the Welsh Assembly Government has
actually facilitated this more joined up approach.12 Essentially, the role
of the department can be summarised (quoting the interview respondent) as understanding and implementing how positive elements of
national reputation or regional reputation can be taken and used to add
value to the Welsh commercial proposition, in terms of how it is conveyed
to customers what the business, or more regularly what the product, is all
about. The context for this activity is the acceptance that the skills,
infrastructure and so on are fundamentals that all regions have to be
able to provide as such they are hygiene factors, rather than
differentiating factors. As the WG is aware, the differentiating factors
are more increasingly associated with images of place, and as such
there is a willingness to build this more overtly into marketing
communication.
There are however potential dangers within this strategy, in
that if not done with due consideration for what is authentic and
ultimately believable, a compromised or inconsistent message
12
It is signicant, in the light of the history of the Welsh Development Agency,
Wales Tourist Board, and WG itself as described above, that the Director of the now
integrated WAG marketing department has come from a career background within
the WTB rather than from the WDA.

N. Clifton / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 3 (2014) 122132

Fig. 5. Yes, it rains.

Fig. 6. Area of outstandingly bad mobile reception.

might reach both sets of the target audience (i.e. business climate
and people climate) essentially the error of attempting to be all
things to all people. Statements associated with these resulting
bland or generic marketing initiatives have been summarised by
the marketing division of WG itself as the evil clichs of place
branding, and would include such phrases as best kept secret,
land of contrasts, truly world class, a genuine success story
and the like. The WG respondent noted that many of the other
(now disbanded) Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in the
UK have employed such methods, leading to rather unfocussed
approaches which suggest excellence in all areas, rather than
seeking to understand what it is that clients actually want. This
is something that WG has sought to build into its external
communication, with branding techniques now centred more
around creating focus and offering business solutions rather than
claiming to be good at everything. To this end, idea that the WG
developed in order to tackle these issues is that of Wales as a
Challenger brand. As a challenger the key requirement is to
stand out, to do something that differentiates the offer from
whatever is perceived as the lead brand in the relevant eld.
Echoing the three product brands above, this means focusing on
reputation, but in a more subtle ways (i.e. avoiding clichs) than
have been employed in the past, and using a common starting
point to underpin promotional activity and imagery in all sectors

129

that require establishing a presence. This though has to be

grounded in reality, to be authentic in making use of common
cultural traits; for Wales this could be via self-deprecating
humour, irreverence, lack of respect for authority and the establishment WG sought here to use this strategy to get businesses to
innovate and to be distinctive. We seek to illustrate this point
further by presenting two examples of brand-building imagery
from Wales (Figs. 5 and 6); these are from tourism campaigns,
which as noted by WG tend to be more prevalent simply because
they involve more broadcast marketing techniques i.e. more
visible in the media. The tone is very similar in style to promotional material developed for economic development or inward
investment purposes space constraints however prevent the
presentation thereof.13
The WG respondent noted the very strong tone of voice and
strong visual theme in their communications and expressed the
desire the Welsh businesses would begin to reect this wherever
they could. The explicit approach here is one that is intended to
facilitate the self-reinforcing use of positive images of Wales across
both public and private, tourism and business sectors. Thus the
aspiration is that more the reputation of Wales is improved the
more businesses will want to use their provenance with Wales as
part of their core offer; i.e. it becomes a virtuous circle. Consistent
with the case studies presented above, the WG respondent claims
that there is denitely more evidence of businesses positively
using their Welshness as a way of adding value to their product
offers. He goes on to voice the opinion that this is successful due
to the consistency between the message that is being communicated and the truth about Wales i.e. that it is genuine and
grounded authentically in the culture of the place. The observation
here is also that many of these businesses are in very similar
territory to WG in terms of developing their propositions by
building brands rather than just selling products, with aspects of
Welshness built into those brands. This is something we have also
observed directly in our own case studies companies. Whereas in
the past even if there were positive Welsh elements within a
product offering, companies may have been reluctant to use them
due to the wider negativity associated with the COO effect of
Wales counter to the shield effect suggested by Jo, Nakamoto,
and Nelson (2003). In this way it can be observed that there are
two areas of change: [1] more businesses understanding the
importance of branding to build and add value to their product
offers, and [2] those in certain sectors nding new ways of
differentiation through their links with place returning to the
hypothesis on COO effects and symbolic value outlined earlier.

5. Conclusions, implications and further research: branding of

the region, branding from the region?
Using the example of Wales, interaction between place and
product would appear to be now rmly on the (regional) policy
making agenda a manifestation of the call by Dinnie (2008) and
Jansson and Power (2010) for a multi-dimensional blend of
elements in order to achieve culturally-grounded differentiation.
This is in turn contributing to the development of COO and its
effects as an evolving construct, after Pharr (2005). Moreover
these COO effects have been shown to play an important role in
inuencing symbolic value of products particularly for brands of
13
It should be noted that these are not the most recent marketing imagery
produced by WG; they do however represent some of the rst clear evidence of the
branding co-evolution which we propose. As an aside the area of outstandingly
bad mobile reception image was controversial within WG at the time, with some
parties expressing the view that this was good for tourism but sent out the wrong
message to the business community.

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N. Clifton / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 3 (2014) 122132

the type investigated in this paper. We can interpret this observation as a clear demonstration of COO effects moderated by product
related factors, again as per Pharrs (2005) analysis.
Specically, it is proposed that the most signicant aspect of
the changing branding landscape we describe in the sections
above is this the co-evolution of branding and the use of regional
imagery for the promotion of Welsh products with new
approaches to shaping Wales as a brand. As such, there appears
to have been a gradual co-evolution of product branding (private
sector) and regional image branding (public sector) in Wales.
Moreover policy-makers now explicitly reference the branding
and promotional strategies of these products as exemplars of good
practice, and of where they want to go with regional branding
(indeed one of the key people behind SA Brains re-branding was
commissioned by WG to work on their strategies as a direct result
of this). In turn, other Welsh rms are now becoming more selfcondent and less conservative in the imagery and regional
cultural references they use to brand and promote their own
products. This is signicant in that it suggests conrmation of
positive spillovers back to the COO effect from the image or
branding a regions physical products the reverse halo effect
postulated earlier on in this paper.
Thus we see spillovers between private and public sectors,
physical products, tourism and inward investment initiatives. This
is taking place within both the wider context of devolution and the
political restructuring of Wales, and more generally the emergence
of more sophisticated consumer behaviour, and the increasing role
of provenance, post-production innovation and thus of symbolic
value. At present the changes described above only involve a
relatively small number of companies, but signicant in terms of
prole, who are consciously stepping away from the past, more
conservative images, symbolism and cultural references to
become more successful and in turn these rms are themselves
impacting upon and framing the cultural shift, raising the scope
for the use of more self-condent, humorous, and self-deprecating
symbols and manifestations of regional identity.
That said, we should be aware that there are of course
limitations and complexities in the research. The product case
studies are from the drinks and alcoholic beverage sectors ones
which lend themselves more easily to the shifts described above
than do others. As a counter example, the wings of Airbus aircraft
are manufactured at Broughton in North Wales; it is hard to
conceive of such products being successfully associated with an
image of irreverence or quirkiness. There are also caveats at the
institutional level, with evidence emerging that the potential
opportunity provided by government agency reform to fully
develop a coherent and coordinated place-branding offer for
tourism, inward investment and mobile high-skilled labour is
proving something of a missed opportunity (Crawley, Munday, &
Delbridge, 2012). Regardless of whether we accept this or not,
having the Welsh Government itself as the main informant for the
nation brand raises additional questions how much in control of
the brand does WG actually have in this increasingly multidimensional landscape, and what kind of timeframe is realistically
required for real changes to play out? Potential tensions also exist
with regard to city as destination versus nation as destination and
what this means in terms of the not always compatible policy
goals of achieving balanced development on one hand while on
the other playing to existing strengths and capabilities (Clifton,
OSullivan, & Pickernell, 2012). This is a potentially interesting
area for further research in that Rosenbloom and Haefner (2009)
have proposed that rather than being dichotomous between the
macro (global ubiquitous, homogenous) and the microlevels
(local, adaptive) there is now what they term a meso level
emerging in which regionalisation becomes an important brand
characteristic.

Fundamentally, brands have become a key component in economic

success for the region, and the relative lack of businesses and products
in international markets that can readily be identied as another
effect. As David (2007a, 2007b) notes, being the country that owns (in
various senses of the word i.e. not purely nancial) products such as
Guinness, Scotch Whisky, the Maersk shipping line (Denmark), or
Nokia (Finland) can feed the self-esteem of the inhabitants of these
basically small countries, even if only subconsciously, leaving them
with the underlying feeling that they belong to a nation which has
something to offer the world that is better than others product in the
same eld. This can help convey an image of a country where
businesses and individuals succeed, which in itself can play a role in
persuading other businesses to invest there.14 More generally therefore, this paper has sought to explore how regions can establish and
maintain their distinctiveness in an ever more globalised and standardised world, in the context of the increasing importance of
intangible differentiators. The intrinsic role of place itself within this
process was considered, as was the potential role of European
competition policy as a driving factor, albeit not always intentionally
so given the wider raison dtre of the European Single Market. So for
a number of individual rms there are essentially two parallel
processes in operation as more businesses understand the importance
of branding to build and add value to their product offers, and those in
certain sectors are nd ways of differentiating themselves through
their links with place. As noted above, once the role of place or
territory is introduced into the discussion then there must be to a
greater extent an implied role for government policy due to the
geographically entangled nature of branding and the region. We
have then to ask ourselves what is the role of the national or regional
agencies against the backdrop of the present economic crisis, which is
exacerbating regional disparities in Europe. The cohesion policies of
the EU have been aimed at creating balanced regional development
and to reduce welfare and economic disparities; policy measures in
the past attempted to steer investment and persuade companies to
settle in structurally weak regions in order to tackle inequalities. If the
shaping of regions is today based on the endogenous potential of
innovative companies, civic societies and effective brand management,
then we have to be aware of the fact that not only material or
monetary capital but also social and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986)
will not be equally distributed among European regions. Consequently,
this of course will extend regional inequalities in the long run. The
question, ultimately, has to be how much interregional distinctiveness
a socially coherent Europe can cope with.
This is of course not a guaranteed formula for achieving long
term success; the work of Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) offering a
note of caution on the potential dangers of relying on invented
traditions as a source of cultural reference. Given their current
levels of success and their relative endowments of both physical
products, brands, and regional image, different regions or nations
may face common challenges but employ either by design or
otherwise differing responses to these challenges. This is a
potentially fruitful area for further research; for example
Thorbjrnsen (2005) has noted the potential paradox that brand
extension raises in that on the one hand it is logical to seek the
highest value possible from present brand strengths, but conversely in moving into areas too far away from ones core the risk is
run of diluting those same key strengths. Maybe region/nation
brands and those charged with their stewardship face similar
dilemmas? and more to the point require better evidence to aid
their successful negotiations thereof. As we have seen above,
symbolic and intangible factors are becoming more important

14
The potential downside of course is that the misfortunes of high prole
brands may be projected back on their country of origin, Nokia being a good
example in recent years.

N. Clifton / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 3 (2014) 122132

for successful regional images or brands. At the same time, it is

increasingly apparent that the bodies charged with setting the
agenda is this area can at best play a only a guiding or inuencing
role rather than an instrumental one, with civic society and more
bottom up movements which we can also think of as regional
culture (Clifton et al., 2011) taking centre stage. We should
however keep in mind the observation of Hall (1993, p. 354) who
suggests that paradoxically, globalisation seems also to have led to
a strengthening of local allegiances and identities within nationstates. He goes on though suggest that this may be deceptive,
since the strengthening of the local is probably less the revival of
the stable identities of the past, and more to do with that tricky
version of the local which operates within, and has been
thoroughly reshaped by the global. This is interesting given that
we have observed in this paper the reassertion of regional culture
in a number of contexts therefore perhaps another goal of new
research should be to delve deeper into the implications of this
new local culture, and what this might mean (for example) in
terms of facilitating the balance between embeddedness on the
one hand and engagement with external (global) markets on
the other.

Acknowledgements
The research presented here is in part derived from the FP6
project CURE (FP6-043438). I am grateful to Dominic Power and
Cecilia Pasquinelli at the 2nd European Colloquium on Culture
Creativity and Economy, and to the two anonymous referees,
for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of the paper.
The usual disclaimer applies.

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