World On Display in Milan, For Six Months

Beginning May 1st for the Universal Exposition. Over 130 countries are going to showcase their answer to the expo's theme of "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life". It's a hell of a great opportunity to brand a country -- or to get inspired how to do it.

Many Africans countries will be there -- including the Seychelles, Rwanda and Ziwbabwe -- but I didn't see Mauritius in the list. Too busy with the Mo Ibrahim index? Or is it the Doing Business index?

If you're not heading to Milan you might want to get busy trying one of these 123,506 recipes.

Coca-Cola Brand Value is Twice Apple's

According to Interbrand's 2011 report which calculates this as a combination of financial performance, role of brand and brand strength. Brand Z has a different story though: it puts Apple in the number one spot ahead of Google. And the sugared water brand is deemed to have less than half the value of the brand from Cupertino.

I am really surprised I didn't find Kozelidir in these two rankings.

Chez Nous, Vous Etes Chez Vous

This is how our sister island is marketing herself these days. I saw the clip which seemed to come straight from Home. Unsurprisingly, I just found out that it had been produced by Yann-Arthus Bertrand. Nice. Nice. Nice. And, nobody had to explain anything to me.

The copy on YouTube is not that good. You're better off catching it in here.

How To Tell That the Branding Exercise Has Failed

Easy. One of the persons closely associated with it had to explain it all in a full-length interview. If the job had been well done no explanation would have been necessary. When you see Nokia, Connecting People do you need an idiot's paragraph to understand what it means?

One of my buddies who is a graphic designer is of the opinion that c'est un plaisir has probably been inspired by BMW's Sheer Driving Pleasure. He may have a point here.

Now, if we Mauritians don't understand what the payoff line means who will?

Sorry, Home Away From Home is Taken Already

Ask the world and they will associate it with Starbucks and not Mauritius. There was even a book published about this some... 5 years ago. Which gives you an indication of how long it takes for news to travel to some quarters in Mauritius. And ask most of our fellow citizens and they will not associate living in Mauritius with un plaisir. A growing number will instead associate it with un enfer.

The branding exercise that has just ended seems to have been created with the same kind of rare intelligence that produced the stimulus package and the daylight savings time and about half that of the concept of Maurice Ile Durable.

Mauritius, I think we have a problem.

Why Branding Exercise Should Start Afresh

First of all because Mauritius, c'est un plaisir sounds pretty lame. We should have come up with something more telegraphic like Incredible India, Amazing Thailand or Connecting People like Nokia did. And the brand messaging could also have been in kreol.

I don't see how this is gonna resonate with us or foreigners. And as Samad mentioned, branding is like a wrapping. People will be fooled only once.