Not just stars, they have crops, PhDs and gold.

When you see the flag, you see them as stars, but in reality they are very different. Like children from the same parents, they all have different personalities but they share some birthdays (like 4th of July)
In an article on 1bog.org they've done a map of what every state (in US) is good at, or what's the worst thing about it. The actual study was made for the purpose of energy efficiency rating for each state. The smiley you will see in the right upper corner refers to the energy friendly policy of that state.
The hole article is interesting because it's the first step for branding. It's the first analyze of the particularities and exception of each area.
Of course you can not brand a state in a negative top, like:
Alaska - the highest suicide rate (even though is a good market for sedatives)
Illinois as the highest gang memberships. Massachusetts as the state with the highest number of speed tickets. But you can definitely sell it as the leading energy efficient policy.
Mississippi as the #1 obesity state.
About Rhode Island I'm not sure if it's a bad thing the marijuana consumption (for branding purpose). Look at Netherlands example.


West Virginia case I guess is the most amusing - No 1 in toothlessness. And a good slogan to go with this is "don't smileeeee" - and this is how the inhabitants become the saddest people in America ;)
You have to admit this is a very peculiar market. Do you know there are some photo cameras that have a feature "smile" and they will take the picture only when the character in the frame will smile (after pressing the shutter button you can wait seconds before the camera detects the smile and takes the picture). Imagine this product don't have such a success in WV.
BUT THERE ARE SOME GOOD POINTS FOR OTHER STATES:

Wealth:
California. I'm not sure if the economy level and the UFO seeing is connected (we should definitely study the phenomena), but who wouldn't want to move to the promise land?
Or Maryland, who seems to be very "merry" on wealth:
And there are states rich in knowledge and brain:

It's good to know that there is more then fried chicken in Kentucky. Largest amount of gold ...eh? How's that for a fact?
Or the highest level of skepticism in the country. Non-religious people moved to Washington.

I guess it's better to live you to it. Imagine what you can do with this information:

Cocoa dream

I read yesterday an article in dailyguideghana.com - "Let’s Brand Ghana With Cocoa". Doesn't it sounds interesting?
I was recently talking to a friend about Africa. When you say Africa you say it like it's a country. The need to differentiate african countries is urgent. Especially for those who want to attract investments, tourism, industry development, grow exports and awareness. Generally talking - become a player and stop being the NGOs front for humanitarian actions. They can do more. And i think Ghana can do that (and many other countries). Because they have with what. Why is Belgium and Swiss the international chocolate producers?
If you read the article or just imagine it from the title, you will understand the proposal of branding Ghana as a symbol for cocoa (and vice versa). And the choice of cocoa is smart. They are a huge producers (the second world wide), and the cocoa product can be so easily adapt to a lot of concepts.

The only question here is what do you do if you're not the first one (the world first producer i mean)? I guess you could always say you are the best...

And then i see it flashing in front of my eyes:
Food: if you convince people that your cocoa is better, they will look for that on the package when they buy chocolate. Or you can start making chocolate yourself - african chocolate... (wild thing!)
Tourism: at least 3 festivals a year to celebrate cocoa (harvesting - people would come from all around the world to participate/work in the process), cocoa SPA, cocoa dance, cocoa fashion and it goes on.
Production: from soap to furniture and you can make them all be "cocoa". And maybe a cocoa beer or wine would help people get in the atmosphere.
Imagine cocoa as a life style. And a national brand.
I think it's a good option. Go for it guys. Be smart, make it happen. You need good design, a plan, infrastructure and an international talk.

Visit Oslo

Oslo looks already very promising.

Branded fabric

The city of Stockholm has all of the chairs in all the trains a pattern that it was custom designed. It's actually a blue background with symbolic buildings and other specific touristic points. I like very much the idea.

Romania did it again

Thank you for not letting us up. I don't know which is worst: the fact that they don't care, the fact that they search for it on iStock, that the actual symbol cost 250$ and the campaign was 900k, or the harsh really of the inexpressive, actually totally ugly logo.

The new brand is this:


inspired by this:



And used in a lot of other contexts:
http://changetransport.com/
http://www.realitatea.net/frunza-din-logo-ul-romaniei-a-aparut-si-intr-o-campanie-a-oltchim-din-2009_725671.html

You can read the rest here: http://www.piticu.ro/

And all this happens one year after the last "rebranding": "Romania, the land of choice".
We can actually do this every year. Any PR is a good PR for a dead country, right?
Next year i would like to be something about the fish shape and the fact that we try to keep up with the smell.