The brand of Romania corporation

Romania must be thought of as a corporation, without any difference at all from the way that one global corporation thinks. Romania, if still not, must become our business and profit source for a long time from now on. In the equation of the corporation Romania we have (or we must have) a main business, separate divisions, profit centers, investments to make, a business strategy, budgets, a corporation brand, brands and sub-brands, etc. Logically speaking one must identify the most profitable segments, the major features that identify us, the values that we promote, the target public, the distribution channels, the ways of communication, the resources allocated, the results expected and the deadline for reaching our targets. Technically speaking, we need a brand audit, a brand and communication strategy, before all. Then comes the design.

Let’s speak about the value of our wines. It is believed that we have good wines, so we already have identified one direction in making our brand. A national level conducted survey revealed that 42% of the Romanian wines on the market are fakes or include compounds that should not be in our wines at all. From the production point of view on European level manufacturers are making big efforts to produce natural products with the most pure fruit flavors possible, by using all kinds of technical procedures to crush the grape pulp without getting the flavor and the substance out of the peel and of the bunch essence, unlike our wine-making procedures based on crushing the whole bunch. From the marketing point of view, because of consumers’ habits having changed, the wine manufacturers go for lighter, more flavored wines, young red wines, whereas the controlled origin designations are at high esteem. In contradiction with the global trend, our red wines, for example, are ‘primitive’, ‘rough’, with high level alcohol content, full of substance and tannin and can be drank only with fat consistent foods, says a wine specialist. But alimentation in this moment goes through major changes, ‘low fat’ is a non written law. So, from the point of view of Romania brand strategy is it good to rely on our wines or not? If yes, how can we do it?

This example I consider to be very useful for showing the danger of using our leit motifs (wines, Maremures, Moldavia monasteries, Delta, Dracula, seaside, cheap and high quality IT) without really analyzing the characteristics, the potential and its implications. Because, if one wants to visit the Dracula places, one will literally get to crush one’s car. Or if one wants to visit Maramures one will probably get to eat ham and cheese from the village store rather than from the source. Because if one wants good and cheap IT specialists one had better go to the Russians. Because many say that Bucharest is a small Istanbul, far from any European aspiration. And what about not having even one single traditional dish? One brand, any brand, has two parts, apparently in total opposition. The beautiful part, fresh, new and promising, and the honest part, the real intrinsic features of the product, that counterbalances the small white lie. This makes the balance, so that the walloping lie should not be so walloping after all and the consumer’s experience should not be disappointing, to make sure that the buying is repetitive and the word of mouth positive. Strategically speaking if Romania ‘is lying big time’ it does it only to its disadvantage, one more wrong message to the already existing negative perceptions; the real danger exists for a rather negative ‘word of mouth’ to create about our ‘well guarded secrets’.

Consequently, I think that the brand Romania must first of all be honest with us, then with them, and then we should expect the results to show in 10-15 years, while we respect our strategy more like we respect our the constitution itself. For example, it took years for the America corporation, blamed a lot nowadays, to get loved first by the entire globe, than to slowly change to less favorable feelings. Nevertheless it is regarded like the Mecca of the wellbeing, of the values of democracy, etc. Their brand is not the red, white and blue American eagle, but all the rest of values that are being associated with it and first of all the beliefs in themselves. Because, let’s admit it, the brand starts from the inside.