Australia’s brand well liked but investors are shy

A Report in The Australian says that while Australian has been named the world’s No 1 country-brand for the third year running, analysts have warned it is failing to translate that affection into a compelling case for multinationals to invest here.

Tim Riches, managing director of FutureBrand Australia, warned that while the Australian brand was clearly held in high regard, there was a worrying trend: it was not driving interest in Australia as a place to do business or invest.

“There are a couple of things that have been in significant decline. One is conferences, which are very important in terms of extended stays, but also for (business) advocacy,” Mr Riches told Media.

While hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent promoting tourism to Australia, there was no underlying framework to utilise that investment to aid business investment in Australia.

“There is no co-ordination of the two sets of activities and there is a huge opportunity to unlock business-to-business activities coming into Australia,” he said. “I can tell you that there are countries that are doing this — Singapore is an example of where they are doing this integrated approach.”

Mr Riches said failing to link Australia’s high standing in the country-brand index to driving business outcomes was a lost opportunity.

“If you are the No1 country brand three years running and you are not converting that into into business outcomes, it is a huge missed trick,” he said.

“The survey found that the countries that were capitalising on their brand strength were led by the US, Germany, the UK, France and Italy.”

Austrade senior economist Tim Harcourt said it was vital that brand strength be translated to the business sector.

“At a time of global economic crisis Australia should be reassured that its economic story and brand is strong and resilient as demonstrated by its hat-trick in the FutureBrand country brand index,” he said.

“Australian exporters and investors can and should take advantage of our strong brand in the marketplace and not just leave it to the tourism and travel sector to do all the heavy lifting.”

The survey results have sounded a warning to the tourism industry that money should no longer be wasted on building awareness of Australia as a destination.

“The challenge of branding is done — conversion is the problem,” Mr Riches said.

“The thing is, you don’t get (brand recognition) numbers like this if you have low awareness and poor attitudes.”

Mr Riches said tourism marketers needed to address the significant issues surrounding the conversion process — from a desire to travel to Australia to the act of doing so.

“The challenge for tourism marketing is having a laser beam focus on that.”

He also questioned the impact Tourism Australia’s link with Baz Luhrmann’s film Australia, saying it was another campaign aimed at creating awareness rather than driving conversion.

“What they are doing is fine, but I think it is more awareness.”

Mr Riches also warned that the Paul Hogan “shrimp on the barbie” ads of the 1980s must be dropped as the benchmark for Australian tourism advertising.

“It was the first campaign to sell Australians, not Australia, and that is what resonates so strongly with Australians,” he said.

“It is ridiculous to hold Hogan up as a benchmark.”

“You could only do that campaign once because it was introducing us to the world.”

A Report by The Mole