When a country badly in need of effective branding starts off on the wrong foot, it’s difficult to watch the process unfold.

This report tells the story:

A consortium of economic development and branding experts are to spend the coming six months developing a detailed brand strategy and implementation plan for the roll-out of Botswana’s national brand.

A tough start. Groups such as these often lead to the banal rather than a breakthrough, through tradeoffs due to political and consensus considerations. Homogenized is often the result, with little or no chance of success. The report continues:

If developed and executed correctly, a national brand can provide a true basis of competitive advantage, change perceptions of internal and external audiences and therefore stimulate economic growth and diversification, and should therefore be seen as a core part of economic development.

Sounds good, but what of the process? The group will first develop a brand audit:

The national brand project will first assess the current economic realities, strategies and organisational capacities of Botswana together with understanding in detail the current perceptions within Botswana and internationally.

Sounds okay as an initial step. More on process:

The project team will then develop brand options and test these with key stakeholders and target audiences, resulting in a refined and fully-tested brand strategy. Finally, brand guidelines, an implementation plan and a brand monitoring framework will ensure that the project can move as smoothly and rapidly as possible towards implementation.

Not promising. A brand audit alone will not reveal the components so necessary for creation of a breakthrough brand. Rather than a brand, this process sounds as a rush toward an advertising or public relations campaign. With no mention of the need for competitive analysis or qualitative research, the process is fatally flawed.

Will this process answer the question, Why should the world care about the Republic of Botswana?

If not, the Botswana rebranding effort is doomed.

Unless Botswana uncovers the authentic key difference and emotional benefit engaging tourism and business investment audiences, this effort will waste a valuable opportunity, as with other place brands such as South Australia and Malta.

Vanderbilt University, an internationally recognized research university in the United States, attracts a high percentage of student enrollment from Asia. A number of students attend Vanderbilt from China and Taiwan.

An MBA student conducting the equivalent of a brand audit discovered over a dozen Chinese translations for the term Vanderbilt University. Here’s what happened as a result, as reported in the Nashville Business Journal:

Vanderbilt University is honing its identify in China through creation of a single brand name that will identify the school in different Chinese dialects.

Shih-Ping (Nancy) Wang, a Taiwan native and second-year [MBA] student…initiated the move…and suggested administrators standardize a name.

‘Fandebao,’ a Mandarin word that translates to ‘place of academic excellence’ or ‘academic center of virtue,’ will be registered with educational ministries and trademark offices to represent Vanderbilt.

The close phonetic match of ‘Fandebao’ to ‘Vanderbilt’ should ease the association process, say school administrators. And Mandarin is the main official language of China and Taiwan.

A brand audit frames a point-in-time snapshot of brand effectiveness within a competitive market. Expertly performed, a brand audit reveals whether the brand is working as intended for both owner and consumer, identifies brand opportunity within an industry or market niche, and often reveals gaps between actual performance and expectation. The brand audit is a tool serving as a reset device for any good brand.

As with Vanderbilt University, a simple brand audit can often expose significant market opportunity.

We recommend Brand Audits be performed at least annually.

And the benefits? Just ask Vanderbilt University.