How Germany won the World Cup of Nation Branding

In a recent issue of South Africa's leading business daily, The Business Day, Internal Branding Expert Dr Nikolaus Eberl shares his insight on how Germany won the World Cup of Nation Branding When the final whistle is blown on July 11 2010, will the president of the world’s largest sports brand, Joseph Blatter, be able to reiterate his summary of the 2006 World Cup, that “This was the best World Cup of all time?”

What happened in Germany during the four weeks to July 9 2006 was a celebration of Brand Germany, with such overwhelming success that the latest Nation Brand index lists Germany as the second-most admired country brand, up from seventh place previously.

Apart from soccer, the 2006 World Cup transformed Brand Germany from the old image — effective and efficient, yet cold, unfriendly and, at times, bullying — to a new image: fun-loving, welcoming, modern and creative.

This did something that no politician had ever achieved — it imbued the nation with a sense of pride and common destiny. On the day after the final, Britain’s Times, not known for being pro-German, ran the headline: “Never mind the Finals, the true Winners are Germany!”

Barely two years before the World Cup, Germany was a very different place — a nation so plagued by self-doubt that it was diagnosed by its own president as entering “collective depression”. The German soccer team had crashed out of the first round of the European championship, the Bundesliga was riddled by match-fixing scandals, and xenophobia had gripped certain areas of eastern Germany such that politicians were advising people of colour against entering so-called “no-go zones”.

So how did Germany achieve such a dramatic turnaround in branding fortunes? Read more here.