Rankings - Country by Country
On this page, you can find different country brand rankings and how the information is obtained and analyzed. If there are any other rankings that you feel should be included here, please feel free to write about them in the 'discussion' section. Below you can find descriptions of the rankings included and underneath you can find the rankings for each of these from the past 2 years.
To find out more information about the companies and individuals involved in these rankings, please go to the Experts page.
Contents
Anholt–Gfk Roper Nation Brands Index Methodology
Since 1996, Simon Anholt has been working with governments to help them plan policies, strategies, investments and innovations to lead their country towards an improved profile and reputation. Anholt developed the Nation Brands IndexSM (NBI) in 2005 to measure the image and reputation of the world's nations and track their profiles as they rise or fall.
The variables that are taken into consideration by the Anholt-Gfk Roper ranking are:
1. Exports: This determines the public's image of products and services from each country and the extent to which consumers proactively seek or avoid products from each country of origin.
2. Governance: This measures public opinion of the level of national government competency and fairness. It describes individuals' beliefs about each country's government, as well as the government's perceived commitment to global issues such as democracy, justice, poverty and the environment.
3. Culture and Heritage: This reveals global perceptions of each nation's heritage and the level of appreciation for its contemporary culture, including film, music, art, sport and literature.
4. People: Measures the population's reputation in terms of competence, level of education, openness and friendliness and other qualities, as well as perceived levels of potential hostility and discrimination.
5. Tourism: Captures the level of interest in visiting a country and the draw of natural and man-made tourist attractions. Investment and Immigration – Determines the power to attract people to live, work or study in each country and reveals how people perceive a country's economic and social situation.
Anholt–Gfk City Brands Index Methodology
The Anholt-GfK City Brands Index (CBISM) measures the power and appeal of each city’s brand image. The study gives a holistic perspective of each city, looking at six key dimensions: Presence (the city’s international status and standing), Place (its physical aspect), Pre-requisites (basic requirements, such as affordable accommodation and the standard of public amenities), People, Pulse (interesting things to do) and Potential (the economic and educational opportunities).
| Position 2013 | |
|---|---|
| 1 | London |
| 2 | Sydney |
| 3 | Paris |
| 4 | New York |
| 5 | Rome |
| 6 | Washington D.C. |
| 7 | Los Angeles |
| 8 | Toronto |
| 9 | Vienna |
| 10 | Melbourne |
Bloom Consulting Country Brand Ranking Methodology
Bloom Consulting has conducted the Country Brand Ranking to answer the fundamental issue at the heart of every country, corporation and soul: how does one become attractive? Luckily, the rationale behind such a question for a nation is quite simple. A country wishes to attract interest in order to create wealth.
The main objectives for creating a country brand strategy rely on three main areas (known as the 3T approach):
T1- Attraction of Trade
T2- Attraction of Tourism
T3- Attraction of Talent
However, the ideology and objective behind each one is different and will not work; the 3 objectives are completely antagonistic. For example, one cannot communicate leisure and entertainment to investors at the same time as communicating a qualified and hardworking workforce to potential tourists. They automatically repel each other, thus destroying their core objective. Most of the time, countries try to reach a compromise between the three areas to better understand the objective of the overall strategy.
Bloom Consulting’s methodology separates the 3 objectives (Trade, Tourism and Talent) and treats them individually, not all together as an umbrella strategy. Therefore, it is possible to derive growth projections and calculations in order to better understand the objective of the overall strategy.
The ranking does not solely try to measure country brand perception. The objective of the ranking is to classify how well each country is doing in terms of branding, that is, to measure how effective their brands are in the most tangible and realistic manner. To classify the effectiveness of each Country Brand, Bloom Consulting analysed 4 key variables for each of the 187 countries featured in the Brand Ranking (see diagram to the left).
Through statistical modelling, Bloom Consulting is able to rank the countries to compare them with one another. The Algorithm takes into consideration each country’s economic level of development. The result is an accurate and objective Brand Ranking based on hard and soft data. Moreover, the Bloom Algorithm takes into consideration a country's performance in Bloom Consulting's rankings from previous years in order to leverage Country Brand equity.
One of the variables included in the Bloom Algorithm is a proprietary tool that was developed by Bloom Consulting - Online Search Demand (OSD ©). This was developed to understand the online behavior of potential tourists and investors. By using the OSD © Tool, Bloom Consulting is able to measure the total global online searches performed specifically for tourism or investment and assess international tourists’ or investors' online behavior and decision making process when selecting a destination. The more online tourism related searches a country has from international tourists or investors, the more appealing it is, regardless of its size or the type of tourism or investment it attracts.
FutureBrand Country Brand Index Methodology
The methodology of FutureBrand consists of:
- Quantitative Research: FutureBrand collected quantitative data from 3600 frequent business and leisure travelers and opinion-formers in 18 countries around the world. FutureBrand examined their international experiences and global perspective to understand the situation in the world today and to provide more information for tourists and potential investors.
- Expert Opinions: FutureBrand gathered the opinions of experts in tourism, export, investment and public policy in different cities.
- Co-creative Insights: crowd-sourcing and an online and co-creative community.
Also, FutureBrand uses the proprietary Hierarchical Decision Model (HDM) to determine how key audiences (including residents, investors, tourists and foreign governments) relate to a country brand, from mere awareness to full advocacy. This model offers insights that help FutureBrand assess how well-developed a brand is, as well as key challenges that need to be addressed. The HDM allows for measurements of a country’s relative performance and progress year-to-year. The particular steps are presented below:
1. Awareness: Do key audiences know that the country exists? How top-of-mind is it?
2. Familiarity: How well do people know the country and its offerings?
3. Associations: What qualities come to mind when people think of the country? Here, we look at five association dimensions: Value System, Quality of Life, Good for Business, Heritage and Culture and Tourism.
4. Preference: How highly do audiences esteem the country? Does it resonate?
5. Consideration: Is the country considered for a visit? What about for investment or to acquire or consume its products?
6. Decision / Visitation: To what extent do people follow through and visit the country or establish a commercial relation?
7. Advocacy: Do visitors recommend the country to family, friends and colleagues?
FutureBrand Country Brand Index Latin America
| Position 2013 | |
|---|---|
| 1 |  Brazil
|
| 2 |  Argentina
|
| 3 |  Costa Rica
|
| 4 |  Chile
|
| 5 |  Peru
|
| 6 |  Mexico
|
| 7 |  Uruguay
|
| 8 |  Panama
|
| 9 |  Colombia
|
| 10 |  Puerto Rico
|
All Country Brand Rankings
Below is a table of country brand rankings from Simon Anholt, Bloom Consulting and FutureBrand. The information can be sorted by country name or the ranking. You can find past and current rankings for individual countries and any further comments that have been made about them by clicking on the individual country names.
US State Brand Ranking
The US State Brand Ranking was created by Bloom Consulting and is based on the Bloom Consulting Country Brand Ranking. The Ranking measures the effectiveness of brand strategies used by each of the US states to attract Trade and Tourism. [1]
The table below shows the results of the 2012 US State Brand Rankings for Tourism and Trade. The table can be sorted by State Name, results of the 2012 Tourism Ranking or results of the 2012 Trade Ranking.
| State Name | Bloom Consulting Tourism 2012 | Bloom Consulting Trade 2012 |
|---|---|---|
 Alabama |
36 | 32 |
 Alaska |
46 | 41 |
 Arizona |
12 | 15 |
 Arkansas |
30 | 34 |
 California |
1 | 4 |
 Colorado |
10 | 10 |
 Connecticut |
33 | 38 |
 Delaware |
51 | 43 |
 Florida |
2 | 2 |
 Georgia (State) |
7 | 5 |
 Hawaii |
17 | 42 |
 Idaho |
40 | 29 |
 Illinois |
4 | 8 |
 Indiana |
16 | 11 |
 Iowa |
34 | 39 |
 Kansas |
47 | 22 |
 Kentucky |
31 | 28 |
 Louisiana |
27 | 13 |
 Maine |
32 | 48 |
 Maryland |
19 | 17 |
 Massachusetts |
15 | 25 |
 Michigan |
6 | 9 |
 Minnesota |
18 | 31 |
 Mississippi |
37 | 27 |
 Missouri |
23 | 21 |
 Montana |
39 | 49 |
 Nebraska |
45 | 40 |
 Nevada |
14 | 26 |
 New Hampshire |
41 | 46 |
 New Jersey |
11 | 33 |
 New Mexico |
38 | 23 |
 New York |
3 | 3 |
 North Carolina |
13 | 7 |
 North Dakota |
44 | 45 |
 Ohio |
21 | 6 |
 Oklahoma |
28 | 19 |
 Oregon |
26 | 37 |
 Pennsylvania |
8 | 20 |
 Rhode Island |
50 | 51 |
 South Carolina |
29 | 12 |
 South Dakota |
42 | 47 |
 Tennessee |
24 | 14 |
 Texas |
5 | 1 |
 Utah |
35 | 30 |
 Vermont |
48 | 50 |
 Virginia |
9 | 16 |
 Washington |
22 | 18 |
 Washington DC |
25 | 35 |
 West Virginia |
49 | 24 |
 Wisconsin |
20 | 36 |
 Wyoming |
43 | 44 |
