Stereurotypes

While developing brand communications, we often have to consider the part that the provenance of the brand in question plays. And often, this can be quite different in different countries. While working on British Airways, years back, one of the difficulties of developing a global campaign was the differing perception of Britishness around the world. In the US, this could be summed up as "cute and quaint" while in Australia it centred around "colonialism and whinging Poms."

The latest "internet sensation", Mapping Stereotypes, may be a fun place to start if your brand has European roots. This is a series of maps from a Bulgarian graphic designer (he lives in London) showing Europe from seven different viewpoints. That's Germany, above.

While certainly not PC, the maps are at least a little diplomatic - I am sure that Germany is associated with arguably worse things than "dirty porn" by large sections of the US and UK populations. But what's interesting to me are the brand names that pop up - VW, Nokia and Volvo, for a start.

And what is most gratifying to me personally is that the whole of Sweden is rechristened "IKEA" as far as the Germans are concerned!