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Is Brand America Tanking?

This article is more than 6 years old.

U.S. News and World Report’s 2017 “Best Countries Ranking” was released earlier this month and it hit the United States in the gut. The survey of 21,362 people from 36 countries across the globe ranks the world’s largest countries on a set of 65 attributes ranging from “most business friendly” to “best to visit” to “richest traditions.”

America slipped from #4 in the previous ranking to #7 in the current report. The nation ranked lower across multiple categories, including best for business, citizenship, adventure tourism, education, transparency and headquartering a corporation. And nearly 75% of survey respondents said they lost some respect for U.S. leadership after the 2016 presidential election.

Source: US News and World Report

“When we asked international respondents who they would elect if they were allowed to participate in the 2016 election, 75% chose Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump,” according to the Wharton Professor David Reibstein who conducted the survey with Y&R’s BAV Consulting. “The exceptions were Russia, where 83% of those surveyed chose Trump, and China, where 54% of those surveyed chose Trump.”  Hillary Clinton would have won the popular election in the 33 other countries surveyed.

The survey was conducted just one week after the 2016 presidential election when world leaders were still reeling from the surprise selection of President Trump. And that has some experts questioning the accuracy of the reading.

Dr. Vadim Volos, Global Director of Anholt-GfK Nations Brand Index, isn’t convinced Trump will negatively impact America’s brand. “It’s very hard to establish a causal link between a single political event and the brand positioning of a country. For a country, the brand architecture is very complex.”

Conducted since 2008, the Anholt-Gfk Nation’s Brand Index ranks 50 of the world’s largest countries. Research for the most recent ranking was conducted well before the election in July 2016, and the United States was ranked #1 overall. The U.S. was rated favorably in five of the Index’s six measurement categories: “Exports” #1, “Immigration” #2, “Culture” #2, “Tourism” #3 and “People” #5. The exception is “Governance,” where the country was ranked #19.  “Regardless of who is in the White House, the United States has never done well in the ‘Governance’ category,” according to Dr. Volos.

Source: Anholt-GfK Nation Brands Index

Ed Burghard, a former Proctor and Gamble marketing executive who launched the Strengthening Brand America Project in 2009, has a different perspective. “I think reactions around the world are currently mixed and impacted far more by partisan media coverage than the President’s policy agenda,” posits Burghard.  “The media suggestion of a 'Trump Slump' is pure conjecture, and in my opinion, premature.  We need to wait for robust data before drawing any definitive conclusions.”