Nation branding: Case study of New Zealand and Australia

This master thesis focuses on nation branding in the context of two selected countries, namely New Zealand and Australia. The aim of this thesis is to introduce how New Zealand and Australia look after their good reputation abroad, to compare their approaches to nation branding, and to evaluate their brand perception within the three selected indices (Nation Brands Index, Country Brand Index and Country RepTrak). The research question is whether there is a positive correlation between ranking of New Zealand, or Australia, in the above-mentioned indices and the influx of foreign tourists, or the inflow of foreign direct investment. The thesis is divided into five main chapters, while the first two are theoretical, the other two are case studies and the last one is a research chapter. The first chapter deals with the theoretical definition of nation branding and the second one focuses on the methodology of its measurement. The third chapter introduces New Zealand’s brand building practice, while the fourth one focuses on the Australian practice. The final chapter compares the approaches of both countries based on the findings from the previous four chapters and also analyses their positions in the worldwide comparison of nation branding, further it identifies the strengths and weaknesses of their reputation, lastly, using the regression analysis, it answers the research question.