“Rebranding Greece or Rebranding Greeks?”

It is one of those times that I wish I could digitally reproduce views with a vision and a plan through these pages.

I am referring to the speech that brand strategist Mr. Peter Economides gave during the 11th International Conference “Aristoteles” of EEDE (Hellenic Management Association) in Thessaloniki.

Mired in crisis, this speech explains why this is the perfect time to overhaul our country’s image.

As I urge everyone to watch this video*, I will be content just to include below some quotes from his speech that couldn’t have been timelier.

Enjoy them! Be inspired by them!

“Rebranding Greece or Rebranding Greeks?”

“Brand is what people think of you. It is nothing more than the set of impressions that live in people’s heads.Your head, my head, everybody’s head.”

“Branding is the process of managing a brand, and thus managing impressions.”

“Everything communicates.
Everything you say or you do not say.
Everything you do or you do not do.
Everything that happens to you or that does not
happen to you.”

“Strong brands leave strong and consistent impressions.
It should be the ambition of every brand to be the
protagonist of its category.”

“Greece: one of the greatest brands that’s never been branded.”

“Since the 1990’s we have changed Greece’s logo 14 times and we have changed Greece’s campaigns 16 times.”

“The logo of Greece today is not consumer driven. Who
cares about the 9 circles, the 9 strategies of EOT? Whoever
designed that should be shot!”

“We have spent millions over the years in promoting
tourism but we have not been branding Greece. We have
not been managing what people think about us.”

“We sell beaches and monuments very well.
We need to ‘park’ Zorbas. He has a problem right now.
We need to be more Apollonian.”

STOP selling tourism and start managing impressions.
We have to learn how to do it.”

“Greece has richer DNA than any nation on earth.”

“Greece is the heart, the soul and the spirit of the
Mediterranean.
Greece needs to own this.
Greece needs to express this.
Greeks needs to inspire and to be inspired by this.”

“What a nation thinks and feels determines what the
world thinks and feels.
When people feel great, they do great things.”

“We need to become an 11 million people community
and not 11 million individuals that all move in different
directions. We need a common brand narrative. We need
to tell the same story to each other and to our children so
we all get it!”

“A long history with a glorious past and a future that rests
in our hands!”

“We are Greeks. We have the power to imagine.
And now it is time to imagine our future.”

* Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chhn5oEmITs