Country Branding: The Personality of Vietnam as a Brand

Abstract

Country as a brand reflects the marketing orientation to manage a country image to achieve the desired country position. Country personality is an important marketing strategy for this purpose. The present study attempts to examine the country personality of Vietnam, a major emerging Asian country. This exploratory study adopts Aaker’s (1997) brand personality framework to uncover the country personality of Vietnam. Data were collected with Thai undergraduate students. Results from a factor analysis reveal 9 dimensions of Vietnam’s country personality including competence, excitement, ruggedness, sophistication, new generation, down-to-earth, elegance, originality, and spiritedness. A number of theoretical and practical implications regarding country branding and country personality can be drawn from the study results.