By Wally Olins, 2014
- “Authenticity means provenance.” Pg. 12
- “It’s the inevitable paradox: the more the world goes global, the more we prize the local and the authentic… or what we assume to be authentic. This is a trend that’s been spotted, mostly by small, entrepreneurial companies. The bigger companies, for the most part, have been caught napping.” Pg. 13
- “Authenticity is linked to charm. The language they use is informal and chatty.” Pg. 15
- “It seems that the Good Life, authenticity, informality and charm are now on the corporate agenda.” Pg. 19
- “Now the ethos is: ‘Put your waste in different bags and be serious about the environment, sustainability, and your own well-being, and, where you can, buy authentic.” Except maybe when it’s cheap, glamorous and irresistible, like some of the clothes in Zara or H&M, or even Primark. Then we suddenly find we don’t care all that much about provenance.” Pg. 21 & 22
- “Or, as a trendy young marketer I know put it: ‘Authenticity is the new thing. Now we have to learn how to fake it.’” Pg. 22
- “The brand’s value, in other words, is entirely in the eyes of the beholder.” Pg. 104
- “National identity is now increasingly concerned with competing with your neighbors to attract more economic activity than they do.” “If a nation wants more prosperity, it has to fight to make its identity more valuable and more attractive.” (137, 138)
- Soft power – national influence (140)
- “Export – This doesn’t just mean products. It can mean people, anyone from academics to plumbers to labourers on building sites. Kerala, a state in southern India, derives a significant proportion of its income from export of people: funds are regularly repatriated from those of its citizens who work in the Gulf States.” (140)
- “This is why, so very often, where branding – the nation, the city or the region – is successful, it’s because of accident or individual endeavour through serendipity, rather than comprehensive and coherent, effective planning. (148)
- “So how can you get it right? They key is to get a clear core idea for the nation which is differentiated and true, make it manifest by visualising it and implementing it on all those on-going activities where it’s possible and credible and, in this way, to create or co-ordinate a movement that influential organisations and individuals outside government circles can join in, because it suits then, because it helps them. Then, you get a movement which is self-sustaining. (151)