Australia, wild & Promising A brand framework

Australia is ranked ninth on the nation branding index for both the Brand

Finance, and Nation Brand Index (Nation brands index, 2016)(David Haigh,

p. 7). Australia, through the Unlimited Australia, and Innovation Agenda

campaign, is enhancing Australia’s brand value internally and externally to

strengthen Australia’s position in the world. In this paper, I will be not going

through the marketing campaigns of Australia Unlimited and Innovation

Agenda, but rather, will delve into what is not right, and which competitive

string to pull to help the Australian economy prosper in the long term. In

my opinion, genuine branding is the key, because a country’s image is its

education, people, product, music, literature, history, heritage, and service.

Contents

Education

Skilled workers

Tourism

Immigration

Investment in Research and Technology

Culture & Heritage.

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Nation Brand

Contents

Education

He wants to study medicine, how does Australia help provide him with the best experience?

Australia has 43 universities, and over one million students enrolled. Of this,

international students make up one fourth of the total enrollee’s (OECD,

2014). Between 2015 and 2016, Australia granted 310, 845 Visas to

international students, which grew by 3.8 percent on the previous year. The

QS Top University ranked six Australian Universities among the top 100,

with Australian National University leading at 22. This was followed by the

University of Melbourne, the University of Sydney, the University of NSW,

the University of Queensland, and Monash University (QS, 2015, 2016).

Do we have the top Universities?

Other OECD Countries

Australia

France

Germany

UK

USA

v

There are about 9400 Schools in Australia (Australia and Statistics, 2014),

and about 3,750,973 students attending those schools. This equates to

around 400 students per school (Australia and Statistics, 2016). The

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development had ranked

Australian schools in 14th place, with Singapore in first place, and Hong

Kong in second place.

The above graphs indicate that

Australian education is ranked 14th

by the OECD, and 5th by the HSBC,

in terms of quality. It is also the most

expensive in the world, at an average

total cost of $42,000 USD per

student.

1 Singapore2 Hong Kong3 South Korea4 Japan5 Taiwan6 Finland7 Estonia8 Switzerland9 Netherlands10 Canada11 Poland12 Vietnam13 Germany14 AustraliaAustralia14

OECD Ranking 2015 (Chang, 2015)Price Rank Qulity Country

1 3 Australia2 6 Singapore3 1 USA4 2 UK5 7 Hong Kong6 4 Canada7 6 France8 9 Malaysia9 11 Indonesia10 11 Brazil11 10 Taiwan12 11 Turkey 13 5 China 14 11 Mexico15 8 India

Australia3

HSBC Value for school Ranking(Australia the most expensive country for education, HSBC report - about

HSBC, 2014)

Rank Percentage Country

1 73% USA2 57% UK3 27% Germany4 24% Hong Kong5= 20% Australia5= 20% Canada7= 16% China7= 16% France

Australia20%

Countries perceived to have the highest qulity of edu-cation by parents.

(Australia the most expensive country for education, HSBC report - about HSBC, 2014)

5=

1

Are we providing the best school education?

Digital technologies are changing the way we interact, work, and study.

Investment in digital technologies is growing, and this reflected in the

proliferation of platforms, such as Coursera, edx, udemy, and so on.

Coursera, for example, has left universities with low rankings no choice,

however, other than to establish private platforms, such as Swinburne

Online. The difference is that Coursera offers the same course for only 2%

of the price of Swinburne Online. Comparatively, in terms of price,

academic reputation, and reputation of a university, if the plan is be

home-schooled, one can justify taking Stanford courses over Swinburne’s.

But the certificates provided by Coursera are, for the most part, not

accredited by the institutions, while Swinburne Online does not have the

sophisticated functionalities of Coursera. However, there are five top

Australian universities on Coursera, such as the prestigious University of

Melbourne. But while Australia was evolving at a rapid pace several years

ago, it is now losing momentum, and is at the risk of being left behind

(Where the digital economy is moving the fastest, 2015).

Are we digital?

1. Brand/Reputation, especially Chinese a. The brightest and wealthiest students are not coming to Australia because they can afford to attend top ranking universities in the USA and Britain.

2. Work opportunities while studying + post graduation employment opportunities.a. International students studying in Australia face an uncertain economic future, because most of them are not sure whether they will be employed to stay here, or whether they have to return to their home country, which is not a strong sign of confidence in our education consumer market.

3. Residency opportunitiesa. The universities must work together with the local industry to ‘promise’ jobs to the most intellectually capable international students to keep the talent in Australia.

4. Global Rankings and Ratings of programs and institutionsa. At least a few Australian Universities must reach the top 10 university rankings to attract the brightest and the wealthiest. Unless Australian Universities reach that point, we will only be able to attract those people who cannot get into the top universities in the USA.

5. Price/Budget, especially Koreansa. Australian university fees should be deregulated, universities should charge fees based on the quality of their education

6. Scholarships- Saudi, Brazil, Kazakhstana. The Australian Government, in collaboration with the Universities, must have an annual strategy to be proactive and source future stars from around the world, before they decide to apply for scholarships, or jobs, in other countries.

7. Recommendation from agentsa. Australian universities must work on their course and programmed to prevent attracting students from agencies. Agencies are only the medium-to-third class students, and are not a reflection of the greatest potential for Australia.

8. Recommendations from friends, social media, and peer reviewa. In my branding unit, at Swinburne University of Technology, out of 25 people, there is only one local student, and that is me. I have been in Australia for nearly 9 years. 95% of the class is not happy about this fact, because the Chinese students end up speaking Mandarin with their peers, and word-of-mouth spreads quickly back to their home country.

Key Drivers for international Student referrals and enrollments

The Australian government must place increased pressure on the Australian Universities that rank in the top 10. These Universities must be in the top 10 universities of the world in all the rankings.

This means there can be up to 12,000,000 projects making industry contributions per semester.

Australia takes 10.9% of the industry (1.2 billion dollars). Every student spends about $7333

Why is Australia not a first choice destination for learning English?

There were about 1.5 million people from around the world in 2013 that moved to other countries to learn English, and Australia is one of those countries. The numbers suggest that Australia is only the third favourite destination for English learners, where the USA becomes their first choice. Australia is now competing with Canada in third place. However, this is said to be an 11 billion dollar industry, and in 2014, a total of 163, 542 students enrolled in English Language Schools in Australia.

The demise of meaningless assignments.

There are more than one million students enrolled in Australian Universities, and more than 100,000 staff employed. The average student studies four units per semester, and each unit has an average of three assignments to complete. What if each assignment was an industry engaged project, where the local and international corporations would choose the problems in accordance with the academic requirements?

The benefits would be astounding, because 100,000 students would volunteer to help their local corpo-rations, which would have access to increased talent. More importantly, students would get exposed to industry best practice, and build their professional aptitude.

Furture Stratergy

What if?

What if?

Question

English Language Schools

University-Industry Engagement

University Present World Rankings 2016

1. National University of Australia 22

2. The University of Melbourne 423. Sydney University 244. University of Queensland 51

Metrics Percentage Value

Academic Reputation 40%Student to Faculty Ratio 20%Citations per Faculty 20%Employer Reputation 10%

International Faculty Ratio 5%International Student Ratio 5%

QS World University Ranking Metrics

Skills

Skills

“We hire engineers from overseas because we cannot find high skilled talents from Australia (Scott Farquhar, ABC News”(Australia), 2015). One clear issue is that Australia’s digital natives are not in senior leadership positions. The market strongly believes that recent graduates are not prepared for digital roles; only 9% of graduates are said to be ready (Williams, 2015).

Do we hold an advantage over our competitors?

Senior IT talentsAustralia may be in short supply of senior talent in Information Technology, which is becoming the cornerstone of economic development. This is not a complex problem, however. There are businesses, like Bittiger, which is a Silicon Valley startup lead by a Tech- Alibaba Qinyuan Feng - and a Harvard Computer Science gig, which train employees of companies, in order for them to excel to the next level. They are doing extremely well, and currently, their focus is on the Chinese market, because China faces the same problem as Australia. Their IT industry is as young as Australia, and employers demand senior technology employees.

With the best instructors they have, their promise is to upskill them years in advance; that is, only in less than six months of training on multiple large scale projects.

Federal and local governments must understand that it’s a systemic problem that requires a systematic approach in overcoming it. Thus, their aim should be to work together with the local industry to attract startups like this to upskill both local industry talents, and up-skill employees in government sectors. The aim should also be to balance the perception gap that exists between industry and public employees, since the perception is that low skilled people work for the government, because they are getting paid less. Here, the best will work for industry.

Artists At present, it is not very easy for artists to perform on streets because of the system. The local councils have only sought to charge artists $10-20 in order to perform. Other than regulating and charging the artists, the councils have not done anything else to help and promote the artists.

A city without artists is an Orwellian dystopia. Local government and councils should work together with tourist agencies, schools, and universities to promote busking, and organise a place and time for students and international artists to perform and practice their unique skills. Question:What if every evening of every local market is full of entertainment like Swanston Street, Melbourne CBD?

Answer: There are 3800 suburbs and 8 major cities around Australia. If there were 50 buskers per city, and 5 per suburb, with each artist paying $10, there will be a total revenue of $70.8m, of which 97.94% comes from suburbs, and 2.06% from major cities.

SportsMelbourne is officially the sporting capital of the world (Photo and Rovere, 2016). The sporting precinct along the Yarra River constitutes not only an economic model for major cities, but a symbol of social progress in discussions of nationhood, and cultural identity. Melbourne is a sporting metropolis, and will continue to attract investment because of the extent to which Australians enjoy sport as leisure pastime, or built heritage, which is becoming far more distinct as a product of gentrification, or urban sprawl.

Tourism

International tourism has increased from 25 million in 1950 ($2 billion) to 1186 million people in 2015

($1260 billion). It is 3% of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product ($47, 502 m) (Australian Bureau of

Statistics, 2016). The number of tourists that entered Australia in 2014-2015 represented 7. 444

individuals, which is 8% of the world tourist market share, employing 580, 800 people Australia-wide

(World Tourism Organisation 2016, p. 9). However, despite being one of the top ten national brands

in the world, Australia is not the top ten choice for tourist destinations. About 226, 812 were working

holiday Visas, which Australia categorizes as a point of cultural exchange (Border Protection, 2015). The

number that was granted was near the number that was lodged.

Australia is ranked 10 for International tourist arrivals? There would be growth in revenue by $152.23 billion. This will then represent a contribution of 11.2% to Australia’s GDP.

What if?

Rank Country Series 2015(million)

1 France TF 84.52 USA TF 77.53 Spain TF 68.24 China TF 56.9

5 Italy TF 50.76 Turkey TF 39.57 Germany TCE 35.08 UK TF 34.49 Mexico TF 32.110 Russian Federation TF 31.3

International tourist arrivals

People migrate because of incentives attributed to economic, social, political, and environmental factors. Specifically, people migrate to Australia because of higher employment, more wealth, better services, good climate, safety, less crime, political stability, moderately fertile land, and lower risk from natural hazards. The Economist has ranked three cities of Australia in the top ten most livable cities of the world. The number one livable city in the world is Melbourne, followed by Adelaide and Perth (The Economist, 2016 ). Elsewhere, Time magazine ranked Australia the second most livable country in the world, after Norway, based on the following metrics:

Basing my results on the above numbers, Australia is not the most livable country in the world because of the two shortcomings:A. Human Development Index, Australia scored 0.011 less than Norway.B. Gross National Income Per Capita, Australia scored $22385 less than Norway.

Even though there is no direct correlation between being the most livable country in the world and the rate of migration in the country, scoring high on every factor is a measure of the how healthy a nation is!

Question:Why is there not enough demand for Australia?

Do we hold an advantage over our competitors?

Ranks Countries Factors Scores2 Norway 1. Human Development Index score

2. Gross national income per capita3. Life expectancy at birth4. Expected years of schooling

1. 0.9442. $63,909 (6th highest)3. 81.5 years (13th highest)4. 17.6 years (6th highest)

3 Australia 1. Human Development Index score2. Gross national income per capita3. Life expectancy at birth4. Expected years of schooling

1. 0.9332. $41,524 (20th highest)3. 82.5 years (4th highest)4. 19.9 years (the highest)

Most Livable Countries in the World

Investment in Research and Technology

The Australian economy is the 12th largest in the world. But Australia’s attitude on investment in research and technology is only just ahead of Greece, which defaulted several times, and is on the brink of bankruptcy (Chart: Government spending on R&D, percentage of GDP, 2013, 2014).

Do we hold an advantage over our competitors?

Investment in research and technology can offer a competitive advantage. Australia is falling behind every country, except Greece. Our export has a direct correlation with research and investment. Since we do not engage enough in research and development, our exports are mostly comprised of natural resources, education, and travel services. As we can see in the top 12 Australian Export list, the numbers are mostly from natural resources, education services, and travel. However, the problem is that we cannot rely on natural resources as a means to survival. Thus, we must focus on our competitive advantage, which I personally think is the English Language, universities, and our reputation in agriculture products.

Countries with less population and more export value than Australia(WTO 2014, p. 44).

Countries with more population and more ex-port value than Australia(WTO 2014, p. 44).

Top 15 Australia Exports(Austrade, 2015)

Top 15 American Exports(world exports, 2015)

1. Iron Ores and Concentrates2. Coal3. Natural Gas4. Education Related Travel Services5. Personal Travel Services6. Gold7. Crude Petroleum8. Beef9. Aluminium Ores and Concentrates10. Wheat

1. Machines, engines, pumps: US$205.8 billion (13.7% of total exports)2. Electronic equipment: $169.8 billion (11.3%)3. Aircraft, spacecraft: $131.1 billion (8.7%)4. Vehicles: $127.1 billion (8.4%)5. Oil: $106.1 billion (7.1%)6. Medical, technical equipment: $83.4 billion (5.5%)7. Plastics: $60.3 billion (4%)8. Gems, precious metals, coins: $58.7 billion (3.9%)9. Pharmaceuticals: $47.3 billion (3.1%)10. Organic chemicals: $38.8 billion (2.6%)

1 USA 17,946,9962 China 10,866,4443 Japan 4,123,2584 Germany 3,355,7725 UK 2,848,7556 France 2,421,6827 India 2,073,5438 Italy 1,814,7639 Brazil 1,774,72510 Canada 1,550,53711 Korea, Rep. 1,377,87312 Australia 1,339,539

Gross Domestic Product by Counrty 2015

WTOExport Ranking

Countries Population(m)

Export in US Dollar(b)

ExportGDP PerCapita

5 Netherlands 11.8 $672 $56949

9 Hong Kong 7.1 $524 $73802

13 Belgium 11.2 $471 $42053.5

14 Singapore 5.3 $410 $77358

16 UAE 9.3 $360 $38709

20 Taiwan 23.5 $314 $13652

21 Switzerland 8.0 $311 $38875

WTOExport Ranking

Countries Population(m)

Export in US Dollar(b)

ExportGDP PerCapita

1 China 1,357 $672 $56949

2 USA 318.9 $524 $73802

3 Germany 80.62 $471 $42053.5

4 Japan 127.3 $410 $77358

6 France 66 $360 $38709

8 Italy 60 $314 $13652

10 UK 64 $311 $38875

Culture & Heritage

The culture of indigenous Australians, and the Torres Islanders, may be the oldest on earth, said Professor Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen, who led the study. Australia has a heritage of 50,000 years, which is older than any other culture.

Do we hold an advantage over our competitors?Australia is made up of people from nearly all the nations around the world. It also has one of the oldest cultures of human history on earth.

Branding CulturesValue comes out of connections; thus, the government should create connections be-cause it revives cultures both psychologically and financially. The only people who can facilitate the opportunity for like minded individuals to come together and do what they care for is the federal and local government. There are people living in Australia nearly from every nation in the world. Each of these people have their own culture. Most ethnic Australians live in the proximity of each other, in small communities, like the Greeks in Clayton, and the Vietnamese in SpringVale. The federal government and the state government should name a few commercial streets after the majority of the ethnic group in those areas. Even though a lot of these places accept cash only, most of the money will be spent in the local economy. However, the bigger picture here is to make Australia the multicultural hub of the world.

Examples

Chinatown There are Chinatowns in many large cities around the world. It has always been a symbol of the Chinese community, where we all go to eat Chinese food, and experience a piece of Chinese culture. A survey of 362 Universities shows that 91.7 % of students with an Asian background have been to Chinatown, and 73% last month (Kembrey, 2015). The same is or could be true for the Vietnamese Community in SpringVale and Footscray.

Afghan BazaarIn Dandenong, the local government named a street, “Afghan Bazaar”. The Afghans are very proud of that, and it only took a year before you saw supermarkets and shops of every kind rising from every corner of that street. Now there are more stores in Afghan Bazaar than it can fit there, with shops risen in adjacent streets. There are intense competition between these stores, and to market themselves, they are sponsoring community events. Culture and Heritage Consumer Persona The Australian government, department of tourism, and local councils must identify and breakdown the culture and heritage of Australia into distinguishable parts, and must create programmes specifically for each persona. Culture and heritage tourists might be:

Questions?1.Why the average person in the world does not know that Indigenous Australians are the oldest culture?2.Question: Why there is not a Chinatown for every Community?

Traveller Type Field of Interest Age

Lone Medicine 18-24Couple Music 22-30Family Outback

Relaxation30-40

Seniors Road Drive 60-70

What other countries are doing to brand their country?

A South Korean Case (choi, 2014)In 2008, Lee Myung Bak, the former president of South Korea started the President Council of Nation Branding(PCNB), to promote Korea as an advanced nation. Due to issues with nation awareness, the president issued presidential decree so the opposition cannot interfere a lot in the process of Nation Branding. The presidential decree was “to raise the value of the national brand to enhance the internal and external status of Korea and to strengthen the image of an advanced country”.

PCNB was designed to work with government ministers, thus 30 civilian experts and 12 government ministers comprised of finance, cultura, foreign, education, knowledge economy, land, public administration. And the people on the branding council was appointed by their expertise in the fields such as public relations, marketing, design, advertising, and sociology. PCND allowed ministers to conduct nation branding according to their responsibility. The objectives consisted of 1. Strengthening contributions to the international society a. Overseas aid b. Official development assistance c. Knowledge sharing program d. Peacekeeping operations 2. Making central assets known to the world a. PCNB focused on spreading Korean language and alphabet, Hangul through its Sejong Institute. 3. Encouraging global citizenship and generosity to foreign cultures a. Investment in services, infrastructure, and facilities. This investment was coupled with the national effort to foster hospitality 4. Promoting advanced technology and products a. In 2008, 58% Koreans thought Samsung was a Japanese company, and 10% thought Samsung is Korean. And 42% thought LG is a korean a company. b. Establishment of policy for Korean products as “Advanced Technology and Design Korea”. 5. Enhancing global communications a. International events b. And marketing communications through “New Thinking New Korea” campaign c. Use bloggers to promote food d. 4000 volunteers, locals and internationals to engage in Korea brand promotional activities, such as making videos about food and write blogs.

Promotin Policy Policy intervention: policy actions on nation branding

Nation Brand

Framework for Promoting Nation Branding

Referencing

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