Jack Trout: You won’t make much money on “last dictatorship of Europe’s” brand

Marketing guru Jack Trout has visited Minsk for 2 days.

An interview with a well-known positioning theoretician and expert has been published by “Belorusskiye Novosti”.

- Mr Trout, what is more important for the ultimate success: product’s quality or its advertising campaign?

- In fact, they are of equal importance: one needs a good product and a beautiful story for its promotion. But the product as such goes first. First one should create a quality product, think why and in which way it would look like, and how much will it cost. One cannot sell absence of product or services.

- Does advertising of a country and of a product differ a lot?

- No. in both cases it starts from the same questions: What kind of product – or a country- I have, and how it could be sold, presented? A country could be treated as a product, but it should be ruled as a company. It is global economy that moves the world. Let us take China. Beijing has chosen as a brand to produce goods for companies worldwide, and they have implemented this idea brilliantly. Now, by the way, they are changing the strategy, they will manufacture and sell their own products.

A second possibility is tourism; it could bring lots of money too. History, nature’s beauty, architecture could be “sold” to tourists, depending on what is present in this or that country.

- In which area, economic or touristic, the potential of Belarus is greater? Especially now, during the financial crisis?

- I have no idea. And not only me: Belarus is terra incognita. But not only places of interest, but ready infrastructure are needed for that. A part of your problem here is lack of infrastructure; as far as I understand, Belarus has never had great number of tourists.

- You are saying “terra incognita”, but potential investors, as well as businessmen and politicians, know Belarus as “the last dictatorship of Europe”…

- I am not impressed by this brand. You won’t earn a lot by it, dictatorships come and go. Moreover, it does not matter where you are from, and who you were. It is important, what you aspire and what you are working on.

- First reforms – and then PR campaigns?

- Exactly! If you are interested in economy development, and you need to attract investors, please forget about red tape. There are two vivid examples: India, with its bureaucratic system and limited number of investment projects, and China, where there is no red tape, and only business. If you want to invest money to China, you would be met in an airport in Rolls-Royce, taken directly to a minister, he would just ask what you need, and you would be given that,

I know that it is very, very difficult to get rid of red tape. My partner in Romania thought it would be possible to break the bureaucratic system in 20 years, nobody believed him, that it would take such a long time. 25 years have passed, but things aren't moving. The Belarus faces the same problems….

- You said that you have nothing against consulting Belarusian authorities. Would you meet with representatives of official structures?

- No. I received a phone call from the Economy Ministry, I was asked whether I would be able to talk to them in Minsk, but they haven’t contacted me again.

The most important thing which I would try to explain them would be, as I have said: if Belarus wants to succeed, it should remove obstacles for that.