Should New Zealand take the lead from Telecom and rebrand, asks Prof Juergen Gnoth.
The New Zealand brand has taken major hits recently over the Fonterra botulism scare.
Most likely, the brand has lost value, though we can't know for sure without solid data.
There is no solid research on what Chinese think or on what needs to be done in China and other markets. Should New Zealand take the lead from Telecom and rebrand?
The damage to the New Zealand brand by Fonterra over the production of safe milk formula for China's children has potentially impacted on the viability of our farmers.
Half our milk exports go to China - five times as much as to any other major market in the world.
Recent price fluctuations of milk solids clearly indicate that trust has been shaken, the extent of which we don't know.
There is no research into what the Chinese experience has been.
Does Fonterra know?Reports about our polluted rivers and endangered ground water quality may further damage our image, in China and elsewhere.
The intensification of oil prospecting and coal exports make us look ''retro'' rather than innovative.
New Zealand's wavering over climate-change issues creates further doubts over our brand position.
Telecom changed its name to Spark. Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC.
Is it time for New Zealand to climb down from its ambitious ''clean and green'' image?
Do those managers and politicians at the helms of New Zealand's most important export sectors actually know what a brand is?
Fonterra's success in China relied on New Zealand's image as ''clean and green''.
No question.
Anecdotal evidence reports that branded milk has been used as social currency, for guanxi and renqing, to sugar relationships and to acknowledge debt.
Ethnic Chinese have high levels of lactose intolerance, but they love our milk and cherish the idea of New Zealand's image.
How much and to what extent?
We don't know; there is no research, just a huge rise in milk consumption over the past few years that is now fluctuating wildly. What seems to be happening is that the magic has gone.
Are Chinese people moving on?The 100% Pure New Zealand logo had become our brand long before it hit the billboards in 1999.
It was the culmination of a long, hard road out of a gruelling recession with frighteningly high unemployment rates.
New Zealand had to learn to diversify and get away from its dependence on one market - the United Kingdom.
The way out was tourism. The 1990s created opportunities for new entrepreneurship, and new dreams. Marketing became the catch phrase.
The boatbuilders in the wake of the America's Cup races, the vineyards hand in hand with tourism, sports-crazy software developers and now our fledgling fashion brands all draw competitive advantage from the New Zealand brand.
While having diversified, New Zealand is again going down the road of becoming overly dependent on just one market - China.
While cuddling up to the big panda, our leaders have forgotten the hard-earned lessons.
Do they know what the New Zealand brand is and how much they rely on it?
New Zealand's fledgling diversification into other sectors will only succeed in the long run if we understand our brand.
Unlike your normal product brand, 100% New Zealand is an aspirational brand.
It points to the future. It excites, and gives hope.
Over the years and since the 1990s particularly, tourists, winers-and-diners, boat owners, sports fans, outdoor recreationists and lately even fashion lovers have bought into this dream.
Since 1985, tourism has created more than 20 million brand ambassadors spreading our good name and dreams overseas.
But are their messages beginning to change?
How and why, and to what extent?
We just don't know. There is no research.
After believing in ourselves for so long we have begun to forget, even undermine our aspirations, our own brand.
No other country has an aspirational brand this important to its economy.
No other country puts a number to their name and promises that it will be 100% genuine.
Unlike one-dimensional product brands, New Zealand has true personality, real humanity.
When 100% Pure ''popped out'' of the 1990s, people had long begun to believe in it.
The brand wasn't fabricated.
It was a lived experience already.
Sure, there are those who point to the difficulties of what 100% Pure actually means.
Others question whether you can keep the promise, pointing to all the shortfalls of pollution, poverty, prostitution, rampant urbanisation and organised crime - even in Queenstown!
Yet what our customers have been buying is the New Zealand dream.
I don't believe we should rebrand - but that question has to be asked.
Too much of our export image depends on it.
What we do need to do is conduct more research to better link up with our markets and feed the information back to our producers to collaborate more effectively, being responsive and agile to changing market needs.
There is much that can be done, in tourism, in farming, in manufacturing and other service sectors.
We owe it to our past and can hardly afford to lose it in the future.
• Prof Juergen Gnoth works in the department of marketing at Otago University. He researches consumer behaviour and place branding, prepares market segmentation studies, and advises on service experience design.
