Commented T-Sec chief economist Mike Schussler in the Sunday Time, “We're in deep trouble, and we're definitely heading for a very deep recession. I expect a bloodbath for jobs; anywhere between 200,000 and 300,000 losses for the year.”
A comparative analysis of the socio-economic benefits of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, held in Germany, revealed the following data: One year after the final whistle was blown, the German economy recorded significant improvements in key indicators, such as unemployment (down by 29%), foreign leisure tourism (up by 31%), business and convention tourism in the hosting city of Berlin (up 49%), consumer confidence at a 27-year high and exports up by 14%.
And, as of Q3/2007, Germany jumped to the top of the Nation Brand Index (from previously 7th rank).
In summary, the 5 August 2007 edition of Time magazine titled its cover story ‘Germany Revs Up: The Nation's Economy gathers Speed', while the Financial Times, notoriously critical of Germany, wrote admiringly of a "new economic miracle", and Germany's leading weekly, Der Spiegel, analyzed how ‘German Economic Boom Creates Job Machine'.
So, how exactly did hosting the world's biggest sporting event contribute to reversing the economic downturn of a nation that only a year prior was diagnosed by its own president as “entering collective depression” and was labeled by their very own media as suffering from Konsumverweigerung, a newly coined economic term denoting consumers' refusal to purchase.
For the first time in the history of FIFA World Cup hosts, Germany used the tournament deliberately as a platform to transform the national brand image and to convert visitors to brand advocates. Titled “Land of Ideas”, the German president launched a nation branding campaign, the keystone of which consisted of the ‘Walk of Ideas', six gigantic sculptures in the city center of Berlin, each representing a major innovation originating from Germany (such as the automobile, Einstein's theory of relativity and the Aspirin tablet).
At a nominal cost of any global advertising campaign (with a total budget of less than €25 million), the Land of Ideas brand campaign generated tremendous PR exposure for Germany's new brand image, resulting in more than 3.5 bbillion media contacts worldwide and more than €100 million in media coverage, and catapulting Brand Germany to the top spot of the BBC World Services' survey of the most trusted country brands.
Referring to Germany's "new economic miracle" post hosting the World Cup, the Financial Times noted that miracles happen by design, not by accident.
Time has come
With just 431 days to go to the 2010 kickoff, the time has come to engage a nation branding campaign that will convert brand agnostics to brand advocates for country and continent and stimulate the global appetite for all things (South) African - failing which future generations will decry Africa's lost branding opportunity of a lifetime.
Next week, read Dr Nik's analysis of how Australia's Nation Branding Campaign during the 2000 Sydney Olympics advanced her tourism brand by 10 years and how SA can apply some of the lessons learnt.
