Where ‘Brand Zimbabwe’ will either rise or fall

Three: Does Government itself believe in Brand Zimbabwe?

At the Brand Zimbabwe launch, I listened to the Information Minister, Monica Mutsvangwa, give a great speech.

“When you travel abroad, they don’t care if you are ZANU- PF, CCC or MDC. They just look at your passport,” she said. Great speech, I thought. Now, if only this government believed this and lived it, I thought.

Now, how many times have you seen salespeople trying to sell a product, and you can tell they are just there for the job? They barely believe in the vegetable samosas they are selling. I use veggie samosas as an example, because they are, quite frankly, a waste of everybody’s time.

When I see government communicators at work, or read what they say in the papers, I get a sense they hardly believe in what they are selling.

Our leaders wave their fists in the air and drape themselves in flags, but they are the least patriotic lot you will ever see. Their love for all things foreign – from cars to healthcare – is legendary.

They travel a lot. How they travel across Africa, seeing progress around us, and still not feel even an itch to do better for their homeland is a puzzle. Months ago, I saw a government official in the crowd at the world-class Diamniadio Olympic Stadium, recently built in Dakar, Senegal. I wondered what he thought, coming back home to a country with no working stadium.

Our leaders must want our county to work, and they must do so to the point of desperation. It must keep them awake at night when our people are being humiliated next door by insecure xenophobes.

I hope “Zimbabweans from all walks of life” will take part in the Brand Zimbabwe process. I hope it is open to all, including the many creatives who are bursting with ideas to promote their country.

First, must come honesty about where our brand is. For that, there is another Chilean lesson.

According to the writer Gabriel Marquez, once, on the street, Chile’s leftist President Allende was once confronted by a protester carrying the placard: “Chile is shitty country. But MY country.”

That is a mix of brand ownership and an honest brand audit. With that, must come delivery to the brand ambassadors.

As Cortes, the Chile brand manager says, one of the reasons it worked for Chile is that it created a country that works for its people. It may not be the branding dollars that did the trick, the BBC reported: “Perhaps Chile’s profile has improved simply because it has gone from a military dictatorship to a successful and open democracy with a growing economy…”

This, comrades, is where Brand Zimbabwe rises and falls.

By Ranga Mberi for NewZWire

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