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Brands, including states, inevitably create relationships: fundamentally, how good they are at creating an inclination to interact. In relation to brands, we simply can’t help feeling something and, when asked, we are also able to say things. We have an exchange with them. Some of this is emotional, some rational, some expressed subconsciously, some with rational articulation.

A brand’s powers of “seduction” and “persuasion” together drive the way we relate to them. This analysis is known on as the “exchange framework” and is used to evaluate independent and part-of-the-UK Scotland, in the eyes of the world.

Power of Brand Scotland

Putting the uncertainty of eventual policy frameworks, trade deals, geopolitical waltzing and the economic climate aside, it’s possible to analyze the brand proposition that an independent

Scotland would offer the world, based on the 16 universal drivers that govern an individual’s inclination to interact – the fundamental power of a brand.

Brand Scotland stands to gain enormously from independence in terms of its “seductions”: those emotional feelings towards a brand. This comes as no surprise, when held up against the backdrop of Brexit Britain, with its undertones of isolationism, xenophobia and regression.

The picture is not so clear-cut when looking at the other set of drivers: the “persuasions”. In Scotland terms, this is where the uncertain issues such as future economic prosperity and the leap into the unknown come into play.

So how would an independent Scotland be defined, unaccustomed as the Scots are to following their own compass without magnetic force from below?

As not-England? As part of a nascent re-union of Celts? As part of a union of Europeans? Or, simply, as itself? How will it cope with self-direction, after centuries of southern rule?

A seductive prospect

All of these are unknowns, but based on the dispassionate view of a brand analyst, Scotland has a reasonably good hand. If the analysis shows anything, it is that a newly-independent Scotland would certainly be a seductive prospect in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Ms Sturgeon is playing the role of brand manager with impressive effectiveness, using the seductive strengths of her country’s brand offering as she tours the world in search of international partners.

Political events of the last 12 months have shown us that subconscious, reflexive responding is working powerfully in world-brand relationships. A second referendum on Scottish independence would be  both “seduce” and “persuade”.

If Scotland feels the time has come to separate, the world is likely to agree that such a course of action is right. In all likelihood, what Scotland is subconsciously evaluating is whether the EU is now actually the better union of which it should be a part, not apart.

Source: iNews, by Nadim Sedek

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