Ambassador Ido Aharoni, consul general of Israel, paid a visit to two of Assistant Professor Katie Mercurio's marketing classes last month to discuss a fascinating concept: branding Israel.

Using the pop culture phenomenon that is Sacha Baron Cohen's movie Borat, Aharoni illustrated how a place with little to no international identity—Kazakhstan—could be co-opted by anyone—in this case Cohen. The silly, fictional version of the former Soviet country has come to occupy the collective consciousness as the only Kazakhstan.

Aharoni is charged with creating a favorable international cultural identity for Israel. The positioning of a region within the global context is a complex and nuanced task, yet Aharoni gave several examples of such successes. It's no accident a huge city with a large homeless population and less than stellar crime record came to symbolize opportunity. New York City is a lot of things, but more than anything else, it's “The Big Apple."

In another example Aharoni shared, Brazil has branded itself as all good times and carnival, but it is one of the most dangerous places for tourists, Aharoni noted.

“The gap between the two is billions," he added, referring to the tourist dollars rolling into Brazil.

“What stood out was how well the nation of Israel has been able to pinpoint the problem with their nation's brand," said Collin Hoyer, MBA '15, who attended one of the sessions.

Hoyer explained that this was best illustrated by the series of videos that were shown highlighting focus groups conducted in Western society. In these groups, participants were asked to visualize Israel and describe a neighborhood, what a house might look like, and what the inside of the home was like. The feedback was priceless and has allowed Aharoni and his team to correctly identify Western perception of Israel, Hoyer noted.

“The perception of Israel by outsiders stood in stark contrast to Israel in actuality," said Hoyer. “The complexity of analyzing this disconnect lies in the fact that Israel's target audience for this rebrand is tourists—people who they have very little direct, daily, contact with. However, they spared no expense and made sure that they got in front of the people whose opinion they are hoping to change. It'll be interesting to see how they take these consumer insights and turn them into an impactful rebrand."