World Cup, political turmoil and

BP oil spill are major factors in 

Global Perception Index

By Thomas Cromwell

Singapore once again held the number one spot in the East West Global Index 200, which rates the brand perception of 200 countries and major territories. Malaysia, Canada, Italy and South Africa rounded out the top five spots. South Africa thoroughly benefitted from hosting the 2010 World Cup reaching its highest ever rank on the index. Italy, the defending champions, also benefitted from the media hype leading up to the World Cup tournament. Canada continued to perform well as media buzz carried over from hosting the winter Olympics as well as a good performance at the hockey world championship, while Malaysia improved its media by hosting the Thomas Cup and through positive media covering its diplomatic efforts in international politics.

Asian countries New Zealand and Hong Kong, scoring seventh and ninth respectively, joined Singapore in the top ten. Kuwait, scoring sixth, was the lone Middle East representative in the top ten.  The United Kingdom performed well ranking eighth and France, in the midst of Tour de France coverage, came in at tenth, representing Europe along with Italy.

The war on terror, political turmoil, international disputes and continued economic struggles involving debt crises drove the media covering many of the worst scoring countries. Pakistan scored the lowest followed by Iraq, North Korea, Greece, Mexico, Afghanistan, Thailand, Iceland, Kyrgyzstan and Israel.

The Iceland volcano eruption that grounded trans-Atlantic air travel throughout April and May further damaged the already struggling international image of Iceland, and the BP oil spill off the coast of Louisiana helped give the United States its lowest score since 2008. Growing tensions on the Korean peninsula following the sinking of a South Korean warship led to the biggest shift from the first quarter of 2010 as South Korea dropped 164 places on the index. Domestic unrest and violence in Thailand and Jamaica led to each falling 157 and 156 places respectively. 

The Nation Brand Perception Indexes are organized on the East West Communications website according to score, volume and alphabetical order. They are also organized by regional groupings.

For the regions, Brazil scored the highest for the South American countries at 11th place, almost cracking the top ten, riding high expectations for the World Cup tournament. Barbados did best among Caribbean nations at 36th and Costa Rica was first in Central America at 46th place. Finally, Kazakhstan continued to lead the Central Asian nations at 27th place.

To see how a country has fared in 2010, look up the alphabetical index: http://www.eastwestcoms.com/global_alpha.htm.

Thomas Cromwell is president of East West Communications and can be reached at tcromwell@eastwestcoms.com.