Nation Branding as National Change Management: Facilitating Climate Protection by Green Nudging and Habit Stacking

Abstract

Nation branding is much more than promoting holiday destinations with logos and colorful advertising campaigns. Brands have long been an instrument of political dialogue to develop and shape values and make them tangible. The prerequisite for this is that they function as economic alliances between politics and business. The example of “Green Destinations” is a certification initiative that shows how sustainable place, destination, or nation brand management can work at a local (e.g., Sagay City, Philippines), regional (e.g., Bhutan), or even international level (e.g., DACH region, i.e., Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and others). Against this backdrop, the aim of this article is to highlight the compatibility and usability of brands within (democratic) nations and their potential in the fight against climate change. In the face of dramatic global climate change, governments, businesses, and consumers are generally not acting sustainably enough. Therefore, the management of nation brands is presented as (1) values management (synchronizing values within economic societies), (2) glocal (i.e., “global” and at the same time “local”) alliance management (brands as joint ventures of governments, corporations, customers, and other relevant stakeholders), (3) change management (sustainable national transformation), (4) agile competencies (ongoing value negotiation and education), (5) green nudging and habit stacking (influencing social developments), and (6) viral communication management (social media interaction as brand communication). In conclusion, brands integrate glocal leadership, change, and sustainability to contribute to national transformation.

Received: 26 November 2024 | Revised: 24 April 2025 | Accepted: 29 April 2025

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares that he has no conflicts of interest in this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Author Contribution Statement

Jan Lies: Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision.