'Made in Bangladesh': A strength or weakness?

Suppose, you are a Bangladeshi brand … do you tell the world that? Yes, you should. Because being from Bangladesh turns out to be better than some think.  

Sure, we are all proud of where we come from. Being proud of being Bangladeshi, Australian, or Indian is all well and good.  But does it make sense for a brand, a company, to be proud and brag about the country it comes from? When you read that a piece of technology comes from Japan, it might provide a sense of security; when we see that a beauty product comes from France, the world assumes it must be chic and good.

As economies change and try to modernise or develop internationally, they often work hard to develop the "country brand" so that products and services from that nation are seen in a better light. So what about Bangladesh? 

For the last seven years, we have been helping to coach Bangladeshi marketers and businesses in their efforts to build modern marketing practices. Often that has led to discussions about the reputation of the country internationally and whether being "Made in Bangladesh" is a strength or weakness. 

The common perception has been that it would not be so good. Mostly that opinion is based on what people read or assume from international media stories that highlight issues like disasters at apparel factories and little about the great improvements being Made in that industry. 

Try googling Bangladesh and those types of headlines stand out.  But is that really what the world thinks? We decided to do some research and find out. 

To do that, we used an (AI) Artificial Intelligence-based research platform called SignificanceSystem that we sometimes partner with to understand what is the real narrative in the world around brands, client issues and, in this case, country reputations. 

It works like this: we type in the subject we want to be investigated, in this case, "Made in Bangladesh", and the geography and language we want to explore. In this case, we looked globally at all content in English. The platform then scours the whole of the internet, websites, Google and other search engines, social media etc. Then it opens and reads every single piece of content that mentions "Made in  Bangladesh". 

Literally terabytes of data. Millions of pieces of content. It then aggregates all it has read and tells us the real story behind the narrative: it measures the importance of the narrative, the emotions it generates, and the key content driving that narrative. 

So we looked to compare Bangladesh and its neighbour India and their reputations. 

The world is increasingly surprised by Bangladesh and the things made in this country. Photo: Reuters

Now here is the good news. We looked at the narrative around Bangladesh and found it is indeed timeless. The country as a brand is solid, worth investing in, and not likely to fall away or be in real trouble. Similar to  India. In truth, from previous studies, most country brands are timeless if the government and businesses are not making any big mistakes. But the overall content driving the narratives around both countries is weak. 

Our findings also illustrated that, the government and businesses need to do more to drive new content, stories and experiences around the country across the internet that says that Bangladesh is getting its act together, providing better experiences and building new and interesting reputations. No real surprise there.  

But a challenge remains. Governments alone do not build reputations for countries. Business, brands, people and culture all combine to build reputations. 

Interestingly, when we look at the "Made in …" narratives around both Bangladesh and neighbouring India, they too are timeless. Interesting because even though we work in the country, work with brands and companies in Bangladesh, we did not think the reputation for "Made in Bangladesh" would perform so well. Because we, like many of our readers, are biassed. We are prone to fall for the bad news. People tend to notice the bad and dwell on it. Big mistake. Because when you take a neutral look at reputation, it is often not as bad as you might think. 

So we looked further at those narratives around "Made in …". One of the great things about the  SignificanceSystems platform is that it not only reads and assesses all content on the open internet about a  subject, but it also uses algorithms to judge what emotions are generated by it all. Imagine if you had read millions of pieces of content about "Made in Bangladesh" what emotions would you feel about the subject? Of course, that is impossible. You would/could only read a small percentage of everything. The platform does that for you and it told us some interesting things. 

We found that "Made in India" generates enthusiasm and joy. The content driving those emotions talks mostly of positive changes, improved standards and the world reacting to products and services that are better than expected. But there is also a lot of anxiety; the inconsistency of delivery makes the world feel things that are made in India are not always what they promise to be. There is also an expectation of improvement, but it is weak. 

Compare that to "Made in Bangladesh", where the dominant emotions produced are "liking", "captivation", and  "surprise". We assumed there would be more negativity because of our bias to see and hear bad news.  In fact, the platform found that the world is increasingly surprised by Bangladesh and the things made there. The content driving is talking about improved standards, surprising categories of products coming from the country and personal and corporate experiences where Bangladesh-made goods are better than people thought.  

All that does not mean the job is done. As we point out, the narrative around Bangladesh needs more content that explains its good side, the improvements, the changing perceptions of quality, and delivery. And the wide variety of products, brands and services being created and sold successfully internationally. But while there should always be a but, the narrative is indeed good and promising for the future, but continued exploration can only help the country and the brands and products coming from it to perform better in the future. 

Dave McCaughan is a co-founder of Marketing Futures

Faiyaz Ahmed is a co-founder of Marketing Futures

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.