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Published: July 12th 2006
(pic from the first day)
mizzou and charles university kids!So you know how I was reveling in the fact that we weren’t spending much time in the “classroom”? Well, that changed a bit today. I won’t have quite as much to write about because we were in class from 9-1 and then from 2-4. And…I did nod off a few times…but not because it was boring. I’ve just lost quite a bit of sleep, and am not finding it easy to catch up. But who cares?! I’m in Europe! ☺
Today we had about 7 guest speakers come to talk with our class. We met at 9:00, and the speakers all came to us at the “Faculty of Social Sciences.” (We think faculty just means the building, in this case for social sciences majors- that’s where they put marketing/communications, thus this is Ladislav’s building.) The theme of today’s class was “How do we contribute to the brand Czech Republic?” In the morning, we heard from 5 representatives of Czech organizations that make up their bureaucracy, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Czech Centers, Ministry of Industry and Trade and CzechInvest.
It was actually really interesting, because I feel like I have a much better understanding of an issue
the new czech logo
pretty controversial! (except it's not fuzzy... it's just fuzzy in this pic i found of it online) that is pretty big there right now. Basically, the country has no “brand”—for example, if I went up to 100 people in American and asked them where Prague was, half of them wouldn’t know and half of them would say “Czechoslovakia.” A great majority still think of this place as post-communist, “Eastern European country” which both have pretty negative connotations. So the Czech Republic struggles with this, and lately has been making an effort to brand themselves. It’s difficult though, because between all of the different bureaucratic agencies that all want to pass their own agendas, branding their country is a lower priority. Two of the speakers were gung ho for the government hiring a branding agency, but my Czech friends don’t necessarily see that happening anytime in the near future.
One tangible aspect of this branding debate is the new Czech Republic logo. We’ve been talking about it since the beginning of class, and it’s an interesting discussion. The logo was chosen as the winner of this contest, and the country is kind of split in it’s reactions to it. (See photo- it’s the speech bubbles). Those in favor of the new logo like it because the Czech
Republic doesn’t have one single thing to define it (think the popular “Espana” logo) but others thing it’s generic and doesn’t say anything about the country at all. Advertisers plan to fill the bubbles (if you’re curious, image google “Czech republic new logo” and you’ll see an ad example) with aspects of Czech culture/history/sights etc. Anyway, it’s an interesting discussion.
After a quick lunch, we listened to 3 more speakers: they were from Budweiser Budvar, Czech Airlines and Skoda Automobile. They kind of talked about their business they represent, and how exactly their products fit into the branding of the country. So it was a long day, but a good one. Interesting, and I think it’s going to help us when we start on the projects Friday.
Tonight five of us took the underground to Old Town Square (we’ve already figured out how to ride it-we’re just awesome like that). We had an awesome, inexpensive dinner and then walked around after it got dark, checking out a few souvenir shops. Then we got back, and I successful Skyped with my mom! Yay!!! So now I’m going to go shower. Goodnight!
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PragueBlog
Katie
I am beat, what about you? Tomorrow we are finding you a Budvar... not the "American Imitation"