The Stakes of a Reputation
Israel’s future won’t be decided only on the battlefield, but in the global marketplace of perception.
Next week I’m heading to London for the City Nation Place global conference, the annual event for nation, region, and city brand and marketing teams. It’s like a gathering of Chief Marketing Officers – only the “companies” are places.
This will be my ninth time attending. Usually, I’m the only Israeli in the room. A couple of years I’ve seen someone from Tel Aviv Global show up, but I’ve never seen anyone from our Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Economy or Tourism there. It’s a shame, because there’s so much to learn from others on how to professionally manage a country’s reputation – and Lord knows Israel has a lot to learn!
I’ll never forget my first conference in 2016. I joined a roundtable on managing reputational crises. With me there were country reps from Nepal, Russia, and Sweden. The Swedish delegation – three tall, fair-haired men from the Swedish Institute – spoke first. They were distraught that Sweden’s reputation was suffering because of its perceived softness on immigration after taking in a huge number of Syrian refugees. The world, they said, was questioning whether Sweden cared about protecting its own citizens and it made the country look bad. They weren’t used to that.
As they spoke, I glanced around. The Nepalese were worried about how an earthquake would affect tourism. A Russian city rep fretted over Putin’s latest comments and their impact on an international sports bid. Another country was still trying to recover investor confidence after a financial crash.
Even all those years ago it was already crystal clear: Most countries’ reputational challenges are about how quickly they’ll bounce back and even surpass their pre-crisis tourism, trade, investment, or talent numbers. For Israel, the stakes are infinitely higher: Every headline, every photo, every accusation, chips away at something deeper than just an image that can be restored – as we enter the second quarter of the 21st century, Israel’s very existence depends on our reputational security.
Why Reputation Nation?
In 2019, when Substack started to become popular, I launched a blog (not on Substack) called Supermarket of Nations*, and began with:
Hello, my name is Joanna and I’m passionate about place branding. I see places like products on a supermarket shelf that need to be marketed and sold – welcome to the Supermarket of Nations!
Long story short, I am a British-born Israeli, legally-educated (but-happily-not-practicing) founder and CEO of Vibe Israel – a nonprofit aimed at branding and marketing Israel to the world. Just over ten years ago, I discovered the fascinating field of ‘country and city branding’ and haven’t looked back! It combines everything I love: business, culture, PR, anthropology, entertainment, politics, and much more.
In Israel, I’m widely known as an evangelist for ensuring that we tell our story better, and I won’t stop until my government establishes a country branding authority to strategically and effectively communicate our unique values and offering to the world.
Most other countries are already doing it, why not Israel?
Can you “hear” the enthusiasm in my voice? I was in love – with the nascent field of ‘place branding’, which, simply put, is the strategic process of building the reputation that you feel your place (i.e., country, city, or region) deserves. It’s much more than just developing a logo or slogan; it’s a professional process to create a specific identity and emotional association for a place to influence how that place is perceived.
Vibe’s flagship project was bringing digital influencers to Israel – Millennials and Gen Z’ers (95% non-Jewish) with millions of followers – for an intense, weeklong tour so that through their eyes, vast audiences would discover Israel and connect with Israelis. No explaining, no educating, no politics. We let them tell the story.
I’m proud to say that “Vibe Tours” was the global pioneer in strategically using influencer marketing for a country (rather than a product or company). Over a decade, we brought hundreds of bloggers, Instagrammers, YouTubers, TikTokers, podcasters, etc. with millions of followers and generated 1.2 billion positive mentions of Israel online. We were were also runners up twice for City Nation Place awards for best use of social media, and best use of data for place branding.
Today, working with influencers to promote a country or city is commonplace. In the early 2010s, we were considered extremely disruptive. Point in case, our most famous tour – Doggy Vacay:
For a while, getting non-Jews with millions of followers to endorse what Israel had to offer was smooth sailing. Close your eyes and take yourself back to pre-October 7, pre-Covid days. Israel was on a roll, remember? Between 2010 and 2020, its reputation was booming: Start Up Nation, Israeli food and TV formats, Tel Aviv as a city, winning and hosting the Eurovision, kicking off the Giro d’Italia (second biggest cycling competition in the world) in Jerusalem, Nobel Prizes, ‘The Band’s Visit’ on Broadway, Gal Gadot as ‘Wonder Woman’ and much more…
Anyone who’s actually experienced the place knows that Israel leaves an indelible mark for those who get to know it.
Influencers on a 2019 Vibe Israel food tour tattooed the word Sababa on their arms!
It didn’t last, of course.
But not because of October 7. Years before that fateful day, Israel’s reputation was on a downward spiral, and our leadership willingly turned a blind eye. The BDS movement was gaining traction – even young Jews were turning their back on Israel. But just as our security apparatus had a conception that all was well in Gaza, those responsible for Israel’s reputation and the fate of Jews abroad believed they had it all under control and ignored the warning signs.
In 2023, after two years of Covid (during which the country shut down and we couldn’t do our tours), in response to the Israeli government’s attempt at a judicial overhaul, and having lived through the worst day in Jewish history since the Holocaust, I paused Vibe’s activities. The combination of Israel’s story being rewritten by its government in such a way that didn’t align anymore with the story that Vibe had been telling, and the shockwaves of October 7, forced us all to shift focus.
In 2024, Professor Nicholas Cull, a historian and the foremost scholar on public diplomacy, published his book: “Reputational Security: Refocusing Public Diplomacy for a Dangerous World”, introducing the idea that a nation’s reputation is not a luxury but a crucial component of its national security. A country “needs to be recognised, understood, and valued to be physically secure,” he wrote.
Bingo! That was exactly what I’d been thinking – and living.
Israel is the country with arguably the most “stress” on its nation brand. We are attacked from every which way, regardless of what we do. Sometimes the criticism is legitimate and even warranted – as it is for every country – and other times we all know it’s tainted with anti-Semitism and driven by extreme ideologies.
But this isn’t our first rodeo:
Israel is a case study for living with terrorism, so what did we do about it? We became a global center for counter-terrorism policy, solutions and collaboration.
Israel is a case study for cyber-attacks, so what did we do about it? We built a leading cyber-security industry that offers the most advanced cyber-tech in the world.
Israel is a case study for desertification, so what did we do about it? We became a world leader in desalination, Agri-tech and climate-tech.
It follows logically, then, that if Israel is a case study in how a nation brand can become toxic, we should once again look to the guiding light of the Start Up Nation – “necessity is the mother of invention” – and become the Reputation Nation: A global epicenter of Reputational Security.
Israel can become the place that everyone flocks to for defense-tech relating to online narrative amplification and protection; for academic research in fields that have been long ignored in the realm of national messaging, influence ops, propaganda and misuse thereof; for professional collaboration between Western democracies that will find themselves under the same attack as Israel has experienced (Israel is always the canary in the coal mine), and more.
But for any of this to unfold, our leadership (in Israel and globally) must acknowledge that Israel’s reputation and the positioning of Jews globally is part of our national security and invest the same levels of funding, strategic thinking and professional management as it does in the IDF, Mossad, Shin Bet, cyber security, Jewish communal needs in the Diaspora, etc.
It is then, and only then that we – the Jewish people – will not just survive, but thrive.
Is Reputation Nation For You?
This publication is for:
Anyone who cares about the story of Israel and the Jewish people – and thinks our reputation is a national security asset that deserves greater attention and care.
Those who want to understand how Israel’s story shapes our security, diplomacy, and future.
Those who recognize that Jewish peoplehood is inextricably linked to how the world perceives Israel, so it’s not just Israel’s problem, there’s a ripple effect that touches each and every Jew worldwide; and
And those who are desperately seeking not just thought-provoking analyses of the situation, but also practical suggestions and recommendations from someone who has expertise in this space.
What You Can Expect from Reputation Nation
Turns out most people aren’t aware that almost all countries manage their reputation professionally and strategically. For example, the UAE has a “Nation Brand Office”, Great Britain has the “Great Campaign”, New Zealand has “New Zealand Story”, and don’t get me started on Saudi Arabia and The Ukraine!
Of all countries – Israel should be the first to adopt such an approach. But for whatever reason, it hasn’t yet, and in “Reputation Nation,” we’ll unpack why, and what it can do differently. We won’t do it in a vacuum, focusing only on how Israel operates; I’ll sometimes reference examples from other countries, if there’s something to learn from them about what Israel is doing right or wrong. That said, the focus will be on Israel’s image and reputation, how it impacts Jews outside of Israel, and what we can do about it.
I’m not a habitual writer – I can’t promise you an article every Thursday at 4pm ET. I’m more of an impulsive writer; I see something in the news, connect dots others might not, and I write when I feel I have something to say.
If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, I welcome you to subscribe to and share Reputation Nation to help raise awareness for the urgent need for strategic, professional management of Israel’s reputation.
Ultimately, my objective remains as it was years ago: to ensure that when people around the world walk into the Supermarket of Nations and come across the product called ‘Israel’, they’ll want to buy it. In other words, to ensure that it is not taken off the shelf altogether.
I look forward to seeing you again very soon in your Inbox!
Every person who cares deeply about Israel and the future of the Jewish people will be incredibly well served by the new project on Substack. Sign-up!!
Thank you for writing. I don't think the problem is reputation. I encourage you to check out: https://www.movementagainstantizionism.org/ and https://www.stopaz.org/ - 2 movements fighting the new mutation of bigotry towards Jews. I encourage you to join one of them - we need you in this fight of our lifetime.