Bill Jamieson: Brave new world for the Scots brand

As overseas sales of Scottish goods falter, the latest Pixar film is seen as a golden opportunity, writes Bill Jamieson

Mention “Scotland” round the world and the immediate images are bagpipes, tartan and Highland games. These core associations have been triggers for the promotion of the Scottish “brand” for generations, playing strongly to the Scottish diaspora. They are invoked to promote Scottish products, from food to woollens, and visits to the homeland.

But what if these associations are no longer working as once they did – what if around the world they are fading impulses, failing to engage with the younger generation of the diaspora? Scotland at home is in the grip of a nationalist renaissance and fresh appreciation of what it is and what it means to be Scottish. But beyond these shores it should not be automatically assumed that traditional “brand Scotland” will always work as it did. And it is this that explains the high hopes being vested in the Disney-Pixar animated film Brave. Set in Scotland, the expectation is that it will rekindle an appreciation of traditional Scots products around the world.

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How serious is the threat to this traditional appeal? This week Scottish culture secretary Fiona Hyslop and Fergus Ewing, head of energy, enterprise and tourism, are in North America to promote Scottish business and culture as part of Scotland Week 2012. Mr Ewing’s week-long visit to Houston, Calgary and New York will conclude with the Tartan Day Parade through the streets of Manhattan on Saturday (he particularly enjoys promoting Brave to US audiences: it features a King Fergus). Ms Hyslop flew out to New York last Friday and was scheduled to travel to San Francisco, Vancouver and Chicago for cultural engagements and business meetings around the creative industries and tourism.

But in Vancouver this week came news that would not at all be music to her ears. The big story in the city has been a move to ban bagpipes as unacceptable noise. The ban emerged after Kyle Banta, an award-winning local busker, applied for a permit and noticed that bagpipes had been added to a list of barred instruments on the official city website, along with bongo drums and tambourines. City engineering officials say the move has been sparked by “noise concerns”.

Opposition was instant. Coinciding as it does with the promotional launch in Glasgow of the World Pipe Band Championships, Vancouver’s bureaucrats could hardly have chosen a worse moment. With a name that leaves little doubt as to where his own loyalties lie, Vancouver’s mayor, the redoubtable tuba-playing Gregor Robertson – recently sworn in for a second term wearing a kilt – expressed strong opposition to the ban and vowed to overturn it. “My first reaction is that a complete ban on bagpipes and percussion instruments across the city is ridiculous and culturally insensitive. The clans won’t stand for it!”

The bagpipe banning attempt in Vancouver – worryingly similar to last year’s bagpipe ban during the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand – can be brushed aside as unrepresentative and thoughtless. Altogether less easy to dismiss has been the broader effect of the post-financial crisis global downturn on the marketing of traditional Scottish food products and manufacturers in North America. And it is here that a genuine anxiety underlies the hopes that Brave will inspire a worldwide turnaround for Brand Scotland.

Mike Cantlay, chairman of VisitScotland, interviewed by business writer Kenny Kemp in the current edition of BQ magazine, drew on years of retail experience to warn how badly the market for Scottish produce has been hit by the recession. This should command attention, as the United States is Scotland’s largest single international export market, worth an estimated £3.5 billion a year.

Mr Cantlay said: “In San Francisco, there were six businesses that sold Scottish stuff to some extent when we arrived. They’ve all gone. The number of businesses selling Scottish goods has been decimated over the last few years through the recession.

“The older generation of Canadian and American Scots are dying out, so their grandchildren need to be fired up with that same kind of passion,” he added. “This is where the Disney-Pixar cartoon is the exact tonic for Scotland. It’s been a tough trading environment, and because of the age profile of those who see their connection with Scotland. We have an opportunity – and some might see it as the last opportunity with this generation – to capture their imagination and help take it on to the next generation. There remains a huge interest in piping, Highland dancing, whisky and golf.”

All this assumes urgent importance, considering the line-up of no fewer than eight major make-or-break events for Scottish business and tourism, ranging from 2012’s Year of Creative Scotland and the Olympics in London through to the Ryder Cup, the Commonwealth Games and Homecoming in 2014. “This is an opportunity for Scotland to capitalise on a unique sequence that will put our nation on the map,” said Mr Cantlay. Little wonder so much hope is being pinned on Brave, said to be the most high-profile film ever set in Scotland, to raise the country’s profile round the world.

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Helpful though this film may prove, it can be no substitute for the hard slog of marketing, selling and promoting Scotland worldwide – whether by trade missions or tourist come-ons – and the continuous improvement of what Scotland has to offer. Converting the first visit into multiple repeat visits means Scotland having to take on the best in the world in hospitality and never assuming that “adequate” will build a growth business. This applies from the experience of airport arrival through to transport logistics to hotel and guest house standards.

The same laws apply across the business sector generally: relentless attention to changing customer requirements. Whether in specialist bespoke manufacturing or in great food products such as wild salmon or Stornoway black pudding, marketing has to constantly address, beguile and inform an ever-changing customer base: nothing stands still, and not least the diaspora. What we bring to each new generation will critically determine its strength and vibrancy in the years ahead.