By Rossana Dresdner, executive director of Imagen de Chile
“We don’t only need to work together to build our country brand, but also to align the messages that we want to convey to the world.” With these words, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Gloria de La Fuente opened the annual Fundación Imagen de Chile Meeting this March 30. The event was particularly important this year, because it not only highlighted the work of the more than 1,300 companies that use Marca Chile (Chile Brand), but also formally and publicly opened up a new way of building our image throughout the world: transversally and collectively.
We are living at a crossroads, globally and nationally, with enormous economic and social challenges, in a context in which the democratic system as a way of coexisting within society and between countries is being questioned.
In this context, Chile is committed to a sustainable model, economically, humanly and environmentally. This is no small challenge, but one that the country has taken on as it has done with all other challenges throughout its history: with resilience and creativity, drawing on the variety and magnitude of our resources and talent.
In this complex global scenario, Chile continues to be a reliable partner that can offer certainties and has the capacity to look to the future with boldness and hope, constructing innovative solutions that go beyond our own borders.
At Imagen de Chile, we believe that it is time to make this our main brand attribute; to not only show it to the world, but also use that capacity to contribute to the construction of a better world.
Our identity, historically influenced by our territory – seismic and eruptive – is based on adaptively understanding what is good and bad, on being quick to find solutions that are resilient, resistant and persevering, and on learning from our mistakes. We are serious but flexible, quiet but bold.
They say that country brands must be elastic in order to respond to new challenges. And that is precisely one of the characteristics of the Chilean people: the capacity to adapt and invent new solutions to new challenges, a comparative advantage in a world that needs new answers, creativity, innovation, trust and commitment to the future.
Our story must also be honest and credible, and reflect collective perspectives, concrete actions and commitments to work. A story that is born from joint effort and has the capacity to represent our diversity. A story that is consistent with our foreign policy of multilateral cooperation and the protection of the environment and human rights, as well as the promotion of Chile’s economic interests.
At Fundación Imagen de Chile, we are focusing on three main areas for this country story, which we believe reflect our history, our present challenges and what we dream of building in the future.
The first is sustainability, which encompasses investment with a green focus, policies for conservation and the protection of natural resources, and the capacity for innovation and the creation of solutions that contribute scientifically and technologically.
The second is linked to democracy, which allows us to situate the present moment we are experiencing as a country, including our constitutional process, the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup, and our commitment to expand citizen rights. This also allows us to defend the democratic system as the only one possible for current and future societies, at a time when this is being questioned in some places.
The third area is related to cultural diversity. We are children of processes of migration, from our origins to the present day; of a miscegenation that constitutes our identity and shapes our way of being, based on diverse styles and influences.
Chile is looking for answers to today’s big questions: the challenge of sustainability, better democracy and more diverse and integrated societies. From this corner of the planet, we must speak to the world with a single voice and build our future together, in order to contribute to the construction of the planet’s future.
