Czech Republic renaming has real economic costs

http://globalriskinsights.com/2016/04/czech-republic-renaming-has-economic-costs/

by Jeremy Luedi

Recent efforts in the Czech Republic to rebrand the country as Czechia will only cause confusion for businesses, advertisers, and investors alike.



The Czech government has decided to change the country’s name to Czechia, in an effort to better promote the national brand. While the official name of the country remains the Czech Republic, the country will adopt the shorter moniker (akin to France instead of the French Republic) and register the new name with the UN.

What’s in a name?

Since Czechoslovakia (itself an ad hoc creation which emerged from the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) broke up in 1993, both the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been facing an identity crisis. Czechoslovakia broke up without a popular referendum, despite over a million citizens calling for one in the early 1990s. Similarly, the Czech Republic’s recent name change has been undertaken without public input.

‘Czechia’ itself was picked by public relations professionals who felt that a one word name would better sell the country. Despite this, there exists substantial public opposition to the name: a poll conducted in 2013 found 73% of respondents disliked the name. The head of the Institute for the Czech Language described the name change as “forced through,” and regional development minister Karla Slechtova has complained that it sounds too similar to Chechnya — hardly a flattering comparison.



The Czech Republic already has sufficient problems in promoting national brand awareness, as the country has to fight for recognition with ‘Czechoslovakia’ in the minds of anyone over 30. One name change in a quarter century is more than enough for a country, with Czechia increasingly looking like Prague’s ‘New Coke’ moment.

Indeed, this name change has been instituted solely from the top-down. Czech President Milos Zeman is no stranger to controversy, with his concurrent perpetuation of brash nationalism and Islamophobia while leader of a social democratic party. Throw in his country’s NATO membership and his amiable relations with Russia and China, and further upsets are likely.

The political element

An interesting aside to this story is the fact that Zeman’s government is pursuing improved relations with China. Relations with Beijing have long been marred by concerns over human rights. Noted Soviet-era dissident and activist Vaclav Havel was the Czech president from 1993 to 2003, and Havel continued his support of Chinese dissidents and the Dalai Lama until his death in 2011.

In an interview with CCTV, Zeman stated that: “There was very bad relationship between China and the former government of the Czech Republic – former government, I stress – because this government [had] been very submissive to the pressure from the U.S. and from the EU [sic].”
Xi Jinping became the first Chinese leader to visit the Czech Republic at the end of March 2016, signalling greater rapprochement between Prague and Beijing. During his visit, Xi signed a $1.79 billion deal with Prague.

Zeman is making efforts to distance his country from Havel’s activist legacy. Perhaps in some small way, Zeman’s effort to rename the country is influenced by a desire to rebrand the Czech Republic in the eyes of China. China is a major market for automobiles and alcoholic beverages, two of the largest Czech exports.

Add to this Zeman’s amiable relations with Russia—a move that also goes against Havel’s legacy—and one can begin to add a geopolitical dimension to the name change. To top it all off, Havel hated the name ‘Czechia’, claiming it reminded him of crawling slugs.

Czech Republic renaming has real economic costs

The discussion over renaming the Czech Republic may appear rather odd, even frivolous, but it has serious implications. Impacts on national identity and history aside, the change to Czechia will impact the Czech economy.

Firstly, the name change has not been well-timed, as the country’s uniforms, memorabilia, and advertising for the upcoming 2016 Olympics have already been produced to feature ‘Czech Republic.’ For a small country such as the Czech Republic, the Olympics is a rare occasion to, if only briefly, gain greater international attention.

Furthermore, the country has already spent $40 million on a tourism campaign that heavily features the name ‘Czech Republic’. The Czech Republic is known for three things: beer, hockey, and heavy industry (notably Skoda). The Czech brewing industry has created a valuable brand (such as the Pilsner Urquell) with the ‘Czech’ moniker and will likely continue to utilize it, undermining government efforts to promote ‘Czechia’. After spending decades establishing themselves in international markets, Czech brewing companies are not simply going to shift entire branding departments towards an untested, and unpopular alternative.

Similarly, the Czech hockey team, has and continues to use the ‘Czech’ monicker – another blow to Prague’s efforts in a hockey-obsessed nation.

Lastly, the Czech Republic’s economy has a robust manufacturing and heavy industry sector, generating much of the country’s revenue. Companies in these sectors primarily engage in B2B commerce, or subcontract for foreign firms such as Volkswagen. Consequently, they often do not rely on national branding, in so far as they need not advertise to the general public. Such firms have very small if any advertising budgets, relying on specialization, industry contacts, and supply chain integration instead.



Consequently, the government is unlikely to find much support from these firms, which will see no reason to shift their limited use of ‘Czech’ to ‘Czechia’. Similarly, flagship carrier Czech Airlines will face a branding crisis, expenses it cannot afford. The struggling airline has not once paid dividends since becoming a private corporation in 1992, having faced razor thin profits and an overcrowded European airline market.

If anything, the switch to Czechia is going to create confusion, as the private and public sectors promote two different names. With national branding undermined, there will be an ongoing risk of inter-sector discord. Indeed, even national business promotion fora (Czech Accelerator, Czech Trade Promotion Agency, Czech Invest) prominently use ‘Czech’ in their branding.

Prague would be wise to look at the fate of other renaming efforts. For instance, the renaming wave that hit India in the 1990s and 2000s saw the government eradicate city names with powerful name recognition (Bombay, Calcutta, Madras) in the name of de-colonization. While one can argue the merits of the program’s intentions, the fact remains that India killed powerful brands with centuries of tradition. To this day the renaming causes confusion in the tourism sector, compounded by the fact that many Indian businesses and individuals use the old and new names interchangeably, both domestically and at international trade fairs.

Name recognition for small countries is already hard to come by; all the Czech Republic’s recent move has done is further complicate the matter.

Changing our country’s name to Czechia won’t solve the problems

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/18/czechia-name-change-czech-republic-problems-people-government



‘It is perhaps partly because of our past that people in the Czech Republic have accepted the news with a mood of slightly amused disbelief.’ Photograph: Petr David Josek/AP

Quite fittingly, the Guardian’s story on the Czech Republic’s attempt to rebrand itself as Czechia opened with a reference to the writer Franz Kafka. For when citizens of the country awoke on Friday morning, they found that things had changed. The announcement that the country’s name was to change came as much as a surprise to the citizens of the Czech Republic as to the rest of the world.
You would think such an important decision would be the result of a broad public debate (just think of the long and complicated process New Zealand went through trying to change its flag) – but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

In a poll conducted by the newspaper Mladá Fronta Dnes in 2013, 16,845 people said they didn’t like the new name, compared with 6,160 who did. The fact that officials think they can impose something like this shows how little respect they have for those that they govern.

Even those in favour of the name change feel embarrassed by the way the government has bypassed the public

But it’s an attitude the people of the Czech Republic will be all too familiar with. There has long been division about the country’s identity. Even the breakup of Czechoslovakia, although said to be peaceful, left many people on both sides feeling bitter. It happened without a referendum, which was demanded at the time in a petition signed by more than a million Czechs and Slovaks – a huge proportion of the countries’ combined population of 15 million. The breakup happened in an apparent breach of the Czechoslovak constitution and it was imposed without any mandate from the people. Both of the successor countries have since struggled with attempts to define their identity.
The Czech Republic consists of two lands: Bohemia and Moravia (and a little bit of Silesia, too). This results in further complications over our name as most of the Moravians feel that the geographic name describing the country should take this into account, and that “Czech lands” should be the proper geographic title of the country both in Czech and in English.

It is perhaps partly because of our past that people in the Czech Republic have accepted the news with a mood of slightly amused disbelief. There is a long tradition of the Czechs making fun of themselves. But behind this, even those in favour of the name change feel embarrassed by the way the government has once again bypassed the public in this decision. To make matters worse, the name change wasn’t even the result of some expert discussion. The only people they consulted were PRs, who felt the single word title would “sell the country better”. Despite this, on the day the idea was announced, even the head of the official Institute for the Czech language described the planned change as “forced through”.

                                     

             

The question of whether or not you are supposed to – at least in a democracy – have such a debate prior to a decision rather than after it will haunt the officials, and will add to a growing feeling of estrangement between mainstream politics and everyday life. Both from outside and inside the country it looks as if the Czech government does not have anything more important to deal with. But that’s not the case. We have a president who is the Czech equivalent of Nigel Farage. So how about addressing the issues of xenophobia and anti-EU feelings? How about tackling the fact that the police harass journalists and universities just for expressing a dissenting opinion?

A government not capable of facing up to these issues might well have thought that a small distraction – an unnecessary change in the country’s name perhaps – would be worth a little embarrassment. They might think differently about it now.

Czechs agree to be named 'Czechia'

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/15/czech-republic-czechia-new-name

Czechs agree to be 'Czechia' as catchy alternative

Czech Republic’s leaders settle on official short name for country and await cabinet and United Nations approval



An anti-communist rally in Prague in 1989. The Czech Republic emerged, along with Slovakia, from the peaceful breakup of the old Czechoslovakia in 1993. Photograph: Corbis

The Czech Republic’s leaders have chosen “Czechia” as the one-word alternative name of their country to make it easier for companies, politicians and sportsmen to use on products, name tags and sporting jerseys.

The choice, agreed on Thursday evening by the president, prime minister, heads of parliament and foreign and defence ministers, must still win cabinet approval before the foreign ministry can lodge the name with the United Nations and it becomes the country’s official short name.

The Czech Republic emerged, along with Slovakia, from the peaceful breakup of the old Czechoslovakia in 1993. But so far there has been no standardised one-word English name for the Czech Republic, unlike, say, France, the shortened version of the French Republic.
          

Foreign minister Lubomir Zaoralek told reporters the government decided to take action because ‘there have been distortions and misspellings’ that has led to a lot of head-scratching. The largest part of the country is known as Bohemia (“Cechy” in Czech), but there are also other parts, Moravia and Silesia, so one name is needed that does not exclude those historic lands.

The jerseys of the Czech Republic’s adored ice hockey team carry the single word “Czech”, as do bottles of the country’s premium export beer, Pilsner Urquell. But “Czech” is an adjective and cannot be used as a one-word name for the country.

Supporters of “Czechia” say the term in English can be traced back to the 19th century and was codified by the Czech surveying and mapping authority soon after the 1993 split of Czechoslovakia as a possible one-word alternative.

But it never gained traction until now and it may not have an easy start once it gains official status. To some, it sounds ugly. Others, including the regional development minister, Karla Slechtova, think it is too close to “Chechnya“, making it prone to confusion.

Slechtova tweeted on Thursday that the Czech Republic had invested more than $40m in a tourism promotion campaign using its full name, and should stick to it.

In other languages, including French and German, the Czech Republic is already designated by a single name, but in Czech itself the name ”Cesko” has made slow progress since 1993 and “Cechy” – or Bohemia – is still commonly used to mean the whole country.

Czech Republic officials say country would like to be called 'Czechia' instead

http://www.theguardian.com/weather/2016/apr/14/czech-republic-czechia-new-name

Foreign minister Lubomir Zaoralek told reporters the government decided to take action because ‘there have been distortions and misspellings’

A schoolteacher writes a possible new English name for the Czech Republic on a blackboard in Prague on Thursday. Photograph: Filip Singer/EPA

When citizens of the Czech Republic awake on Friday morning – perhaps from uneasy dreams – they are likely to find that things have changed.
But unlike the bodily transformations undergone by Gregor Samsa, the protagonist in Czech novelist Franz Kafka’s best-known work, they may be about to witness a metamorphosis of national magnitude.
Czech leaders, fed up with their country’s long and complicated full name, have proposed changing it to a single word with just three syllables: Czechia.
In a joint statement, the president, prime minister and other senior officials said they would ask the UN to update its database of geographical names with the new title, in the hope that it might take root before the country competes in the Olympics this summer.
“We recommend using the single-word name in foreign languages in situations when it’s not necessary to use the country’s formal name: sports events, marketing purposes etc,” the statement said.
The foreign minister, Lubomir Zaoralek, told reporters the government decided on the change because “there have been distortions and misspellings” in the past.
Although some Czech Republic sporting teams have long been referred to with a single word, Czech (the national ice hockey team have the word emblazoned on their jerseys), this variant – along with others including “Czechlands” and “Bohemia” – were seemingly overlooked by officials.
A new myth-busting website called Go Czechia assures readers that the name is not a neologism, and was in fact first uttered in Latin back in 1634 (its first English use came in 1841).

          

The website contends that the western part of Czechoslovakia was frequently referred to as “Czechia” in US newspapers following the birth of the nation in 1918, in the wake of the collapse of Austria-Hungary at the end of the first world war.
The Czech Republic is a successor state to former Czechoslovakia following a peaceful split with Slovakia in 1993.
The website also argues that comparisons with the US and the UK – both countries with longer, two-worded titles – are invalid, as “the Czech Republic is much less known than the United States and the United Kingdom around the world and, unlike the USA and the UK, it does not have a well-known, unique and internationally recognized abbreviation”.
The country has had misgivings over its name for years, so much so that the issue came up in conversation between President Milos Zeman and his Israeli counterpart in 2013.
“I use the word Czechia because it sounds nicer and it’s shorter than the cold Czech Republic,” Zeman told then president Shimon Peres on an official visit to Israel.
But not all Czechs are keen on the change. “I disagree with the name ‘Czechia’,” the regional development minister, Karla Slechtova, tweeted on Thursday. “I don’t want people to confuse our country with Chechnya.”

This article includes material from AFP