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“Brave Like Ukraine”: A critical discourse perspective on Ukraine’s wartime brand

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Nadia Kaneva at University of Denver
Nadia Kaneva
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Abstract and Figures

Two months after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Ukraine’s government launched a major nation-branding initiative, which has come to be known as the Brave Campaign. This is, arguably, the first instance of a state using brand communication as a strategic tool in a war. The campaign also marks a significant departure from Ukraine’s previous nation-branding messages. Drawing on critical discourse theory, this essay considers why this change in messaging strategies was possible and what it signals about the larger geopolitical and ideological context within which the Russia–Ukraine war is being fought. The essay concludes by posing a set of new questions for future research on public diplomacy and nation branding, prompted by the events of this war.
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Vol:.(1234567890)
Place Branding and Public Diplomacy (2023) 19:232–236
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41254-022-00273-3
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
“Brave Like Ukraine”: Acritical discourse perspective onUkraine’s
wartime brand
NadiaKaneva1
Revised: 10 September 2022 / Accepted: 13 September 2022 / Published online: 30 September 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2022
Abstract
Two months after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Ukraine’s government launched
a major nation-branding initiative, which has come to be known as the Brave Campaign. This is, arguably, the first instance
of a state using brand communication as a strategic tool in a war. The campaign also marks a significant departure from
Ukraine’s previous nation-branding messages. Drawing on critical discourse theory, this essay considers why this change
in messaging strategies was possible and what it signals about the larger geopolitical and ideological context within which
the Russia–Ukraine war is being fought. The essay concludes by posing a set of new questions for future research on public
diplomacy and nation branding, prompted by the events of this war.
Keywords Nation branding· Ukraine· Russia–Ukraine war· Critical discourse theory· Cold War
From war propaganda towartime branding
On July 7, 2022, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transforma-
tion, Mykhailo Fedorov, wrote on Twitter: “@brave_ua —
will be the case study of country’s [sic] brand comm cam-
paign in war time.” Fedorov’s tweet linked to an article in
Wired magazine, discussing Ukraine’s latest nation-branding
campaign, launched about a month after the start of Rus-
sia’s full-scale invasion on February 24 (Meaker 2022). The
campaign’s central theme is bravery and its messages have
circulated widely through online and offline media chan-
nels inside and outside Ukraine. It represents the first use
of brand communication as part of a nation’s war effort,
possibly signaling a new form of war propaganda—wartime
branding—whose implications are yet to be explored.
This short essay will not provide a detailed analysis of
the Brave Campaign—a task left for the future. Rather, it
was prompted by the observation that the central message of
the Brave Campaign appears to mark a dramatic departure
from Ukraine’s previous nation-branding efforts. Drawing
on critical discourse theory, I consider why this change was
possible and what it signals about the larger geopolitical
and ideological context in which the Russia–Ukraine war is
being fought. My reflections center on the state as a main
actor in public diplomacy and nation branding, although the
role of non-state actors should also be considered in future
analyses (Dolea 2018). At the end of the essay, I briefly
share some of the ways in which the war has influenced
my personal and academic commitments, and I challenge
scholars and practitioners of nation branding and public
diplomacy to pose new and more critical research questions.
Post‑socialist nation branding revisited
Nation branding—the introduction of marketing ideas and
practices into the processes of national governance—first
came to post-socialist Europe a decade after the dissolu-
tion of the Soviet Union. The first nation-branding programs
in the region emerged in 2002 when post-Soviet Estonia
launched a brand campaign in preparation for hosting the
Eurovision song contest (Bolin 2006). In the same year,
Poland unveiled a national brand logo, commissioned by
its Foreign Ministry, as a step towards shedding associa-
tions with the country’s socialist past (Aronczyk 2013). A
flurry of nation-branding activities followed in Central and
Eastern Europe, many of them intertwined with the efforts of
post-socialist countries to gain admission into the European
Union (Kaneva 2011).
* Nadia Kaneva
nkaneva@du.edu
1 University ofDenver, Denver, USA
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... 205). Nation branding also commonly relies on citizen participation for promotion and strength (Kaneva, 2023;Mihelj & Jiménez-Martínez, 2021). Accordingly, nation branding practices are sometimes discussed as part and parcel of nation-building. ...
... Others have underscored the inherent contradictions between nation branding and nationbuilding efforts, with the priorities around the former viewed as superseding the latter (Kaneva, 2016(Kaneva, , 2023Jordan, 2014). This is exemplified by Kaneva (2023) in her study of Ukraine's wartime nation branding efforts. ...
... Others have underscored the inherent contradictions between nation branding and nationbuilding efforts, with the priorities around the former viewed as superseding the latter (Kaneva, 2016(Kaneva, , 2023Jordan, 2014). This is exemplified by Kaneva (2023) in her study of Ukraine's wartime nation branding efforts. While branding cemented around ideals of 'independence' and 'sovereignty' would appeal to Ukrainian citizens, the chosen tagline of 'bravery' is seen as resonating more with Western mentalities offering reassurance of much needed Western support. ...
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... Another important aspect is the collaboration between the state and civil society. Much official communication is outsourced to creative agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including the wartime nation branding campaign 'Brave' , developed by the advertising agency Banda (Kaneva 2022). According to one interviewee from such an NGO, this is a two-way collaboration: sometimes NGOs approach state institutions with a project idea, and sometimes vice versa. ...
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... Concerns about national images remained during the Covid-19 pandemic, with governments engaging in 'vaccine diplomacy' to boost their overseas reputations (Lee, 2021), as well as promotional campaigns targeting foreign audiences during lockdowns (Kaneva, 2023). Moreover, 2 months after the beginning of Russia's invasion, Ukraine launched a nation branding initiative focussed on bravery, with the same consultants previously hired to do nation promotion put in charge of communicating the Ukrainian perspective of the war (Bolin & Ståhlberg, 2022;Kaneva, 2022). ...
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