Comparing the Brand Value of Countries

Branding in international relations is no longer an added value, but a necessity. Countries that are trying to become globally recognizable and that are constantly developing their brand understand this very well. There is no single answer to the question of how strong a country is as a brand. That’s why tourists, consumers, the media and the public in general take different indexes of brand countries as relevant indicators. Regardless of the difference in their methodology, the best-known global indexes, included in this work, point to the importance of managing countries as brands and the influence of image on economic, political and other successes in the international market, which ultimately speaks to the importance of high positions on the indexes that enable the countries’ global media promotion. The aim of this paper is to present and clarify the methodology of the global index of brand countries, but with a special emphasis on Croatia as a brand. The authors analyze how the methodologies were set in