The Creative Aspect of Country Branding - How Music Is Able to Influence the Country Image in Case of Hungary

“Music is a fundamental channel of communication: through music people can share emotions, intentions and thoughts even though their spoken languages may be mutually incomprehensible.” (Hargreaves – Miell – McDonald, 2002) It can be a supporting baseline, which helps people and skilled composers to find their way to express their deep and profound emotional life and imagination.

In fact, music is present in our lives everywhere playing a greater part than ever before. The rapid technological development made it possible to listen to music every time and everywhere through the commercialization and economic power of music.

But how is music connected to country branding and nation image? The answer is quite simple: music can be a source of a wide range of associations. When we listen to a song featuring a country’s original characteristics, the nation itself pops into our mind with all of its typical symbols, inhabitants – briefly the image of a country.

The key question in my paper is how music is able to influence the country image. The main objective of this paper is to uncover the linkage between music and country image and to draw a model based on Anholt-hexagon (2003) that can be used by practitioners as well. The paper’s novelty lies in the synthesis of theoretical approaches, which were not applied and connected to each other before according to secondary research. Nevertheless, the topic’s nature requires several examples from practical life as well: international and Hungarian case studies, moreover primary research were applied.