However, the change in Germany’s image should prove durable. That is because Germany’s image before the World Cup was in some ways 60 years out of date. As Sonntag says, since the event Germans are no longer seen as “xenophobic neo-Nazis”. The new image should stick precisely because it is obviously true. By contrast, France in 1998 had not suddenly become a colour-blind paradise. Perhaps the German World Cup is best understood as a global party of reconciliation for the second world war, which is why it had to end in Berlin.
This suggests that future hosts of big events cannot emulate Germany’s transformation. But talking to South African officials, who are preparing to host the World Cup in 2010, I found they did expect to emulate it. They hope it will change South Africa’s image as a crime-ridden country with poverty and disease. The problem is that that image is correct.
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The World Cup has never done more for its hosts
By Simon Kuper
Published: June 8 2007 17:49 | Last updated: June 8 2007 17:49
One day during last year’s football World Cup, I found the street where I used to live in Berlin. In my memory, it was a dull-brown place where nobody ever spoke to anyone. Coming back 15 years later, it took me a while to be sure it was the same street. Flags were flying on every house – German flags made in China, but also flags of many other nations – and children were playing everywhere even though Germans had supposedly stopped having them. The World Cup seemed to have made the country happy.
Now, a year to the day after one of the biggest media events in history began, there seems to be lots of evidence to show this was true. Possibly no World Cup ever did more for its hosts. Here are three effects the tournament had on Germany.
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A possible effect: more babies. This has been overhyped, but it does seem the World Cup inspired Germans to have kids – an astonishing feat given that last year their birth-rate hit its lowest point since the second world war. The average German woman had just 1.36 children.
But last summer something happened. In Berlin, for instance, 20 per cent more babies were born in March 2007 than in March 2006. It’s hard to disentangle the effects of nights of celebration from Germany’s economic recovery or the incentives being paid to new parents.
Admittedly the birth rate had begun soaring even before March. Most experts say the new fertility has nothing to do with the World Cup. Perhaps even the parents aren’t sure.
A tiny effect: Germany’s economy received a small boost. A team led by Holger Preuss, professor of sport economy at the University of Mainz, surveyed 9,456 visitors to the World Cup about their spending. It concluded that visitor income boosted German gross domestic product last year by €3.2bn. That equals just 0.13 per cent of GDP, less than the German state spent preparing for the event. Remarkably, more than a third of visitor income came from people who never got inside a stadium but merely watched the games on giant screens in public places.
A massive effect: Germany’s brand improved, probably for the long term. The German foreign ministry has put together a triumphant slide-show to demonstrate this. In January 2006, the Anholt GMI Nation Brands index ranked Germany sixth out of 35 countries. In September, just after the World Cup, the same index ranked Germany joint top with the UK. The 25,900 consumers polled in the 35 countries had among other things raised Germany’s ratings for its “people”, “culture” and “tourism”.
Also in September 2006, the German Marshall Fund surveyed people around the world and found that they rated Germany second out of 12 countries mentioned. Only Spain scored higher.
But even more significant than Germany’s improved image among foreigners is its improved image among Germans. In the Pew Global Attitudes survey of June 2006, at the start of the World Cup, people around the world were asked for their opinions of several countries, including their own. Almost invariably, they rated their own countries much higher than foreigners did. In the cases of China and the US, this gap was very large. It was only one country about which foreigners were more positive than the inhabitants themselves: Germany in 2005. Judging by last summer’s unprecedented show of flags, the World Cup made Germans like themselves more.
But is the new brand durable? Sebastian Turner, the advertising man who ran Germany’s image campaign for the World Cup, told me before the tournament that the campaign could only succeed if it lasted for years. Nothing changes more slowly than images of nations, he said. Albrecht Sonntag, a German sociologist at the Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Commerciales at Angers in France, cautions that Germany’s new brand might be a “midsummer night’s dream” that fades, leaving nothing behind. The same thing happened to France when it hosted and won the World Cup in 1998, Sonntag notes. The multicoloured French team had seemed to represent a multicoloured France at ease with itself. Even before the multicoloured suburbs rioted in 2005, almost nothing was left of that image.
However, the change in Germany’s image should prove durable. That is because Germany’s image before the World Cup was in some ways 60 years out of date. As Sonntag says, since the event Germans are no longer seen as “xenophobic neo-Nazis”. The new image should stick precisely because it is obviously true. By contrast, France in 1998 had not suddenly become a colour-blind paradise. Perhaps the German World Cup is best understood as a global party of reconciliation for the second world war, which is why it had to end in Berlin.
This suggests that future hosts of big events cannot emulate Germany’s transformation. But talking to South African officials, who are preparing to host the World Cup in 2010, I found they did expect to emulate it. They hope it will change South Africa’s image as a crime-ridden country with poverty and disease. The problem is that that image is correct.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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