It’s irresistibly funny to appoint somebody to improve your national image and then see the appointment turn into a national image issue in no time. That’s precisely what has happened in Poland. On 29 July, when Prime Minister Donald Tusk appointed Barbara Mróz-Gorgoń, a professor of marketing, as the government’s new plenipotentiary for promoting the Polish brand, everybody thought that the position was a step towards defining Poland’s national identity.
Imagine an official Cabinet Office report on British society claiming that nearly all the teenagers in Leeds are fluent in French
Then someone read one of her reports.
The Poles’ Self-Portrait, published last year by a think tank chaired by Mróz-Gorgoń, was supposed to uncover some interesting facts about the national character. In reality, it revealed the potential dangers of letting PowerPoint, AI, and the language of marketing spend too much time on their own. There were some geographical blunders, unclear statistics, and passages that somehow seemed acquainted with neither Polish nor English. We learned that 95 per cent of young Poles speak fluent English. This is quite impressive, but it would also mean that Poland could be considered the most linguistically accomplished country in Europe.
To get a feel of how ridiculous that report is, imagine an official Cabinet Office report on British society claiming that nearly all the teenagers in Leeds are fluent in French and quite a few of them speak some Cantonese. Although this is quite an ambitious idea, nobody would use it as a basis for government policy. The report immediately became a sensation on social media, which is rarely a good sign. AI, of course, entered the story. AI had indeed been used in the process, according to Mróz-Gorgoń, for tasks such as transcription, summarising, and editing.
What she overlooked here was the funniest part of the story. What matters isn’t whether the document was written by a professor, ChatGPT or a coffee maker. It’s whether anyone read it before publication. Every academic will recognise this danger in a report. Reports are strange animals: commissioned at great expense, discussed at conferences, printed on expensive paper, and put in places where nobody will ever find them again. Usually, they spend years in this environment. This report had the terrible misfortune of acquiring readers.
In no time, the opposition demanded investigations, ministries clarified the details of publicly funded projects, and Poland enjoyed another scandal in which everyone turned into an expert in procurement, academic methodology and footnotes by breakfast time. Mróz-Gorgoń resigned on 21 August, just 23 days after accepting the job. The personal abuse aimed at her has been inappropriate. But beneath the farce lies a very Polish fear. For years we have been trying to define our ‘national brand’, as if Poland were some sort of unsuccessful breakfast cereal in need of repackaging.
Successive Polish governments commission experts. Consultants reveal our ‘DNA’. Workshops identify ‘core values’. Someone puts down ‘dynamic’, ‘resilient’ and ‘creative’ on a flip chart. Eventually, a logo appears. Then comes an election, and the process starts anew. I’ve always been confused by this obsession, as Poland has managed to create a rather good brand over the past 35 years, without much help from branding specialists.
Poland managed to develop from a bankrupt communist economy into one of the most successful economies in Europe. Warsaw has become a rich, dynamic, and increasingly international city. Poland has become a key player in Nato, a country investing seriously in its defence and impossible to overlook in European politics. Our businesses operate abroad; millions of people visit Poland; hundreds of thousands have chosen to live here. This is usually how national brands are created.
Britain didn’t become globally recognisable because some committee decided that its brand values were ‘heritage, creativity and resilience’. It had Shakespeare, James Bond, the Beatles, Oxford, the Premier League, the royal family, and even the occasional invasion of somebody else’s country. France has its wine, fashion, and the conviction that civilisation ends somewhere near Calais. We have our pierogi, Chopin, Solidarity, excellent vodka, increasingly good trains and a national tendency to treat every achievement as insufficient. This last one might be our true national brand.
The irony is that Poland’s international image has never been as strong as it is today. The more success we manage to achieve, the more anxious we are to ask consultants how to present ourselves. A national reputation isn’t created by using the right adjective. It is created by doing things that other countries notice.
The 1979 Polish exhibition The Poles’ Self-Portrait ended with a mirror, inviting visitors to become part of the self-portrait. Perhaps the next government-appointed expert responsible for defining Poland should start there.
And, before publishing the findings, ask someone to proofread them.
Comments