Vietnam ranks 47th in Best Countries rankings 2022

Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam ranks 47th out of 195 countries in terms of national brand value, according to a survey by Prof. David Reibstein from the University of Pennsylvania, former President of the American Marketing Association.

The information was announced by Prof. Reibstein on November 11 at the “Marketing Conference Series 2022” with the theme “Place Marketing & Destination Branding toward Sustainability”, which was hosted by the College of Business and Management under the VinUniversity of Vingroup.

The event brought academic partners from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Massachusetts Boston, the US and the University of Hong Kong (HKU).

Prof. Reibstein initiated the Best Countries rankings in 2016. It is made based on how global perceptions define countries in terms of several qualitative characteristics – impressions that have the potential to drive trade, travel and investment and directly affect national economies.

The study and model used to score and rank countries were developed by BAV Group – a unit of global marketing communications company WPP – and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, specifically professor David Reibstein, in consultation with US News & World Report.

Each country was scored on the 73 country attributes based on a collection of individual survey responses. The more a country was perceived to exemplify a certain characteristic about the average, the higher that country's attribute score and vice versa. These scores were normalised to account for outliers and transformed into a scale that could be compared across the board.

Attributes were grouped into ten sub-rankings that rolled into the rankings: Agility, Entrepreneurship, Quality of Life, Movers, Social Purpose, Cultural Influence, Open for Business, Power, Fun, and Heritage.

Grouping country attributes with similar global survey response trends formed these thematic sub-rankings. Then, sub-ranking scores for each country were determined by averaging the country's scores in each of the attributes comprising that sub-ranking.

To determine the weight each subranking score had in the overall Best Countries score, most were correlated to 2021 gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity per capita – a measure of inclusive prosperity comparable across countries – as reported by the World Bank.

Subrankings that demonstrated a stronger relationship with the wealth category were weighted more heavily, and all weights were standardised to a total of 100.

The 2022 survey was collected from 17,000 people worldwide from April 30 to July 13 for 73 criteria. Besides leading national brands such as Switzerland and Germany, Vietnam is ranked 47th with positive indicators: Cultural Influence (54th place), Heritage (31st), Open for Business (29th), Quality of Life (40th), Agility (53rd), Entrepreneurship (40th), Movers (24th), Power (30th), Social Purpose (78th), and Adventure (44th).

Countries that have given positive reviews for Vietnam are New Zealand, Australia and Japan. Compared to other countries in the region, Vietnam is said to have a rich history of culture, delicious and affordable food, a powerful military force, and low production costs.


Almost all the countries rated themselves higher than their actual rankings -Vietnamese rank their own country at 15th.

Reibstein said this means that other people may not understand Vietnam because the country lacks communication skills.

He said there are many opportunities for Vietnam to improve its rankings, noting that the project aims to help citizens and national leaders understand how their country is valued globally.

The branding improvement of a country or a province, a city, or a destination will contribute to promoting tourism, foreign trade, and foreign direct investment attraction, he said, stressing that countries need to pay special attention to fine-tuning their national brand./.