Samenvatting

Greece has been facing serious image problems since the start of the economic crisis a few years ago, particularly relating to issues of untrustworthiness and corruption. It is a matter that has affected the country in many ways and the improvement of the image would lead to major benefits, especially economic and political ones. It is this crisis-related image this research choses to focus on, and particularly on whether the resulting negative attitudes towards Greece among European citizens could be altered with a gamified approach. An extensive literature review helps define the main concepts involved and provides a deep understanding of the two as well as all the details surrounding them. This knowledge is then used in the analysis to create links between country branding and gamification to see whether and how they could tie in together. Further conclusions are drawn with the support of case studies and interviews with eight experts from the field of gamification. The overall conclusions from all three research methods are separated into opportunities and risks, as well as further considerations. It is important to stress that the conclusions are theoretical, as this research is of an exploratory and abstract nature and contains no implementation details. Some of the key takeaways are that gamification can change attitudes and a gamified approach in country branding could grab the audience’s attention, engage them successfully if well-designed and create a more empathetic and positive attitude towards a place. Some of the risks involved are creating an incoherent image by focusing on one aspect of the image, losing political credibility by using a gamified approach and not succeeding in engaging audiences with a negative attitude towards the country due to their negative predisposition. Since the opportunities seem to outweigh the risks, the final recommendation is that Greece should use a gamified approach in its new branding endeavour to improve Europeans’ attitudes towards the country. A strong social character in this effort, as well as story-telling elements and humour are likely to create empathy, which would significantly bring the country closer to its objective