A recent global study conducted by brand expert and developer of the “National Brand Index” Simon Anholt claims that “the image of Canada [internationally] is almost spookily positive”.

Anholt, who is a British citizen, has developed a global rating system which tallies the image of thirty-five countries based on surveys of nearly 26,000 respondents across the globe. He asserts that Canada’s results were positive in every category except for one: cultural heritage. “Apart from that, everything else was so high you begin to get suspicious,” he quips. “Canada is viewed as a paradise on Earth.” Canada’s overall image ranks third and is behind only the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

The National Brand Index valuates international opinion on six principal areas: exports, governance, investment and immigration, culture and heritage, people and tourism. Canada’s ranked as the number one nation for the image of its people and comes in third for the category of “natural beauty”, behind Australia and New Zealand. Canada also scored top marks in areas such as human rights, fair government and immigration.

When respondents were asked to participate in a game of word association, the most common words mentioned were: trustworthy, honest, modern, competent and hard-working. When asked which cultural products and services are most often associated with Canada, the top six responses were: sports (22.2%), films (18.2%), museums (17.1%), pop videos (16.3%), classical sculpture (8.7%) and the circus (6.5%).

When asked the question “If money were no object, where would you go?” Canada came in third, behind Australia and Italy. “Canada was just a hair’s breadth from fantastic results,” Mr. Anholt said.