By Adriana Acosta, Country Brand Director, essential COSTA RICA

A nation brand becomes truly meaningful when people feel it belongs to them. Our licensing system is the mechanism that makes this possible – it is how Costa Rica translates its values into collective action and turns identity into a shared national project.

Through our nation brand, essential COSTA RICA, we have designed a governance model that turns identity into action and shared ownership into a collective process.

More than a campaign or a visual asset, the nation brand serves as a tool for connection and shared responsibility – one capable of engaging the private sector, civil society, and the country’s creative talent in a unified mission: building Costa Rica’s reputation through coherence and participation.

The essential COSTA RICA licensing model has become the technical and social backbone of this strategy, functioning as a framework that brings national values – excellence, innovation, sustainability, social progress, and Costa Rican pride – into multiple spheres of national life. And 2025 marks an important milestone for the initiative, as we have launched a simplified and full digitised update to our nation brand licensing programme. This new digital model was intentionally designed not only to guide companies through the process, but also to help them identify opportunities for improvement and to adopt higher operational and ethical standards.

Translating a licensing programme into real-world action

The model is rooted in a core principle: a nation brand can only be credible internationally if it is meaningful to its own citizens first. Under this logic, the licensing system does not seek only to position Costa Rica abroad, but to foster a sense of belonging at home. Citizen engagement is not the outcome – it is the foundation of the process.

Licensed companies and products represent the first layer of participation and the heart of the programme. They bring national values into business management, product innovation, responsible production, and operational excellence. Their practices reinforce international trust while also strengthening domestic perceptions, demonstrating that competitiveness and social–environmental wellbeing can advance together.

In the case of events, the nation brand comes to life as a collective experience open to all. From community festivals to international forums, every event using the essential COSTA RICA logo becomes a space where national values are lived and shared.

Between January and September 2025, more than 135 events across the country were licensed under the nation brand, illustrating how communities and organisations are embracing essential COSTA RICA as a way to express their commitment to the values that define the nation.

On the human side, brand ambassadors and special projects give the nation brand its most authentic voice. Artists, scientists, chefs, athletes, and social leaders act as natural storytellers of Costa Rica – not because the role is assigned to them, but because they demonstrate the values they represent. Each cultural, audiovisual, artistic, or scientific project affiliated with the nation brand amplifies the country’s voice through its people. In them, national identity ceases to be an abstract idea and becomes a lived, shared, and enduring narrative.

Learnings from Costa Rica’s implementation of a nation brand licensing programme

It’s essential that a nation brand licensing programme remains dynamic. Expectations, global priorities, and business realities evolve – whether due to emerging sustainability standards, advances in digital transformation, or moment of disruption such as the pandemic – which make resilience and adaptability essential.

Credibility and neutrality in the evaluation process is also essential. To strengthen trust, we had the model certified in 2021 by the Costa Rican Accreditation Body. This accreditation guarantees that our evaluation framework remains impartial, technically rigorous, and aligned with global standards – a factor that has significantly reinforced legitimacy and confidence among participating companies.

Along the way, we’ve learned the importance of staying close to your stakeholders – in our case, the companies that represent the nation brand. Building ongoing listening mechanisms such as feedback sessions and regular programme reviews allows us to ensure that the benefits to being a licensee remain relevant, valuable, and aligned with business needs.

Another challenge we’ve experience is ensuring companies fully recognise that one of the greatest benefits of being licensed under the programme is the reputational value it provides. The certification enhances credibility, reinforces trust, and strengthens their positioning in both domestic and international markets. But we need to clearly articulate this value and demonstrate it through success stories, brand visibility, and real evidence of impact.

Driving nation branding with collective action

Ultimately, place branding thrives when those who carry the brand feel heard, supported and proud to belong. And when the value of the brand is tangible, aspirational, and aligned with their long-term strategy.

This structured participation approach has allowed the nation brand to evolve into an exercise of collaborative governance. Each license expands the network of actors responsible for advancing Costa Rica’s reputation, creating a distributed trust model that transcends public and private sectors. Instead of relying solely on institutional messaging, essential COSTA RICA has established a system where credibility is built collectively, through action and evidence. The result is an engaged citizenry that recognises itself in the brand – and sees it as its own.

Our model demonstrates that a nation brand can serve as a modern, participatory governance tool. In a global environment where coherence and authenticity define credibility, Costa Rica offers a compelling insight: reputation is not communicated – it is built; and identity, more than a narrative, is a collective act.
Its nation brand does not belong to an institution. It belongs to its people. And it is precisely that sense of ownership that positions Costa Rica as an international reference for how citizen engagement can transform the way a country represents itself to the world.