Strong brand
The name „Amber Road” has a good brand in the Czech Republic. Almost every Czech knows (and is proud of the fact) that a historical trade route, connecting the Baltic coast with Southern Europe, passed through their country in the past. When asked for details, the average Czech will say that amber is fossilised resin with a pleasant, „amber” colour – like that of the popular Staropramen Granat beer. And the Amber Road itself was one of the most important European trade routes and contributed to the development of medieval Czech towns and castles, making them worth visiting today. This is where news about the Amber Road ends – our southern neighbours are not very interested in details about amber itself, its extraction and properties, nor in historical information about the route – and yet the „Amber Road” brand is very strong in Czech society.
This can be seen, for example, by analysing the Czech-language internet, which is full of blogs whose authors describe their Amber Route excursions. As each of them claims at the outset, they were inspired by the vision of medieval merchants, travelling their caravans through the lands of present-day Czechia, stopping for the night in roadside inns, and seeking refuge from bandits in numerous castles. Importantly, such excursions organised in the spirit of the Amber Route, although popular, are usually limited to the country's territory or its immediate vicinity (e.g., from Prague to Wrocław, from Vienna through Moravia to Krakow). It may sound paradoxical, but the phrase „Amber Route” is associated by the average Czech with their country, but not at all with Kalisz, Wieluń, Toruń or Gdańsk. Amber itself is mentioned in a single word, and if anyone talks about the beginning and end of the route, the names Kaliningrad and Sambia on one side, and Vienna and Carnuntum (a Roman metropolis in Austria near Bratislava) on the other, are most often mentioned.
We are therefore dealing with an interesting marketing phenomenon: in the Czech Republic, the term „Amber Road” is perhaps even more recognisable than in Poland, but it is completely detached from its source (amber as such) and confined solely to the area of the Czech Republic. Also characteristic is the belief of Czech bloggers about the uniqueness of their country in the context of the Amber Road. On many blogs, one can find descriptions of the route itself, which give the impression of being professional, but on the other hand, they slightly distort reality: their authors do not mention the eastern variants of the route (which run not through the Czech Republic, but through Slovakia) and attribute amber-making traditions almost exclusively to Sambia and limit them to medieval times.
Direction – east
The authors of the „Moravian Amber Trail” project, implemented with EU funds by the municipalities of the Zlín Region in Moravia, based their work on this marketing reality. The origin of this project's name is interesting: its authors wanted to promote Moravia as a tourist destination. While Moravia is an interesting place to spend a holiday, it is not recognised abroad. Moravia lacks a single dominant feature – for example, a famous city, mountain range, castle, or national park. Each of these individual attractions (e.g., the city of Brno, Kroměříž Castle, the Oderské Mountains) is too weak a draw to build a regional brand around. For this reason, Moravia is not well-suited for spending, for instance, a week's holiday in one place; instead, it is better to take a touring trip and stay in different locations. Taking all of this into account, the authors of Moravia's promotional strategy concluded that the slogan promoting the region must, on the one hand, be neutral (not favouring any particular sub-region) and, on the other hand, should suggest travel, traversing these lands far and wide. This criterion is met by the slogan „Moravian Amber Trail,” which in Czech is „Moravska jantarova stezka.”.
According to Jindřich Ondruš, a local government official from Zlín and one of the project's co-authors, the „Moravian Amber Trail” is primarily aimed at tourists from Russia, and secondarily at other Eastern markets: Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and Slovakia (it is worth noting here that for Czechs, Poland and Slovakia are also considered „East”). „It all started with the idea of developing Zlín's contacts with the Russian market, which is very promising. According to the analyses we commissioned, the neighbouring countries” markets have similar potential and character. Therefore, we included Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states in our strategy and, coincidentally, attached our neighbours, Poles and Slovaks,„ says Ondruš. According to Ondruš, the name “Amber Trail" automatically evokes associations with the Amber Room, and thus fits well into the strategy of conquering Eastern markets – especially Russia.
Between Vienna and Krakow
The Moravian Amber Trail is conceived as a kind of tourist „filler” between Vienna and Krakow – cities whose popularity is intended to attract tourists also to Moravia, situated between them. It is precisely these two cities that are featured in promotional materials as the beginning and end of the Moravian Amber Trail. The same concept has been adopted by the creators of the cycling path connecting Vienna and Krakow, who, independently of the project being implemented by the local government of the city and the Zlin region, have also named this route the „Amber Trail”.
On the project website – http://www.amber-trail.cz – you can read that Moravia is an ideal starting point for trips to nearby famous tourist cities: Prague, Krakow, Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest. Therefore, we are not only connecting to the recognisable amber brand but also to famous Habsburg cities, which are a considerable attraction for tourists from the East.
Importantly, on the project's aforementioned website, one cannot find information about amber itself, its extraction, or even less so about the attractions of Pomerania and Sambia, without which the „amber route” brand would theoretically make no sense. The authors limit themselves to a laconic statement that amber is a valuable fossil resin, which in antiquity and the Middle Ages was transported from the vicinity of present-day Kaliningrad, through the territory of Moravia, to Southern Europe. From such a description, the average Czech may conclude that amber was only extracted in the area of present-day Russia and that this extraction ceased long ago. Because there is a quite strong association with the Russian Amber Room in Czech consciousness, this overshadows the fact that amber traditions have not died out, and are present not only in Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg, but also in Gdańsk and its surroundings. To this description, it should be added that Czechs are not very interested in Poland and know much less about our country than we know about the Czech Republic, hence the superficiality of the „amber route” project and the creation of the impression that it ends just beyond the Czech borders, in Habsburg (and therefore in a way „their own,” known from the travels of Švejk) Kraków.
Taking all this into account, consideration should be given as to whether projects implemented in the Czech Republic strengthen the brand of Pomeranian amber craftsmanship, or perhaps simplify and dilute it. It certainly wouldn't hurt to give lectures on amber or present products made from this stone in Moravian castles (but also in Slovakian and Austrian ones). Without such activities, the Moravian Amber Road may become merely a marketing ploy that disregards, and often even distorts and appropriates, the amber traditions it invokes.