The paper is concerned with national brands as an example of soft economic factors influencing the international competitiveness of economies. National brands play an important role among these factors, the author says. Strong national brands help raise the country’s profile internationally and help attract foreign direct investment, stimulate tourism and increase exports. The article attempts to show that national brands positively impact international competitiveness. To this end, a descriptive model is used as a tool for examining the essence and nature of this relationship. The analyzed relationship was quantified with the use of Spearman’s rank correlation test using league tables of competitiveness and national brands as empirical material. The research shows that there is a statistical correlation between the level of macro-competitiveness and the strength of national brands, which the author says should encourage governments to invest in national brands as an indirect method of increasing the international competitiveness of their countries.