From what I can tell, these are actually from 2005, but talk about a place embracing its true nature, shortcomings and all, and then selling the hell out of it as a differentiator:
- Found via Brand Arcade
Archive for the ‘Branding’ Category
Tourism ads from Wales turn shortcomings into selling features
Monday, June 21st, 201010 Place Branding Logos: Hits and Misses
Friday, April 16th, 2010Over the years, we have reviewed many approaches to branding places – from tourism to economic development logos, from small cities to entire nations. Some got it right, and some got it horribly, horribly wrong. We’ve captured our most popular reviews in this post for your enjoyment and inspiration. Read on to see what we thought about these place branding winners and losers:
THE WINNERS
First up: Kirkland, WA.
Here’s an example of a community that really gets destination branding. Kirkland, WA is a town on the shores of Lake Washington that has embraced and nurtured a strong artistic community. This is evidenced by its many galleries, events and a thriving public arts program. It has also embraced its proximity to the water, designing the town around walking trails that facilitate shopping and dining by the lake. So when it came time to launch its new look, Kirkland identified and married these two elements of their community in a well-executed identity… Read the whole review.
Our next example of place branding done right: Copenhagen.
A very nice new visual identity out of Copenhagen that was posted over at Brand New. It’s logo design done right under the constraint of having to serve many masters: attract tourism, attract business, create civic pride, promote sporting events… a challenge certainly not unfamiliar to economic development professionals… Read the whole review.
One of my personal favorites: The U.S. Virgin Islands
The figure is a “Mocko Jumbie” – a traditional stiltwalker that represents the culture of the USVI. The three stars represent each Island. It is striking as a shape when it is in one colour and the individual applications for each island balance a unified look and feel with some individuality. It feels tropical, culture-rich and laid-back. Very well done. Read the whole review.
Belfast:
Belfast has unveiled a new logo and set of taglines to brand itself as a safe, welcoming and enterprising place to be. Although the heart has been done before (think I love New York), it also works as the letter “B”, and a variety of taglines and colours gives different groups flexibility when using the new brand, similar to the approach taken by the City of Summerside, PEI. You can read more about it over at Brand New.
And finally, Alberta:
Alberta has unveiled a strong new identity to the world. The branding initiative will cost $25 million over three years, and it is a bold undertaking indeed… Read the whole review.
THE LOSERS
Philadelphia failed to ring our bell:
Creating an identity for an entire city or region is a tough undertaking. You are trying to please many different stakeholders. You’re trying to communicate many different messages, but with limited real estate to do so. And you are creating something that is sure to be scrutinized very closely by many, because they have a stake in their city’s brand, and often some concern about how much public money is being spent on marketing activities. With all these challenges, it is very tempting to do something safe and easy, which is exactly the trap that Philadelphia fell into. In fact, this new logo serves up a lot of place branding “don’ts” in a single creative execution… Read the whole review.
Brisbane has a good concept, but poor execution:
I don’t love this tagline, but I do think it was smart to put “Australia” right in the tag, as it shows an awareness of the need to market globally and not everyone knows which Brisbane is being referred to here without it. Read the whole review.
Alberta gets caught in a major blunder:
Although it made our winners list, Alberta deserves a mention here as well for getting caught in an embarrassing situation involving one of its promotional videos. From our blog post:
After coming our swinging with a $25 million campaign slated to roll out over the next three years, Alberta finds itself dealing with some unfortunate negative publicity. Today’s Globe and Mail ran a story about Alberta being caught red-handed using stock photography in a promotional video. Read the full review here.
YOU BE THE JUDGE
Melbourne, Australia:
Melbourne gets mixed reviews, with a thumbs-up on the colourful approach and a thumbs-down on the PR surrounding the launch and the single-colour verison of the logo. Read the whole review.
Raleigh seems confused…
What do you think? Does the logo trip over its own attempt to be all things to all people? Read the review here.
Egypt gets it right… and wrong:
Beautiful logo, but tough to read. Points for the tagline though: In Egypt’s case, this generic tagline is actually quite meaningful. See the review here.
So there you have it: Our place branding hits and misses. We’d love to hear yours. Post your thoughts in the comments.
New Egypt identity: Pretty, but tough to read
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010Egypt unveiled a new look and tagline for tourism, and while the result is quite beautiful and fluid, I find the actual country name quite difficult to read. The old and new offerings are shown below:
The campaign attempts to show a more diverse tourism experience, and does a good job of balancing the history, the pyramids etc. with more general tourist activities like dining and sunbathing.
In most instances, “where it all begins” would be too generic as a tagline, but in the case of Egypt, it fits. There is certainly room for improvement with this effort, but overall it is a definite step forward from the country’s previous tourism branding.
Found via Brand New.
PEI’s Health IT Campaign hits the HIMSS conference in Atlanta
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010The brick is back…
The province of Prince Edward Island and the City of Summerside are in Atlanta this week for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Annual Conference. That’s our client Mike Thususka, Director of Economic Development for the City of Summerside, in the picture below standing next to the latest addition to the “Health IT Brick Campaign” collateral. So far, Mike reports that he continues to get great feedback about the campaign and it’s opening doors at this year’s conference with the same momentum it did in 2009. Click here for the backstory.
PEI was ranked 4th worldwide by KPMG for Advanced Software Development. They have been aggressively pursuing new Health IT companies with the “Brick Campaign” to create a world-class cluster in Summerside. You can learn more about the Health IT attraction initiative here.
Destination branding win: Kirkland, WA
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010Here’s an example of a community that really gets destination branding.
Kirkland, WA is a town on the shores of Lake Washington that has embraced and nurtured a strong artistic community. This is evidenced by its many galleries, events and a thriving public arts program. It has also embraced its proximity to the water, designing the town around walking trails that facilitate shopping and dining by the lake. So when it came time to launch its new look, Kirkland identified and married these two elements of their community in a well-executed identity:
The palette, the type, the tagline… they all work together to make a statement about Kirkland that commits. It tells people about the community’s relationship with the water. It puts its belief in the arts front and centre.
The posters below are “artwork” themselves, and use typography to extend the brand and describe further what Kirkland is all about: “art”, “music”, “shopping”, “Lake Washington”. Simple, specific and powerful. A job very well done. Looking forward to see the full execution of the campaign.
.jpg "Kirkland Work1 (3)")
Found via North Star Destination Strategies.
Why you shouldn’t hire a local marketing agency…
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010Many economic developers feel strongly that they should use local talent for their marketing efforts. This belief is often echoed by senior management, council and the business community.
At first glance, it makes sense: use a firm that lives and works here already and benefit from the expertise of someone who understands our city. But what if hiring someone who lives in, works in and knows your city is actually a bad thing when it comes to marketing it?
I just read a great post by Dave Trott that got me thinking about ignorance and why it’s important to marketing. Trott recounts the first time he and his grandmother encountered bags of tea, having used only loose tea before. They couldn’t figure out why people would wrap tea in tiny packages. Assuming it must be pre-measured into spoonfuls, Granny would cut the bags open and dump the tea into the pot to steep. Trott writes:
How can anyone not know what a teabag is?
But that’s humans.
We can’t believe the world isn’t exactly the same way for everyone else, as it is for us.
But the truth is, you only know what you know.
Until anyone tells you about something, it doesn’t even exist as a possibility.
After you find out about it, the possibility of anyone not knowing doesn’t exist.
And then you can’t go back.
Trott goes on to say that this is why it’s critical to capture everything you can from your initial ignorance if you are going to successfully market to your audience. In the case of place marketing, only an outsider can see your city through this critical lens. The more marketing agency starts to become a part of your city – with its challenges, its opportunities and its attitudes – the less they are able to maintain their initial ignorance.
As soon as we started to find things out, we moved away from the consumer’s state of knowledge.
And towards the client’s state of knowledge.
And the more we do that, the less use we are to them.
Clients don’t need someone who knows everything they know.
They need someone who knows what they don’t know.
It’s a pretty compelling argument for considering that an outside perspective might be just what your community needs to sell itself.
You can read the whole thing here.
That purple mohawk looks good on you.
Thursday, December 17th, 2009If the person in front of you was suddenly replaced by somebody completely different, would you notice? Well, in the case of this experiment on change blindness, 75% of participants failed to notice the switch. See for yourself:
So if we don’t even notice when one person suddenly turns into someone else, why are we so confident someone is going to notice our ads?
This little glimpse into human perception and behavior gives us all the more reason to make the investment in something that stands out. If Guy #2 had purple hair, I bet the 75% who failed to notice would have dropped to almost zero.
The lesson for marketing? Don’t settle for safe, average advertising. Instead, take a few risks and embrace the advertising equivalent of a purple mohawk. It’s the only way to get noticed.
Via Boing Boing.
Place branding: 5 ways to get it right
Monday, December 14th, 20091. Be different from your competitors
Many economic development organizations fail to think about the competition when thinking about branding their communities. This is a tenet of traditional product branding that place marketers would be wise to observe. You must recognize that site selectors, businesses and workers are not looking at your city in isolation. It is one choice in a sea of options, and the only way to stand out is to think not just about what your city has to offer, but to think about what your city offers that is different.
As the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) points out:
“Technically, your community may have the same strengths and assets as a number of others. The key is finding a differentiator in the mind of the client, and understanding site selection criteria so you can turn features such as transportation or education into distinct advantages.”
Don’t be afraid to take a stand and commit to what makes you different. Many people shy away from this approach for fear of losing some of their potential audience, but the result of trying to be all things to all people is usually a “bland brand” that resonates with no one. Build your brand message around your competitive advantage.
2. Tell the truth
The Saffron Group – a British consultancy – recently released a study that compared the brand strength of European cities. The study looked at both the assets the city had to offer (e.g. culture, amenities etc.) as well as the current image of the city. In many cases, cities had assets that they were not leveraging, resulting in an image that was weaker than what the city had to offer in reality.
But in some cases, the opposite was true.
Cities did a great job of selling an image that embellished (or worse) what the city offered in reality. This resulted in a city whose image was stronger than its actual assets. In short, these cities fail to live up to their own hype.
A sustainable economic development communications strategy requires the reality lives up to the perception. Identify your current assets, match them to an audience that values those assets and fill the gaps you need to attract sectors targeted in your economic development strategy. If you build it they will come. If you already have it, they will come for that too. But if you are dishonest about it, they will come, see for themselves… and then they will promptly leave.
3. Get stakeholders excited about what really matters
Too often we see stakeholders being poorly utilized in the branding process. It’s not uncommon to find a group of community leaders huddled around a conference table debating the merits of a red versus blue logo, rather than engaging with an overall strategy and vision. Get your stakeholders excited about what is really driving the branding exercise in the first place. This will garner lasting engagement that can be counted on well after the launch of the brand.
Australia’s Brisbane logo grows up?
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009The logo on the left was designed in 2003, and was not so affectionately referred to as “the blob”. Fast forward to 2009, and it looks like Brisbane is taking a less controversial approach, with a new look and tagline:
Christian Palino sums it up best in his review over at Brand New:
If the marketing blob was as outspoken and playful as youth, the new identity is soft-spoken and more grown up. Grown up much in the way the modifier “it’s happening” has buttoned up into the tagline “Australia’s new world city”. This is a maturity from an adolescent marketing identity into destination adulthood, and while this brand can now sit quietly in a room with other similar, adult brands without saying too much, the conversation might be kind of dull.
I don’t love this tagline either, but I do think it was smart to put “Australia” right in the tag, as it shows an awareness of the need to market globally and not everyone knows which Brisbane is being referred to here without it. I quite like the write-up behind the tagline, found in their brand tools:
Brisbane. Positive and forward thinking, generous and optimistic.
We lead the world in infrastructure, health, biotechnology and education and our subtropical climate and sunny disposition is ideal for nurturing and inspiring creativity.
Brisbane is clean, green, friendly, tolerant and multicultural, creative, collaborative and liveable. It’s this openminded and globally responsible attitude that enables us to maintain a balance between progress and sustainability.
Welcome to Brisbane, Australia’s new world city.
It just falls short on the execution, as “new world” is too nebulous a term to be meaningful. You can read the full story over at Brand New here.