Interbrand

The enRoute article I described yesterday mentions the worldwide marketing firm Interbrand, the portfolio of which contains branding efforts of several places, including Guatemala, the city of Johannesburg, and the Canadian province of Manitoba. (The Manitoba branding effort has a separate website: www.brandmanitoba.ca) The links describe the kinds of things at stake in these efforts as well as the process that lead to the new images and vision.

I would include American examples of this kind of large-scale re-branding of place, if there were any that I knew of. It seems as though place marketing in this country is slanted much more toward tourism and convention bureau materials, and not toward the wholescale invention of a collective identity that these projects describe. Maybe American places don't need it. Or, maybe we just don't think that they do. (Searching "Place Branding" and "America" on Google turns up a handful of things related to the academic journal by the same name, and then some articles worrying about how W is tarnishing/remaking our image to the rest of the world.)

Comments

[Blake]

Hi Chris, welcome back, I missed your blog. The only branding that I can think of in the U.S. has to do with city slogans. Philadelphia's old slogan was "The City of Brotherly Love" but then they changed it to "The City that Loves You Back." I wonder why? Do you know?

[so-fo mo-fo]

Pgh was America's Most Livable City for a while there in the late 80s/early 90s. In a similar vein, Glasgow was the 199? City of Art and Architecture, and had the slogan "Glasgow'S'Miles Better!" which referred to it being more friendly (smiles, get it?) and miles better than a) Edinburgh and b) it was in the 70s and 80s when the industry fell apart and it got really slummy.

[Sonia]

It may LOOK like Interbrand is helping places revamp their identity, but maybe they're not. Maybe Interbrand is just better at convincing the audience (you and me) that its clients (Manitoba, Guatemala, Johannesburg) are really changing? Maybe this is just a really effective tourism-and-convention-bureau image campaign?

Having looked at Interbrand's website, I'm skeptical that what they are doing in Guatemala and Johannesburg is really a "wholescale invention of a collective identity". Having been to Guatemala and knowing that less than half the population reads the newspaper regularly, it seems unlikely that the country's re-branding will extend past tourism brochures. Interbrand confidently states,
"A key concern raised in our international research was that of potential insecurity. Shortly after our first presentation, a tourism police force was established to ensure security."
There must have been a misunderstanding, because there has been a tourism police force in Guatemala since at least 2000--and unfortunately, it does little to ensure security. Internally, Guatemala hasn't changed one bit. Externally, however, they may have a better marketing campaign.

Shameless self-promotion and loud place-based campaigns CAN lead to change from within--I just don't think Interbrand is doing it.

[chris]

Hmm. Sonia, (as always) you make a good point.

We're the ones who are the audience; we're the targets of the campaign. It isn't as much (or at all) about Guatemalans changing perceptions about themselves as it is about us changing our perceptions of Guatemala. It's for the global audience--for those of us with access to information.

I'm still hopeful, though, that a process like Interbrand's (whether good or bad) in re-identifying cities and countries could lead to deeper questioning about who people are and what a nation is. Once we've been presented with Brand Guatemala, then what? Maybe commodification of such a thing would inspire people to dig deeper, to know more. At least, that's my hope: I feel like there's something in human nature that inspires us to want to transcend simple definition.