Melbourne’s logo: An expensive coat of paint

This past week saw the unveiling of Melbourne’s new logo. If you missed it here it is:

So let me start by saying that I love my city. Having lived in Sydney before moving to the US for many years, I was happy and excited to move to Melbourne on my return.

Since being back, I love telling my overseas friends about what a great city it is. So on a personal level I was offended by (to use a phrase of a designer I worked with) “the pedestrian design foisted on an unsuspecting public”. So forgive me while I rant for just a bit.

Firstly, we paid $240k! In what world is that justifiable? I know many firms routinely charge that and more for high-profile projects, but I don’t care that it’s high-profile, I don’t care if it required a bit of research and time to put it together (sorely absent in the resulting solution). It’s just a logo and if history serves, it won’t even be around for all that long – seeing as how we seem to feel that when it comes to a logo for the fair city in which I live, longevity of image is optional.

And in an ultimate slap to the town that is widely recognised as being Australia’s design capital – the work was done by an outside international design firm from their base in Sydney (so much for buy local). What, wasn’t there a designer in Melbourne willing and able to come up with a fractal M?

I have to wonder if anyone would even notice if we ditched a logo all together and just simply used the word Melbourne instead…

Okay, so moving on, let me get to what really peeves me about this whole exercise. Despite the posturing of the powers-that-be and others connected with the exercise, this has not changed, nor will change, Melbourne’s brand one iota.

There are many things that go into building a “place brand” and recent surveys and indexes on that topic rank Melbourne quite highly. Granted, we have slipped a bit out of favour of late, however I can say with fair certainty that our logo had NOT ONE THING to do with that happening.

In the 2008 City Brand Index Melbourne was rated #8 in the WORLD. And while we were beaten out locally by Sydney (who were #1) – that’s still not bad in a global context. (The 2008 ranking was down from #6 ranking in 2007 and in the just released list of the 2009 index Melbourne is not in the top 10 at all.)

Here is the list of things that are used to create the index as defined by “Place Brand” expert Simon Anholt on his website – you will see “logo” is conspicuous by its absence:

• Presence: based on the city’s international status and standing and the global familiarity/knowledge of the city. It also measures the city’s global contribution in science, culture and governance.
• Place: exploring people’s perceptions about the physical aspect of each city in terms of pleasantness of climate, cleanliness of environment and how attractive its buildings and parks are.
• Prerequisites: determines how people perceive the basic qualities of the city; whether they are satisfactory, affordable and accommodating, as well as the standard of public amenities such as schools, hospitals, transportation and sports facilities.]
• People: reveals whether the inhabitants of the city are perceived as warm and welcoming, whether respondents think it would be easy for them to find and fit into a community that shares their language and culture and whether they would feel safe.
• Pulse: measures the perception that there are interesting things to fill free time with and how exciting the city is perceived to be in regard to new things to discover.
• Potential: measures the perception of economic and educational opportunities within the city, such as how easy it might be to find a job, whether it’s a good place to do business or pursue a higher education.

In another measure of brand strength, Melbourne ranks even more highly. In the most recent Economist’s Liveability Rankings, we hit #3 globally and if there is any measure of brand that matters, being a place where people want to live and can live well must be high on the list.

So what does all this mean, aside from the giant waste of 240k?

It means that Melbourne has a relatively strong brand foundation that is recognised by others. However, there are certainly things we can align better, which, if acted upon, will over time strengthen our brand both nationally and around the globe.

And it means if we truly want to break into the top five cities in the world, we need to focus on the core things that make a city great and stop getting side-tracked by the cosmetics. Because without paying attention to those things, a new logo is just a coat of paint – and in this case a coat of very expensive paint.

See you next week.

Michel Hogan is a Brand Advocate. Through her work with Brandology here in Australia and in the United States, she helps organisations recognize who they are and align that with what they do and say, to build more authentic and sustainable brands. She also publishes the Brand thought leadership blog – Brand Alignment.