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1 July 2008/
New Belfast brand misses opportunities, however understandably
by at 9:56 am 1 July 2008
Filed under: Branding, Identity
Tags: Branding, Identity, Logos
The new brand is spearheaded by a friendly heart-shaped/letter B logo.
The new Belfast “brand’ (really a brand identity, if we’re using our words carefully and correctly) came out this week. Since Saffron is working now for the Northern Ireland Tourist Board, I have been to Belfast a few times and find it a genuinely nifty city something like a Glasgow to Dublin’s Edinburgh, to make an extremely rough comparison (except that Glasgow’s actually bigger than Edinburgh).
The logo is accompanied by messages including the word ‘be’ - such as ‘be welcome’, ‘be part of it’ and ‘be vibrant’.
I’d regard this identity as workmanlike, and that’s neither compliment nor criticism. I know from experience how thankless and Sisyphean it is to create an identity with real potency for a private client let along a public sector one, so that this mark and accompanything verbiage (‘Be inspired’, ‘Be enterprising’, ‘Be here now’, and a dozen others—all plays on [Be]lfast) don’t have any rough—or sharp—edges comes as no surprise and doesn’t reflect poorly on the brand’s creators, Lloyd Northover. Because it’s so mild and inoffensive, it’s not got a lot of power to amuse, inform, characterise or convey thought or emotion; Belgrade could have used the same identity, unaltered. Still, the client likes it, and people in Belgrade, I mean Belfast, seem to like it. And that’s not nothing (It’s more than Nottingham or Estonia got, which suggests the branding industry may be getting better at this whole tricky place branding line). Here are the complete brand guidelines.
In a related branding / image / identity topic – Ryanair, the Irish low cost / no frills airline now owns nearly 30% of the Irish National Flag Carrier Aer Lingus Plc. Ryanair has made it clear it intends to take over Aer Lingus and has been talking to Irish Government officials and the Aer Lingus board. Perhaps national flag carriers, representing a country’s image should not be sold to cheap no frills airlines as there could ba a potential damage to national image overseas. Aer Lingus was perhaos right by rejecting Ryanair’s previous takeover bid. Imagine if EasyJet Plc tried to take over British Airways! Orange British-Jet aircraft and cabin crew would perhaps not be appropriate! Does anyone have examples of flag-carrier mergers / takeovers that have worked well from a branding perspective? (E.g. Air France KLM)?
Comment by Aaron Vaughn — 12/1/2008 @ 4:42 pm
As I understand it, Ryanair does not propose to rebrand Aer Lingus. Ryanair would certainly want to extend the Aer Lingus fleet.
Comment by Antoin O Lachtnain — 12/10/2008 @ 11:35 am