Invercargill - the building of a brand

Invercargill is my hometown.

I've always been a southern boy, grew up on a 400 acre Northern Southland sheep farm, educated (apologies for very loose use of that term) at Gore High School, called the Gore District home for another 16 years and then relocated to Invercargill (a whole 65 kilometres away) in 2010.

I'm no city boy (obvious from history above) and hate jostling with crowds and traffic to complete everyday tasks.

If there isn't a car-park within 50 metres of my desired location, I'll drive around the block again. If I get two red lights driving from one end of town to the other, I start gripping the steering wheel tightly. If my commute takes more than 10 minutes, it's likely my car has run out of gas on the way.

It is home.

So, when it was announced that the city was developing a brand, I was intrigued and a little fearful.

That's the problem with brand development. If you talk to five different people, you'll get very close to five different answers. If you talk to five different marketers or creatives (I can say this because I'm one), you'll get something like 12 different answers :)

To paraphrase US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, I only know a good brand when I see it.

Last night, Invercargill's new brand was released publicly after months of consultation and development.

My verdict? I REALLY like it?

And I like it even more after watching it again.

Simple, clean, contemporary ... and flexible. The "I Am Home" line really resonated with me.

Find the full brand story here.

Now, because this has emanated from Invercargill City Council HQ, there will be negativity.

Follow up news coverage will predictably centre on the dollars involved in developing and rolling out the brand (yawn).

The first step in creating a brand that works and returns on the investment, is for Invercargill-ites to support it, not try and tear it to pieces. That won't happen automatically, nor overnight. It will take hard work and perserverance.

There will be narrow-thinking, there will be hand-wringing, there will be nay-saying and the loudest of them won't be a surprise to anyone.

This will happen immediately and, conversely, the real benefits from this brand will accrue over time. 

So my personal message to those at ICC HQ and all those involved is to stay the course. To me, this brand creates an opportunity for the single most positive advancement for the city in my time here. 

Of course this is helped in that one of the more recent attempts was the absurd positioning statement of "The City of Water and Light." Why on earth did that massive point of difference never catch on? (enter sarcastic emoji here).

However, now is when the real work begins. Creating hype around a launch is easy. Bringing a brand to life, making it real and making it part of how we in Invercargill live day-to-day is more difficult. 

But today, my message is a hearty congratulations to all those involved and my best wishes in creating Better Stories for Invercargill (shameful and predictable company name placement)!