The latest attempts to market Dunedin have fallen a bit flat. At least with locals. Paul Gorman turns to the experts to see if we are getting it wrong.
If a picture can paint 1000 words, then a decent promotional slogan must be worth a few hundred at least.
The power of a handful of words to convey a message that both tugs at the heart-strings and endures is the holy grail of marketing.
‘‘You’re soaking in it’’; ‘‘Good things take time’’; ‘‘The drink you have when you’re not having a drink’’. Decades on, Palmolive dishwashing liquid and Mainland Cheese are still going strong in New Zealand. On the other hand, the non-alcoholic drink Claytons is largely remembered as shorthand for a poor substitute. But it is remembered.
It’s not just products that rely on the clever use of words. Destinations too want catchy expressions, a visual earworm that keeps on giving.
There are plenty of these around the South. ‘‘Rural City Living’’, Gore exclaims. ‘‘Milton - Town of Opportunities’’. ‘‘Big River Town’’, Balclutha cries. ‘‘Welcome to Naseby: 2000ft above worry level!’’. And not forgetting ‘‘Tuatapere: New Zealand’s Sausage Capital’’.
Town and city and regional slogans, and their associated marketing campaigns, are not always aimed at the same audience. Many are there to promote the drawcards of an area and increase visitor numbers, but others are developed more to provide a sense of unity or to double-down on an identity.
Arguably one of New Zealand’s most successful local campaigns has come from across Cook Strait. Wellington may have leaky water pipes and a dysfunctional city council, but it sure knows a good slogan when it sees one.
‘‘Absolutely Positively Wellington’’ has been around since the early 1990s, when it grew out of a city-wide initiative created by Wellington Newspapers and Saatchi & Saatchi. At that time, the capital was struggling after major public sector cutbacks in the second half of the ’80s.
A council spokeswoman says Wellington still uses the slogan on all its branding and as part of a number of projects. A suggestion, a few years back, that the city change its slogan quickly drew opposition.
Local Government New Zealand is hands-off when it comes to policies or guidelines for councils around use of slogans.
‘‘It’s not something that councils typically ask us for assistance with,’’ a spokesman says.
‘‘There’s also no specific legislation in the Local Government Act 2002 or Major Events Management Act 2007 that directly addresses the use of slogans by councils. Basically, councils can use slogans in their marketing and communications as part of their broader powers to promote their services and the district.’’
Dunedin has had its share of slogans and campaigns since before the local government reforms in 1989. It has also had its fair share of bouquets and brickbats for them.
First there was ‘‘Dunedin - It’s All Right Here’’ from 1988, which the city council at the time said delivered good results, despite the tepid local response. The follow-up ‘‘That’s the Spirit of Dunedin’’ in 1998 flopped, and then came ‘‘I am Dunedin’’ three years later.
More recent campaigns include ‘‘Dunedin, A Pretty Good Plan D’’, ‘‘Dunedin Works Better’’ and ‘‘It’s just Dunedin’’.
So much can be contained in just a word or a short phrase. However, self-deprecating, laconic southern humour has not always translated well elsewhere. In March, Dunedin city councillors gave the ‘‘It’s just’’ part of the slogan the elbow, worried it diminished the power of the Gothic-script logo and reflected a culture of negativity.
‘‘The Dunedin logo has longevity and is a very strong brand, and I do not want it damaged by negative connotations that ‘just’ brings,’’ Cr Brent Weatherall said at the time.
Cr Sophie Barker believed ‘‘just’’ undersold the city when ‘‘we should be yelling our attractions from the rooftops’’.
The council’s economic development and destination marketing agency, Enterprise Dunedin, has had a rocky ride recently over its latest campaign, part of a $450,000 three-year contract with Shotover Creative that started in 2023.
First, it had to pull a video showing people playing touch rugby on an Otago Peninsula beach while a large sea lion in the foreground wakes up and shuffles a tad towards them. Dunedin destination manager Sian Sutton said due care had been taken during the filming, working with the Department of Conservation and wildlife experts, but acknowledged people’s concerns.
Cr Steve Walker was among those pleased the video was removed and had predicted there would be a backlash.
‘‘I have no issue with using these beautiful creatures in our marketing material, but that marketing should also ... give some sense of the behaviour that is required around them.’’
A few days later, a video showing a family cooking on an open fire on the beach at Doctors Point caused more grief for Enterprise Dunedin, city resident Karen Anderson complaining it promoted bad behaviour on local beaches. However, the council said a permit had been issued for the fire.
In response, Sutton said the campaign wanted to convey the ‘‘magic’’ of Dunedin’s visitor experience and ‘‘uses small touches of creative licence to capture people’s attention in what is a cluttered global destination marketing landscape’’.
Then, last week, a computer image generated by artificial intelligence showed a huge Hot Wheels truck threatening to crush a cluster of cartoon-like Dunedin historic buildings. The image, for a social media post, generated more criticism, for its jarring imagery and for not using local artists to create something more accurate - but also attracted some support.
Local designer and photographer Paul Le Comte said AI was suitable for social media.
‘‘If it came out that the [council] had spent $30,000 on a graphic for that, we’d all be outraged, so you can’t win that one really, can you?’’
Sutton said the image was for a ‘‘quick piece of promotional fun on our social channels’’.
‘‘A social media post is not something we would outsource to an agency or artist due to the costs involved and because some social media costs can have a very short shelf life.’’
Nobody from Enterprise Dunedin would talk to The Weekend Mix about the history of the city’s campaigns and slogans, despite repeated requests over three weeks.
However, in a written statement, Sutton says it is difficult to say which campaign has been the most successful.
‘‘Marketing is subjective, and over the years our measures have changed dramatically with the introduction of digital marketing. What can be said is that Dunedin is well known for a strong approach to city branding and has gained national exposure with several of our campaigns.
‘‘Dunedin hasn’t had a city slogan since the days of ‘I am Dunedin’ and ‘It’s All Right Here’. Our brand tends to focus on storytelling, showcasing the city’s creativity, wildlife, heritage and culture through clever imagery and scenes that reflect unique Dunedin moments. Our standout brand feature - beyond our beautiful imagery - is our tone of voice, which has typically been unassuming, intelligent and wry.’’
The city’s Gothic logo had a ‘‘huge amount of local strength and is often featured on shop fronts and products’’, suggestive of local pride. It was also flexible for use in campaigns.
‘‘This aligns with the idea that Dunedin isn’t trying too hard to sell itself - it’s timeless and confident enough to stand on its own.’’
Good campaigns need to have measurable outcomes, Sutton says, whether they are website clicks, referral rates, flight bookings, ticket sales or bed-night stays.
‘‘A campaign that achieves these can be deemed successful, even when there is negative or mixed public opinion. All marketing campaigns are designed around specific messaging for target demographics, and sometimes these do not resonate with local audiences - nor are they necessarily intended to.
‘‘We tend to share our campaigns locally for awareness and to drive local pride, but the work undertaken by Enterprise Dunedin is primarily about capturing audiences outside the city, whether they be tourists, international students, prospective employees, the film industry or future residents,’’ Sutton says.
As an expert in branding principles, he is interested in how anything represents itself to somebody or something else.
‘‘It’s interesting to see the way branding principles have been used in one way or another, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, with places, which, of course, are much more complex than products.
‘‘A place is quite complex. And, where is it exactly? I know that sounds a bit abstract, but, you know, my place is different to your place. Which is why I think it was interesting when Dunedin did that ‘I am Dunedin’. But so, what is it?
‘‘From a brand, I think people want to know what have you distilled that represents the place? Because I am interested in the complexities of what that means. And, of course, up and down the country, well, throughout the world you’ve got place brands that are very functional or tangible. But they don’t kind of mean anything. I think that’s what’s missing.
‘‘I don’t think you have to be literal, necessarily, but you have to capture something.
‘‘It’s easy to make a bad one, that has nothing to do with the place. It will come and go, it’s not anchored in anything particular.’’
The ‘‘I am Dunedin’’ process was very good, Aitken says.
‘‘The council’s economic development manager then, Peter Brown, was very keen to involve as many people as possible. And I think that’s the way to go. I’m not sure that, when it ended up with ‘I am Dunedin’, it really did help, because that was moving away from a slogan. It’s kind of almost anything.’’
However, ‘‘It’s All Right Here’’ left him cold.
‘‘I always felt that if you’re going to do a brand, you really should celebrate something. And I feel that was not celebrating why it was ‘alright’. The word ‘alright’ is not necessarily very inspirational. And why would you want to be average? - ‘Oh, it’s alright, it’s not too bad’.
‘‘Brands, like Wellington or ‘The Big Apple’, have an inspirational side to them. They’re both reflective of a place, a history, a culture, but they’re also futuristic in that sense. They don’t change.
‘‘A lot of New Zealand places have changed their brands. I think that’s not a good way of creating or sustaining a kind of loyalty or understanding.’’
Aitken thinks ‘‘It’s just Dunedin’’ was a real improvement on ‘‘It’s All Right Here’’.
‘‘It’s much more ironic. They’re facing the irony and they’re using the irony. I think with ‘It’s All Right Here’ the irony was lost on people. I think this is a much more nuanced and sophisticated use of words.
‘‘It does say something about Dunedin people. They are quite ironic. They can be a bit sharp, they can be a bit edgy, and that’s reflected in their music and in their films and in their culture. So, I think that’s very clever.’’
With ‘‘I am Dunedin’’ there was a sense the city council wanted to move away from Scottish roots, though the Gothic typeface remained.
‘‘I think that is a nice connection. And in a funny way, when you think of ‘Plan D’ and ‘It’s just Dunedin’, the Scots have a certain kind of humour. So it might no longer be explicit with that Scottish connection, but it is implicit.’’
Using the right words is central to branding, he says.
‘‘You get one go, really, to get it right. If you don’t get it right, you have to change it, then you’re already saying something about the brand. People want honest and genuine and authentic. If a brand starts to pretend to be something it’s not, and a place starts to pretend it’s something it’s not, well it’s going to come out sooner or later.’’
He cites the ‘‘Auckland A’’ campaign as a ‘‘complete failure’’.
‘‘But it was like, ‘A what?’. It could be their first team. Or ‘Auckland, eh?’. But look at Wellington. ‘Absolutely Positively’ has been an anchor for them, it worked then and it still works, it’s kind of timeless.’’
Saatchi & Saatchi chief creative officer Steve Cochran has won awards for many memorable campaigns over several decades, including for global companies Toyota, Visa and Samsung, and for Kiwi brands Tip Top Ice Cream, New World, Air New Zealand, Fonterra, Anchor, the Bank of New Zealand and AMI.
He says one of the challenges now is making sure a slogan is understood by multicultural New Zealand.
‘‘Often we get asked about accessibility for headlines and copy, making sure it can easily be read and understood by people who may not have English as their first language, or new to New Zealand, and making sure it’s got that mass appeal for that campaign.’’
People can get left behind by a clever slogan that needs a lot of insight or context.
‘‘Context is interesting, and you need to see the execution, the actual ad or the photography with the line, for the line to make sense. Otherwise, remove the line and it has another meaning and can be misinterpreted.’’
The ‘‘It’s just Dunedin’’ line is a tongue-in-cheek example of something that needs the images too.
‘‘And I know Tourism New Zealand had a little bit of stick lately for their line ‘Everyone Must Go!’. You can kind of see how they got there and then you can see how it was quickly turned around and used against them.’’
Cochran has worked on Mainland Cheese’s ‘‘Good Things Take Time’’ campaign, which has endured for decades. The television ads from more than 30 years are still strong enough to bring tears to the eyes.
‘‘That’s a good example of a line that’s born from a truth, as well as a product truth. It’s inherently related to that actual product.
So, what should those working on advertising campaigns avoid when developing them?
‘‘You would think about how could the naysayers turn this line on you, and create memes. So, be careful about what you are saying.
‘‘When you’re talking about international lines that are going to be translated into other languages, that’s where you’ll be careful with the language as well. You can get tripped up by word plays that don’t actually work.
‘‘And these days you have to do pretty good due diligence in terms of researching any line or slogan you might be offering to see whether anybody else has used it or owns it.
‘‘It probably is harder trying to come up with something original, particularly in some categories which have been really well-trodden. Depends how far back it was, but we are always chasing originality as much as we can.’’
The thinking behind a local council campaign should follow the same lines as for a product, Cochran says.
‘‘I think you’d use the same sorts of thought processes and analysis of what you’d come up with, based on how you want people to feel, what it says, how memorable is it, how simple is it to understand. A good slogan will still ring true.’’
Finally, Cochran has a warning about leaving it to the software. AI offers opportunities in advertising, but needs tempering when it comes to production and image creation, he says.
‘‘It’s always going to need a lens of taste and originality and curation and editing on it.
‘‘It could be a dangerous tool in the wrong hands.’’
