The humble brag at the centre of a new plan to market Dunedin is just not quite good enough, a marketing professor says.
The Dunedin City Council yesterday launched the city’s new tagline "It’s just Dunedin", saying its campaign "juxtaposes the beauty and grandness of Dunedin’s offerings alongside the wry humour the Dunedin brand is known for".
But AUT Associate Prof of marketing Jungkeun Kim says the tagline ignores the fundamentals of marketing.
"Good marketing either makes a promise, provides a solution or propositions you something. This does none of those things."
The overall campaign did not offer a unique selling point for Dunedin, he said.
"Any typical New Zealand town has beautiful beaches or 2m waves."
His advice to those behind the project was to have a "precise target market" in mind when formulating a strategy.
The campaign received mixed feedback from Dunedin residents yesterday.
Otago Daily Times readers on social media were positive about the campaign, but people on the street were less enthusiastic.
Angela Lewis, 39, was not a fan: "It looks horrendous and graphically it doesn’t work. Why did they use two different fonts?"
Adrian Hose, 81, did not understand why the city needed a new marketing campaign, saying "it’s a waste of ratepayers’ money".
By Rafael Clarke
