City slogan needs to reflect age, provenance
Many agree that Dunedin must work on its promotion. "It’s Just Dunedin" makes sense to those who know our wonderful city but to those knowledgeable about Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch, the meaning is less obvious.
Many visitors arrive by cruise ship as well as on organised coach tours. However, we need to work on promoting Dunedin as a city destination in itself. Recently, I discovered the airport was mostly outbound traffic, locals visiting elsewhere not those coming to visit Dunedin. This must change.
We have beautiful buildings and parks, a fabled university, fascinating museums and galleries. Many events such as the Dunedin Arts Festival and Fringe, Moana Nui Festival or even the Dunedin Craft Beer and Food Festival (rugby and concerts as well) that can attract visitors to Dunedin as a city worth visiting in itself.
A new tagline should emphasise the age and provenance of Dunedin. Keep the gothic script and I beg, avoid a desire for the new for the point of it.
Focus on a vibrant city with a long heritage that gives the modern character that promotes Dunedin as a vibrant unique city and we will do well.
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Give it away
That really is the most pathetic slogan to market our city: "It’s just Dunedin".
We give away our identity, our special places in Dunedin and our wonderful people.
Why would anyone bother to come here, what is there to see and do? It’s time to really publicise our city, to talk about what we have to offer and to make people feel welcome.
It’s time to change this slogan into a real marketing statement and let us celebrate our city.
Have another go
I sometimes wonder if there is a secret competition to come up with the most cringe-worthy promotional slogan for Dunedin. If there is such a competition, the slogan printed on the flap of the Regent Theatre’s ticket folder has to be yet another contender: "Help us to Up Your Arts".
Are clunkers like that the best we can do? Come on, people. Let’s all think up a few good slogans ourselves, and give that lovely shot of surfers at sunrise a nice new caption – "Dunedin’s Best!" might do it.
No to costly duds
No need for expensive consultants to create a tagline for destination Dunedin. Have a competition for the best one: there are a lot of talented and imaginative people in the community who would come up with a cracker logo instead of a costly dud.
Path to progress
David Tordoff (Letters 6.3.25) is right: the expectations set by naming of shared paths is working out to the detriment of road users. Cyclists who use the road along Portobello Rd cop abuse by motorists; if they go fast on the path they are a risk to pedestrians.
We must lose our obsession with transport mode and instead be concerned with average speed and holistic risk reduction. Most vulnerable traffic participants (parents with strollers, bikers) do this intuitively and their choices should be respected for that reason itself. It would be indeed nice if the councils’ thinking and language came to the party.
The life-long quest for the perfect book sale
Congratulations to the Regent Booksale, which has been running 40 years and raised so much money.
Oxford and Cambridge have no comparable book sales. Dunedin as a Unesco City of Literature and Learning should celebrate this achievement of dedicated volunteers.
My late grandfather, a doctor and world traveller, said he had never seen a sale like the Regent Booksale in his lifetime, and he had spent his life looking.
Dunedin is really blessed by the Regent Booksale.
The very next day
David Tordoff (Letters ODT 6.3.25) concludes his lament about head-on collision on the cycleway reminding us that cyclists weighing 100kg travelling at 20kmh can do serious damage. Ironically, the very next day, at almost the same location, two cars collided head-on, with four occupants being injured, three seriously. I agree that we need to strive to make travel as safe as possible. All forms of travel, by foot, bike or car involve risk; being stationary is even riskier.
Trail-blazing transport firm fondly recalled
Further to the 100 years ago item in (ODT, 5.3.25), the White Star cars were part of the fleet of vehicles belonging to The Lumsden Tourist Company (1920) started by my great grandparents James and Janet Campbell and their brother-in-law Edward White.
Before World War 1 the passenger and parcel services went from the railhead at Lumsden to the village of Mossburn, the inland station settlements and the southern lakes of Manapouri and Te Anau. The tourists then went by boat to Glade House and on to walk the Milford Track. This service was horse-drawn coaches and later big Darracq motor cars.
In 1935 with NZR gaining a foothold with passenger and freight road services in the region, James Campbell approached his longtime friend Rudolf Wigley and The Lumsden Tourist Company was amalgamated with The Mount Cook and Southern Lakes Tourist Company: James sat on the board of the Mount Cook Company.
My father, the late Gordon Sims, James and Janet's grandson, compiled an extended history of The Lumsden Tourist Company. In his story he expresses regret that in other publications there had been no mention of the trail-blazing efforts of The Lumsden Tourist Company.
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Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
