Brussels successfully rebranded?

30 mars 2011

The institutional-sounding BITC has changed its spots and its name to the lighter VisitBrussels. It was obviously the safe option, but it would have been nice to see Brussels being a little more daring, creative, Magritte-like and adventurous, rather than adopting something that has already been around for the best part of 10 years. When you see the initials VB, you will now have to ask yourself whether it stands for VisitBritain, VisitBerlin, VisitBrighton….Oh no, it’s VisitBrussels!

On the design front, the ‘evil eye’ is gone and it’s no real loss. Few people ever understood what it meant. And the Brussels iris is back which at least ties in with the corporate city brand.  The sad dark blue has been softened and lighter colours added in a stylish modern bar-code design which apparently reflects the ‘many facets of multicultural Brussels’.

So far, so good…

What’s in a word?

However, what I find most disturbing is the language and strapline which appears underneath VisitBrussels. The first time I saw ‘sized for tourism & meetings’ I thought it was strange, and it hasn’t grown on me since. I simply don’t understand what it is trying to say.

It appears in even stranger forms on the new Brussels website and in print advertising

– as in ‘sized for culture & leisure, sized for culture, sized for events, sized for press, sized for quality, sized for travel trade, sized for information’…sized for anything under the sun? 

To me it sounds pure Eurospeak and, like Eurospeak, it’s not English. And it’s certainly not appealing….The only thing I didn’t find was ‘sized for fun’. Now measuring fun like that would have been a complete contradiction in terms 

Some quick research

The language you use is a vital part of your brand…. So just to make sure I wasn’t being a GOF (‘Grumpy Old Fart’), I tested it out on 20 people – a representative mix of young & not-so-young, men & women, native & non-native English & American speakers, professionals in the business & complete outsiders to whom this branding is presumably targeted.  And of course the brand’s audience is international, not English.

I had an extraordinary response and found I was not alone in my concerns. In fact, my views are almost mild in comparison. To be fair one person did say it was OK and two others thought they knew what VisitBrussels was trying to say. Otherwise the collective opinion was overwhelmingly negative.

·                An advertising professional (Francophone) and specialist in destination marketing put it very succinctly in three Q&As:

Does it create any strong, distinctive or relevant personality to the brand? NO

Does it communicate the DNA of the brand? NO

Does it correspond to a tone of voice that would distinguish the brand? NO”

·                A copywriter (Flemish) said, “It all sounds very mathematical and dull, like a bookkeeper (no offence ;-), not at all swinging or romantic, exciting or whatever image you would like to give your city”. “

·                Not remotely exciting or inspiring”, commented a chief editor (English).

Others threw out words like downsizing, awkward, defensive, negative, viagra, meaningless, regimented, restraining, eurospeak….. Another hit the nail on the head pointing out “the terrible mistake of lapsing into business and marketing jargon”.

Where’s the warmth, humour and surrealism which Brussels is rightly famous for?

Come back Magritte!

Brussels, sized for more change, I wonder?

Bruce Taylor