There are few things that stir up public discussion more than issues of identity. It could be anything from a debate about enforcing our borders, saying sorry, becoming a republic, changing the education system, demolishing a landmark, Shapelle Corby guilty/innocent…the list goes on. Fact is, if an issue threatens to define who we are in some way, the individual perspective (well informed or otherwise) becomes validated and we naturally feel the urge to express our opinion.

Put the word “brand” in front of “identity”, apply it to a given place and it becomes more complex, but no less heated (just ask the agency that designed the new Melbourne council logo (see here). Place branding is a strange and evolving beast.

As someone that spends most of their days pondering how to make better brands, I’ve realised that branding is all about simplicity: Stripping ideas back and finding a way to visualise their true essence. The value of a great place on the other hand, is quite the opposite. It’s all about layers of experience. For me, Tasmania is great because of the abundance of untouched wilderness, old sandstone buildings, the nightlife of Salamanca, clean air, a distinctive take on contemporary art, mums cooking, boats rocking in the wind, you get the picture. If I had to choose one representative depiction of Tasmania right now, solely considering personal feelings and memories, I think I would struggle. Which is exactly why I’ve started this blog. We want to find a way to extract through debate, some form of consensus about genuine state identity and then create a government brand out of it.

I should mention this approach is not something we claim to have invented. Moving Brands in the UK got a heap of press for their (albeit unsuccessful) attempt to rebrand London, via a similar public online discussion (see here). It also fits more broadly into this idea of open branding that’s starting to find its way into the toolkit of some forward thinking organisations around the world (see here). The idea being that rather than owners creating their brands behind closed doors to secretly guard and impose upon others, they are to be shaped by the audience they seek to engage. OK, so iSnack 2.0 might have given it all a bad name (pardon the pun), but I see the trend as an inevitable rising tide, with a new wave of a blogging, tweeting, thinking people set to shape the way brands interact with our lives. Time to rev up those keyboards…

Regards, Jonathan Price