- Email: [email protected]
A Tale of Two Re-branded Cities: Riga, Latvia and Aarhus, Denmark
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
International Conference; Meaning in Translation: Illusion of Precision, MTIP2016, 11-13 May 2016, Riga, Latvia
A tale of two re-branded cities: Riga, Latvia and Aarhus, Denmark Gunta Ločmelea, Birthe Moustenb,* b
a University of Latvia, Riga, Raina Blvd. 19, LV–1586, Latvia Aarhus University, Nordre Ringgade 1, 8000, Aarhus, and Aalborg University, Fredrik Bajers Vej 5, Aalborg, 9100, Denmark
Abstract This study shows how Riga and Arhus identified, formulated and communicated city re-branding. Our analysis concentrates on resident responses to city re-branding and how such responses could force the municipalities to withdraw their re-branding. A city loses its identity if it is globalized. In the Riga and Aarhus cases, the municipalities tried to find a global voice, which contradicted local traditions; and in both cases, the redefinition of city image took place top-down and not bottom-up. The two cases may not prove to be a golden rule, but should be a warning against rash city re-branding decisions made by municipalities. © TheAuthors. Authors.Published Published Elsevier © 2016 2016 The byby Elsevier Ltd.Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MTIP2016. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MTIP2016 Keywords: City branding; image; localization; municipal branding; re-semiotization; translation studies; urban branding.
1. Introduction An effective city brand strategy brings all stakeholders together – from investors to officials to residents – at the beginning of the process. That way, they can define a common vision and then agree on a plan to reach it (North, 2014). According to CityMetric (North, 2014), an online arm of the New Statesman, 86 per cent of city branding campaigns fail. Soydanbay, in the interview quote with North above, suggests that the reason may be lack of consistency of opinions among the stakeholders of city branding. The wish to simultaneously make a local destination visible by focusing on specific features and adapting its image to cater for an international or global audience has
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +4586150745. E-mail address: [email protected]
1877-0428 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MTIP2016 doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.09.093
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
resulted in a plethora of approaches to destination branding. We have compared two cases of failed city re-branding: Riga in Latvia and Aarhus in Denmark. The increasing and general interest in city branding – also known as urban branding and municipal branding, or in a broader context destination branding or place branding – concurs with the definition of place branding as product branding applied to a place. Another definition refers to city branding as a way to construct and shape an urban imagery (Rehan, 2014) including many representations of a city. City ‘boosterism’ is about making the city name visible as a response to growing competition between places and globalization of markets (Jones, 2015). City marketing is considered essential to attract investment, business, tourists and a qualified workforce to the city (Wæraas et al., 2015, p. 1288) as well as to develop loyalty among residents (Zavattaro, 2010, Wæraas et al., 2015, 1288). City branding can thus be seen as a combination of place, organizational and political branding. The building of brand equity therefore takes place in relation to “national, regional and/or local (or city) identity” (Govers, Go, 2009, p. 16). The different stakeholders in city branding may be defined in relation to the following Fig. 1, inspired by Sandstrøm (2006, p. 58), but with our angle of communication and translation of branding copy.
To citizens
To tourists
To newcoming residents
Communication and translation of resemiotized branding copy
To trade and industry
Fig. 1. Communication and translation of branding copy to a city’s stakeholders.
That city branding is not an easy task has been proven by the high rate of failure, which can be ascribed to many factors. In Australia, a new logo was subjected to a hate campaign (North, 2014); the American city of Whitehorse logo and slogan was rejected because the citizens did not feel they had been consulted (Taiji, 2016); and the British city of Cardiff logo was changed from blue with a bird in the logo to red with a dragon in the logo to the chagrin of the Premier League Football Team which was nicknamed the Bluebirds. Subsequently, the red logo had to adopt a blue bird in the logo (Hardy, 2013). A quick search on the internet abound with failed examples of city branding and re-branding. 2. Theoretical considerations In addition to identifying the stakeholder groups, we look at stakeholders through a lens of external and internal influences. An external influence is about making an impact on the environment in the form of “the social construction of reputation through initiatives that shape overall perceptions of the municipality as a coherent unit. These initiatives, which imply an external focus and are undertaken in competition with other municipalities, revolve more around the strategic communication and presentation of unique value propositions.” (Wæraas, 2015, p. 332). An internal influence relates to the focus on how to provide better services for residents and thus cater to their needs. (ibid.). Externally focused branding activities can produce internal effects: a stronger reputation of the municipality may mean that residents identify increasingly with their municipality: higher loyalty, reduced exit rates (out-migration), etc. If residents have an opportunity to have their say in a local community, the positive effects of municipal activities are even stronger (ibid., 2014, p. 4). As we will show in our research below, a negative internal effect may be caused by a clash between re-semiotized external branding and internal stakeholder interests. External and internal influences are relevant in relation to the re-semiotization of brand identity, brand positioning and brand image, as shown in Fig. 2.
209
210
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
Resemiotization Brand identity External influence
Brand positioning
Internal influence
Brand image
Fig. 2. From brand identity to brand image – the case of resemiotization by internal and external influences.
Brand identity includes the wish by stakeholders to have the brand perceived in a certain way, brand positioning how the competitive advantage is communicated to a target group, and brand image how the brand is actually perceived. It also shows the importance of the sequence of identity first, then positioning and ultimately image. From time to time, city planners want to re-semiotize their city brand. In the Aarhus case, the reasoning was to make Aarhus more visible on the world map and to attract investments. In the Riga case, there was a specific triggering event: Riga as the European Capital of Culture 2014. Re-semiotization is understood as “shifts from context to context, from practice to practice, or from one stage of a practice to the next” (Iedema, 2003, p. 40). Such a shift takes place between the different stakeholders’ awareness and associations of the brand, their brand loyalty, and the perceived quality of the brand (Aaker, 2010, p. 7–8). An example of strong, external influence is media pressure which makes municipalities focus more on their external image than internal work (Wæraas, et al., 2015). Our cases show, however, the strength of the internal influences, expressed by the citizens. Other examples round the world have also shown that there is a considerable neglect of focus on internal municipality interests, in particular that municipalities and cities are “service-providing units and work places, and that residents and citizens are important target groups beyond the place concept” (Waeraas, et. al. 2015, p. 1300). 3. Case story data and facts In Riga and Aarhus, the two re-branding campaigns were studied, and in both cases the branding organizations were city municipalities. In Riga, the power of identity through the language is strong as demonstrated by the Riga city re-branding case: the change of one diacritic mark caused strong demonstrations, because the word is a symbol with long-established roots, and a re-semiotization initiative had not been negotiated. The name of the city itself is a powerful image attribute, too. The local heritage, including the Riga city name – cast by a prominent artist and viewed as an attribute of the city image – is important as both the visitors and the locals seek local roots. In Aarhus, the power of identity through the language was demonstrated by the Aarhus city re-branding case: Re-semiotization through the exchange of a decade-old Danish slogan for a globalized-English slogan created a massive citizen and media response that eventually made the city council abandon the new city slogan and in part replace it with the old city slogan. In both cases, the citizens connect their collective memories as a semiotic basis for their sense of having an anchor throughout history. Citizens and visitors alike view with interest the history and realization of the local perceptions (Landry, 2005, p. 6). City re-branding – in our cases – should not just have been directed to the future, but should have had important roots in the past.
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
4. Analysis method In our study of the two cities, Riga and Arhus, we have studied how these cities re-semiotized their cities and identified, formulated and communicated the city attributes to internal and external audiences. In more detail, our analysis of the two city re-branding cases concentrates on the residents’ responses to city re-branding and their reactions to the cities’ image, after the city managements implemented the new re-branding policy. 5. Analysis Riga The case of Riga, Latvia is a municipal re-branding story of re-semiotization of the logo of Riga city, the signs at city limits and the heart in the blue and white colours of the Riga city flag. The heart replaced a diacritic mark in the city name in summer, 2014. By replacing the diacritic mark over the I in Riga with a heart, the Riga City Council wanted firstly to send a message that Riga, the European Capital of Culture 2014, welcomes its guests, and secondly to make the city logo more internationally recognizable. The colours blue and white were supposed to be associated with the Riga city flag, but they reminded the citizens of the Russian flag. In one of the locations, the citizens even took the liberty of repainting it in blue and yellow – the colours of the Ukrainian flag, thus mirroring Ukrainian events in the summer of 2014 and the protests against the Russian invasion into Ukraine. The State Language Centre initiated a procedure against the Riga City Council for misspelling the name by using a different symbol, and not the regular diacritic mark; thus distorting and reducing the image of the city to banality. An activist group wrote an open letter to the mayor of the city Nils Ušakovs stating – besides the above violation, distortion and reduction to banality – also the violation of copyright and language norms. The heart symbol was judged as shamefully primitive, unmatched to the status of Riga as the European Capital of Culture (Delfi, 2014, LETA, 2014, ir 2015). Actions of protest were carried out. As a result, following the initiative of the activists, the Riga City Council ordered to repaint the heart in the colour of the Latvian flag. The opinion of the citizens of Riga was not sought, thus critically important elements from a local demand side perspective were omitted. The Riga City Council unilaterally decided that the heart over the name of the city will make the city sign into an international symbol of Riga, European Capital of Culture, as an employee of the Transport Department of the Riga City Council wrote in her explanatory letter (Delfi, 2014). The symbols of identity: the language and traditions were challenged, thus not distilling into strong brand equity. The Transport Department of the Riga City Council’s opinion that the white-coloured part of the heart may serve as a diacritic mark over the letter I was not approved of by the State Language Centre experts who decided that by taking off the diacritic mark the Latvian language norms were violated (Delfi, 2014, LETA, 2014, ir 2015). Copyright issues were neglected. The Riga city sign was cast by the artist Valdis Celms, and for many decades it was considered to be an outstanding symbol of the city. The Riga City Council violated copyright laws and commercialized the symbol instead of developing it into positive brand equity. In their open letter to mayor Ušakovs, 57 well-known Riga residents, including former Minister of Economics, asked the Riga City Council to reinstall the signs in their earlier shape and further on to protect the logo of Riga from any unprofessional activities, from altering it and placing any objects around it that would make it visually less attractive (Delfi, 2014). The fear was triggered that similar attempts would continue in future. The same letter to the mayor described this fear that the sign might not only suffer from attempts of commercialization like the one discussed, but also could be abused in political election campaigns in future. The authors of the letter requested the city council’s protection for the sign against such attempts (Delfi, 2014). The concern that the mayor of the city would be too loyal to Putin’s Russia was activated, thus politics precluded positive brand equity development. On March 5, 2015, the Latvian Minister of Culture issued an order that the Riga city sign should be included in the list of cultural monuments of Latvia thus concluding a long debate with the Riga City Council about the ethics of such re-branding (LETA, 2014, Kulturas Ministrija, 2015). 6. Riga results The external view was a priority for the authors of the first campaign at the Riga City Council who used the phrase “people like it” for their defense. The fallout of the campaign with the local audience was caused by the neglect of the local view. The same letter by 57 well-known Riga citizens required that an environment be recreated that develops
211
212
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
and increases the standards of good taste of the residents of Riga and brings honor to the city (Delfi, 2014). This action could also be read as a marketing strategy: the brand identity that the residents can relate to could simultaneously produce an attractive image from the outside view. By neglecting the old city principles, the re-semiotized message caused unforeseen reactions. For the Latvian city politicians, the response resulted in socio-political reactions very distant from the intended rhetorical purpose. The case did not leave anybody indifferent, but most offended. The internal forces backfired at the city’s attempt to cater for its external stakeholders 7. Analysis Aarhus Aarhus, Denmark is a slightly different story. The original slogan was “Århus – Smilets By” and in its English version “Aarhus – the city of smiles.” The roots of the slogan are imprecise, but most people give the explanation that it was first seen in a baker’s shop and then slowly developed from there. In 1938, the tourist association launched a campaign with the slogan: “Århus – Sommerens og smilets by.” [Aarhus – The city of summer and smiles.] Then it slowly developed from the roots of the city to become the official slogan (FIG, 2014; Køster, & Stagis, 2014). After a process starting around 2009, the Aarhus municipality presented a rejuvenated strategic story of Aarhus in 2011 with the slogan “Aarhus. Danish for progress.” There was no Danish version of the slogan. When introducing the slogan, the mayor’s office wrote: “The new brand statement (or slogan) encompasses Aarhus’s vow to the world embraced in one sentence. This gives a dictionary definition of what Aarhus is, which is the Danish word for ‘fremskridt’ [progress] – or metaphorically speaking development in the Danish/Aarhusian way.” i (Aarhus Kommune 2011). In the process of creating this new image, two London-based consultancy companies had been hired: Goosebumps Brand Agency and Global Cities. These two agencies defined the strengths of Aarhus in the following way: “Aarhus is a city taking on the huge challenges of the world.” And “Aarhus is a city which cooperates.” And “Aarhus is a city experimenting and rethinking the conventional ways of doing things.” And finally “Aarhus is a city working with the goal of creating improvements” (Aarhus Kommune, 2011). After the introduction of the slogan, some of the most important T&I organisations joined to form Aarhus Marketing Alliance. A toolbox of texts, logo generators, pictures, etc. was created. The website www.withaarhus.com was made. Coordination between different events was instigated. Workshops were set up for people to learn to use the brand. A film competition was made (Aarhus Kommune, n.d., but between 2011–2014). A magazine called Aarhus. Danish for progress should be launched once a year in English (Aarhus Kommune, 2012). The then Man. Dir. Niels Milling of Dansk Erhverv, the confederation of Danish enterprise, was eager to comment on the success of the new slogan, and in the municipality’s press release, the organization was quoted: “Aarhus is one of Denmark’s two growth centres, and a clear profiling of Aarhus strengthens the international marketing of Denmark significantlyii” (Aarhus Kommune, 2011). Not everybody in the press was enthusiastic. The Danish press loved to caricature the slogan. A Copenhagen Newspaper came up with an alternative slogan: “Aarhus – engelsk for noller” [Aarhus – English for ‘noller’.]iii There were 40 comments to the article, both referring to the slogan, but just as many starting a discussion of what the word ‘noller’ meant (Information, 2011). BureauBiz wrote in an analysis article that discrepancy was pitfall number one: the city council’s wish to be known for something other than what the city was actually renowned for. The municipality becomes a business plan and loses its soul. Aarhus already had a very strong brand, which will be remembered (FIG, 2014). The fact alone that two advertising agencies abroad should be able to deduct the essence of Aarhus created a stir during the process, partly because of the money spent on these two foreign agencies, partly the process itself. Letters to the editor were numerous. And they kept popping up. From December 2014, three years after the introduction of the slogan, for instance the following three letters to the editor could be read in the local newspaper. One was a rewriting of the slogan into “Aarhus – Danish for the city of garbage”iv (Holm, 2014). Another ridiculed the rethink association of the slogan and the incorporation of the word Danish by saying that in American the slogan would be interpreted “Aarhus – Danish pastry for progress!”v (Wehner, 2014). A third scorned the use of English words in Danish, giving the Aarhus slogan as the absolutely worst example. As the writer concludes, maybe it is time to rethink (Hansen, 2014). The Danish pastry discussion had gained momentum, and it was associated with the slogan very early. In one of the responses along this vein, there is a reference to the testing of the slogan by the advertising agencies in eight countries, where this was not the association (Harder, 2011 a). The mayor referred to the same fact when the
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
slogan was abandoned (Nyvang, 2014). Throughout the process, almost all articles and letters to the editor also mentioned the price of this initiative: one million Danish kroner which the taxpayers had to pay (Markedsføring, 2014, BT, 2014; Harder, 2011b; Holm, 2014; Hvid, & Elstrup, 2014), which seemingly was the official price paid to the agencies alone. Add to that the costs in the municipality for copy material, manhours spent, etc. The main problem with the slogan was probably that it was never really understood. “Aarhus – Danish for progress.” First, how is ‘for’ going to be interpreted? To advocate, to be in favor of or similar expressions? Who is not for progress, by the way? The differentiation, which is so paramount in destination branding, was missing, and led to ridicule. Second, is ‘for’ going to be interpreted as ‘means’? If that is the case, there is an extra link inserted between the two words that should be defined by each other. Is it Aarhus that means progress, or Danish? And exactly the word Danish in the slogan was the word that was the cause of most ridicule and the word that took on the meaning ‘Danish pastry’ equals progress. Moreover, the exact constellation of the slogan meant that it could not be translated into Danish. It only existed in global cyberspace, and lacked local roots. In August 2014 – three months before abandoning the slogan – the survey institute Epinion made a survey among the T&I organizations in Aarhus, and from the responses, only 48% recognized the slogan, which seems surprising taken the media storm into account. Maybe ‘recognize’ in this context meant understood. The municipality’s Director of Business Development refers to the results as certainly not enough (Hvid, & Elstrup, 2014). When after three years, the critical voices did not die out, and the survey showed that the slogan did not gain acceptance among the local T&I, either, something had to be done. On 20 December, 2014, the mayor of Aarhus announced that the slogan would be abandoned, because it did not work, and because “people have to incorporate the international branding strategy”vi (Dalhoff, & Estrup, 2014). However, the mayor said that going back to the old slogan would not be the immediate choice. The additional copytext for the slogan called “With us” should be kept, but should be used in combinations. (FIG, 2014). The accompanying website www.withaarhus.com does not exist anymore. The two advertising agencies do not leave a trace of having worked with the Aarhus slogan on their web sites. They are too busy boasting their prizes (Goosebumps Brand Agency, 2016; Global Cities, 2016). In a response to the withdrawal of the “progress” slogan, some articles declared that now “Smilets by” (city of smiles) was back (Markedsføring, 2014). Even years after the slogan was abandoned, the example of Aarhus was used in an article to discuss the use of slogans. According to Kjøller, associate professor at Copenhagen University, a slogan must take its starting point in how the environment sees its municipality (Larsen, 2015), in other words, it must be in harmony with the internal view. In addition, a brand must create a mental image to work (Bjerre Toft, 2015). In another article, she adds that a good slogan must be concrete and guide the receivers towards what they think is good about their town (Vestergaard, 2015). 8. Aarhus results The Aarhus example showed that the old slogan could easily be translated into English for global use, because image equaled identity. The new slogan was born in English, but it did not carry any identity and had to be abandoned eventually, because it could not be translated into a Danish matching slogan, and it could not create an image that would match citizens’ identity of Aarhus. People did not understand it, and they did not relate to it at all. The fact that it was an English slogan added to the foreignization of the slogan among the citizens and in turn created hostility. 9. Conclusion A given success cannot be created by focusing on the image of a city. On the contrary, the starting point has to be in the identity of the city. If the identity and the image are congruent, it might work. Although other city slogans also seem naïve and empty of content, they work because citizens make the slogans work. Just think of Wonderful Copenhagen, The Big Apple/I Love NY. They only work, because citizens and tourists alike embrace the slogans. Rebranding through re-semiotization is a challenging task, which may have a top-down lead, but must include the internal stakeholders, in particular the citizens. It does not work to explicitly exclude the citizens in the redefinition or re-semiotization of the brand. When it comes to differences between Riga and Aarhus, Riga’s controversy with the slogan had its roots in the historical development of Latvia as an independent state and with Riga as its capital, and in turn Latvia’s standing and identity as an independent nation. The city’s change of the slogan disregarded the importance of the original slogan
213
214
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
and disregarded how this slogan had become a rallying point for people who sought their local identity in the slogan, and moreover disregarded how this slogan supported the Latvian language. Consequently, the change caused resistance. The Aarhus controversy also had historical roots. However, the Aarhus slogan was not a matter of independence, but a matter of identity. The very slow, even unclear, historical background bears witness to that. The change of slogan in a Danish context was probably rather a response to a replacement of local identity for a global identity without any particular roots. The response seemed to be resistance to the lack of local rooting, also in the form of the language shift away from the Danish language, rather than resistance to independence. In our two examples, the similarity is that city branders tried to find a global voice, which contradicted local traditions. Disregarding local sentiments, emotions, tradition, developments and the shared understanding among citizens may backfire seriously on the city’s management. The lesson to be learned from the two examples is that a city or a municipality is not just a board of marketers planning a city’s development. A stakeholder negotiation across the stakeholder groups, cf. Fig. 1, must take place to ensure that the identity, the positioning and the image of re-semiotized city planning, cf. Fig. 2, can stand up to resistance and eventually can be embraced by citizens and other stakeholders alike. References Aaker, D.A. (2010). Building strong brands. London: Simon & Schuster. Aarhus Kommune. (2011). Aarhus skal være mere kendt i udlandet. [Aarhus must be known better abroad.] Aarhus Kommune, 24 August. Aarhus Kommune. (2012). Aarhus. Danish for progress. Aarhus Kommune. Available at www.aarhus.dk (no longer available). Aarhus Kommune. (n.d., but brochure 2011–2014). Kommunale veje til vækst [Municipal roads to growth]. Aarhus Kommune. BC. (2014). Usakovs: It’s easier to talk about practical matters in Moscow, than in Berlin or Washington. The Baltic Course, 1 October. Retrieved 7 March, 2016 from www.baltic-course.com Bjerre Toft, K. (2015). Vi skal prale mere og gøre op med den vestjyske beskedenhed. [We must brag more and stop West-Jutland modesty.]. Jyllands-Posten, 20 July. BT 2014. Aarhus skal ikke længere være “Danish for progress.” [Aarhus is no longer to be “Danish for progress.”] BT, 20 December. Cai, L.A., Gartner, W.C., & Munar, A.M. (2009). Tourism branding. Communities in action. Bingley: Emerald. Dalhoff, M., & Elstrup, M. (2014). Aarhus skrotter omstridt slogan [Aarhus scraps controversial slogan]. Jyllands-Posten, 20 December. Delfi. (2014). Vēstulē Nilam Ušakovam prasa izbeigt Rīgas vizītkartes saķēpāšanu [A letter to Nils Ušakovs demands putting an end to spoiling Riga business card]. Delfi, 20 August. Retrieved 20 March, 2016 from http://www.delfi.lv FIG. (2014). Derfor fejlede Aarhus’ 3 år gamle branding-strategi [That’s why Aarhus’ three-year-old branding strategy failed]. Bureaubiz, 30 October. Retrieved 20 March, 2016 from www.bureaubiz.dk Global Cities. (2016). All web pages visited. Retrieved 30 April, 2016 from globalcities.eu Goosebumps Brand Agency. (2016). All web pages visited. Retrieved 30 April, 2016 from goosebumpsbranding.com Govers, R., & Go, F. (2009). Place branding: Glocal, virtual and physical identities, constructed, imagined and experienced. Palgrave Macmillan. Hansen, T. (2014). Engelske ord i dansk. [English words in Danish]. Jyllands-Posten, 19 December. Harder, T. (2011 a). Aarhus-slogan er testet i otte lande. [Aarhus slogan tested in eight countries]. Ekstra Bladet, 24 August. Harder, T. (2011 b). Aarhus bruger 1 million på nyt slogan. [Aarhus spends one million on a new slogan.] Ekstra Bladet, 24 August. Hardy, T. (2013). 10 Rebranding failures and how much they cost. Canny creative, 14 October. Retrieved 22 April, 2016 from canny-creative.com Holm, E. T. (2014). Aarhus—Danish for svineriets by. [Aarhus—Danish for the city of garbage]. Jyllands-Posten, 30 August. Hvid, J., & Elstrup, M. (2014). Aarhus. Danish for … hvad? [Aarhus. Danish for … what?]. Jyllands-Posten, 5 August. Iedema, R. (2003). Multimodality, resemiotization: Extending the analysis of descourse as multi-semiotic practice. Visual Communication, 2, 29– 57. Information. (2011). Aarhus—engelsk for noller [Aarhus—English for ’noller.’] Information, 12 November. ir. (2015). Uz AB dambja “nelikumīgi” atgriežas Rīgas robežzīme ar zili balto sirdi [Illegal return of the Riga city sign with a blue-and-white heart on AB dambis]. Retrieved 3 July, 2016 from http://www.ir.lv/ Jones, A. (2015). London 2012: Urban Imagery and City Branding, in Merkel. Kamman, S. (2008). Destination marketing organizations in Europe: An in-depth analysis, international tourism management and consultancy. Breda: NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences. Køster, A., & Stagis, N. (2014). Danish for progress: Smilet blegnede aldrig. [Danish for progress. The smile never faded away.] Kommunikationsforum, 29 October. Kultūras Ministrija. (2015). Robežzīmes RĪGA tiks iekļautas valsts aizsargājamo kultūras pieminekļu sarakstā. [The RIGA city sign will be included in the list of cultural monuments protected by the state]. Retrieved 12 May, 2016 from www.km.gov.lv Landry, J. (2005). London as a creative city. Retrieved 21 March, 2016 from www.cpu.gov.hk Larsen, P. (2015). Eksperter: Et byslogan skal ikke klistres på udefra [Experts: A city slogan should not be glued on from the outside]. JyllandsPosten, 26 July. LETA. (2014). Rīgas robežzīmes autors: Rīgai nepieciešama mākslinieciskā vadība [According to the author of the Riga city sign Riga needs arts
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215 management]. Retrieved 10 July, 2016 from http://apollo.tvnet.lv/ Lucarelli, A., & Berg, P. O. (2011). City branding: A state-of-the-art review of the research domain. Journal of Place Management and Development, 4(1), 9–27. Markedsføring. (2014). Farvel til “Danish for progress” [Goodbye to Danish for progress]. Markedsføring. Merkel, U. (2015). Making sense of identity discourses in international events, festivals and spectacles. UK: Palgrave Macmillan. North, S. (2014). Why do most city branding campaigns fail? Retrieved 21 August, 2015 from www.citymetric.com Nyvang, L. B. (2014). Sloganet ‘Danish for Progress’ fik rigeligt med tid. [The slogan ‘Danish for Progress’ got ample time]. Lokalavisen/Aarhus, 20 December. Rehan, R. M. (2014). Urban branding as a sustainability tool in urban development. HBRC Journal, 10(2), 222–230. Sandstrøm, L. (2006). Corporate Branding. Samfundslitteratur. Taiji, C. (n.d.). Why placebrands fail. Placebrand. Retrieved 21 May, 2016 from placebrand.ca Vestergaard, M. (2015). Landsbyen Billum er tæt på alt det, der betyder noget. Men hvad er det? [The village Billum is close to everything that matters. But what is that?] Jyllands-Posten, 18 July. Wæraas, A. (2014). Making a difference: Strategic positioning in municipal reputation-building. Local government studies. Wæraas, A. (2015). Municipal reputation-building in Norway: A reputation commons tragedy? In A. Wæraas & M. Maor (Eds.), (pp. 327–340). Wæraas, A., & Maor, M. (2015). Organizational reputation in the public sector. New York: Routledge. Wæraas, A., Bjørnå, H., & Moldenæs, T. (2015). Place, organization, democracy: Three strategies for municipal branding. Public Management Review, 17(9), 1282–1304. Wehner, F. (2014). Aarhus-gæster i Latinerkvarteret mødes af kassebyggeri og trafik. [Aarhus-guests in the old quarter of town face box-building and traffic.] Jyllands-Posten, 17 December. Zavattaro, S. M. (2010). Municipalities as public relations and marketing firms. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 32(2), 191–211.
Our translation of: Det nye brand-statement (eller slogan) sammenfatter Aarhus’ løfte til verden i en enkelt sætning. Det giver en ordbogsdefinition af, hvad Aarhus er, nemlig det danske ord for fremgang—eller i overført betydning udvikling på den danske/aarhusianske måde. ii Our translation of: Aarhus er et af Danmarks to vækstcentre, og en klar profilering af Aarhus styrker den internationale markedsføring af Danmark markant. iii ‘Noller’ is a dialect word which is said only to be used in Aarhus. It means a little bit crazy, but also slightly funny at the same time. It is not listed in the official dictionary for the Danish Language, ‘Retskrivningsordbogen’. iv Our translation of: Aarhus—Danish for svineriets by. v By referring to the ambiguity of the meaning of the word Danish. vi In Danish, the phrase used was ”Man skal kunne forene sig med den internationale brandingstrategy.” The phrase ’forene sig med’ has no clear match in English, but means to accept and to incorporate. i
215
ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
International Conference; Meaning in Translation: Illusion of Precision, MTIP2016, 11-13 May 2016, Riga, Latvia
A tale of two re-branded cities: Riga, Latvia and Aarhus, Denmark Gunta Ločmelea, Birthe Moustenb,* b
a University of Latvia, Riga, Raina Blvd. 19, LV–1586, Latvia Aarhus University, Nordre Ringgade 1, 8000, Aarhus, and Aalborg University, Fredrik Bajers Vej 5, Aalborg, 9100, Denmark
Abstract This study shows how Riga and Arhus identified, formulated and communicated city re-branding. Our analysis concentrates on resident responses to city re-branding and how such responses could force the municipalities to withdraw their re-branding. A city loses its identity if it is globalized. In the Riga and Aarhus cases, the municipalities tried to find a global voice, which contradicted local traditions; and in both cases, the redefinition of city image took place top-down and not bottom-up. The two cases may not prove to be a golden rule, but should be a warning against rash city re-branding decisions made by municipalities. © TheAuthors. Authors.Published Published Elsevier © 2016 2016 The byby Elsevier Ltd.Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MTIP2016. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MTIP2016 Keywords: City branding; image; localization; municipal branding; re-semiotization; translation studies; urban branding.
1. Introduction An effective city brand strategy brings all stakeholders together – from investors to officials to residents – at the beginning of the process. That way, they can define a common vision and then agree on a plan to reach it (North, 2014). According to CityMetric (North, 2014), an online arm of the New Statesman, 86 per cent of city branding campaigns fail. Soydanbay, in the interview quote with North above, suggests that the reason may be lack of consistency of opinions among the stakeholders of city branding. The wish to simultaneously make a local destination visible by focusing on specific features and adapting its image to cater for an international or global audience has
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +4586150745. E-mail address: [email protected]
1877-0428 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MTIP2016 doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.09.093
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
resulted in a plethora of approaches to destination branding. We have compared two cases of failed city re-branding: Riga in Latvia and Aarhus in Denmark. The increasing and general interest in city branding – also known as urban branding and municipal branding, or in a broader context destination branding or place branding – concurs with the definition of place branding as product branding applied to a place. Another definition refers to city branding as a way to construct and shape an urban imagery (Rehan, 2014) including many representations of a city. City ‘boosterism’ is about making the city name visible as a response to growing competition between places and globalization of markets (Jones, 2015). City marketing is considered essential to attract investment, business, tourists and a qualified workforce to the city (Wæraas et al., 2015, p. 1288) as well as to develop loyalty among residents (Zavattaro, 2010, Wæraas et al., 2015, 1288). City branding can thus be seen as a combination of place, organizational and political branding. The building of brand equity therefore takes place in relation to “national, regional and/or local (or city) identity” (Govers, Go, 2009, p. 16). The different stakeholders in city branding may be defined in relation to the following Fig. 1, inspired by Sandstrøm (2006, p. 58), but with our angle of communication and translation of branding copy.
To citizens
To tourists
To newcoming residents
Communication and translation of resemiotized branding copy
To trade and industry
Fig. 1. Communication and translation of branding copy to a city’s stakeholders.
That city branding is not an easy task has been proven by the high rate of failure, which can be ascribed to many factors. In Australia, a new logo was subjected to a hate campaign (North, 2014); the American city of Whitehorse logo and slogan was rejected because the citizens did not feel they had been consulted (Taiji, 2016); and the British city of Cardiff logo was changed from blue with a bird in the logo to red with a dragon in the logo to the chagrin of the Premier League Football Team which was nicknamed the Bluebirds. Subsequently, the red logo had to adopt a blue bird in the logo (Hardy, 2013). A quick search on the internet abound with failed examples of city branding and re-branding. 2. Theoretical considerations In addition to identifying the stakeholder groups, we look at stakeholders through a lens of external and internal influences. An external influence is about making an impact on the environment in the form of “the social construction of reputation through initiatives that shape overall perceptions of the municipality as a coherent unit. These initiatives, which imply an external focus and are undertaken in competition with other municipalities, revolve more around the strategic communication and presentation of unique value propositions.” (Wæraas, 2015, p. 332). An internal influence relates to the focus on how to provide better services for residents and thus cater to their needs. (ibid.). Externally focused branding activities can produce internal effects: a stronger reputation of the municipality may mean that residents identify increasingly with their municipality: higher loyalty, reduced exit rates (out-migration), etc. If residents have an opportunity to have their say in a local community, the positive effects of municipal activities are even stronger (ibid., 2014, p. 4). As we will show in our research below, a negative internal effect may be caused by a clash between re-semiotized external branding and internal stakeholder interests. External and internal influences are relevant in relation to the re-semiotization of brand identity, brand positioning and brand image, as shown in Fig. 2.
209
210
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
Resemiotization Brand identity External influence
Brand positioning
Internal influence
Brand image
Fig. 2. From brand identity to brand image – the case of resemiotization by internal and external influences.
Brand identity includes the wish by stakeholders to have the brand perceived in a certain way, brand positioning how the competitive advantage is communicated to a target group, and brand image how the brand is actually perceived. It also shows the importance of the sequence of identity first, then positioning and ultimately image. From time to time, city planners want to re-semiotize their city brand. In the Aarhus case, the reasoning was to make Aarhus more visible on the world map and to attract investments. In the Riga case, there was a specific triggering event: Riga as the European Capital of Culture 2014. Re-semiotization is understood as “shifts from context to context, from practice to practice, or from one stage of a practice to the next” (Iedema, 2003, p. 40). Such a shift takes place between the different stakeholders’ awareness and associations of the brand, their brand loyalty, and the perceived quality of the brand (Aaker, 2010, p. 7–8). An example of strong, external influence is media pressure which makes municipalities focus more on their external image than internal work (Wæraas, et al., 2015). Our cases show, however, the strength of the internal influences, expressed by the citizens. Other examples round the world have also shown that there is a considerable neglect of focus on internal municipality interests, in particular that municipalities and cities are “service-providing units and work places, and that residents and citizens are important target groups beyond the place concept” (Waeraas, et. al. 2015, p. 1300). 3. Case story data and facts In Riga and Aarhus, the two re-branding campaigns were studied, and in both cases the branding organizations were city municipalities. In Riga, the power of identity through the language is strong as demonstrated by the Riga city re-branding case: the change of one diacritic mark caused strong demonstrations, because the word is a symbol with long-established roots, and a re-semiotization initiative had not been negotiated. The name of the city itself is a powerful image attribute, too. The local heritage, including the Riga city name – cast by a prominent artist and viewed as an attribute of the city image – is important as both the visitors and the locals seek local roots. In Aarhus, the power of identity through the language was demonstrated by the Aarhus city re-branding case: Re-semiotization through the exchange of a decade-old Danish slogan for a globalized-English slogan created a massive citizen and media response that eventually made the city council abandon the new city slogan and in part replace it with the old city slogan. In both cases, the citizens connect their collective memories as a semiotic basis for their sense of having an anchor throughout history. Citizens and visitors alike view with interest the history and realization of the local perceptions (Landry, 2005, p. 6). City re-branding – in our cases – should not just have been directed to the future, but should have had important roots in the past.
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
4. Analysis method In our study of the two cities, Riga and Arhus, we have studied how these cities re-semiotized their cities and identified, formulated and communicated the city attributes to internal and external audiences. In more detail, our analysis of the two city re-branding cases concentrates on the residents’ responses to city re-branding and their reactions to the cities’ image, after the city managements implemented the new re-branding policy. 5. Analysis Riga The case of Riga, Latvia is a municipal re-branding story of re-semiotization of the logo of Riga city, the signs at city limits and the heart in the blue and white colours of the Riga city flag. The heart replaced a diacritic mark in the city name in summer, 2014. By replacing the diacritic mark over the I in Riga with a heart, the Riga City Council wanted firstly to send a message that Riga, the European Capital of Culture 2014, welcomes its guests, and secondly to make the city logo more internationally recognizable. The colours blue and white were supposed to be associated with the Riga city flag, but they reminded the citizens of the Russian flag. In one of the locations, the citizens even took the liberty of repainting it in blue and yellow – the colours of the Ukrainian flag, thus mirroring Ukrainian events in the summer of 2014 and the protests against the Russian invasion into Ukraine. The State Language Centre initiated a procedure against the Riga City Council for misspelling the name by using a different symbol, and not the regular diacritic mark; thus distorting and reducing the image of the city to banality. An activist group wrote an open letter to the mayor of the city Nils Ušakovs stating – besides the above violation, distortion and reduction to banality – also the violation of copyright and language norms. The heart symbol was judged as shamefully primitive, unmatched to the status of Riga as the European Capital of Culture (Delfi, 2014, LETA, 2014, ir 2015). Actions of protest were carried out. As a result, following the initiative of the activists, the Riga City Council ordered to repaint the heart in the colour of the Latvian flag. The opinion of the citizens of Riga was not sought, thus critically important elements from a local demand side perspective were omitted. The Riga City Council unilaterally decided that the heart over the name of the city will make the city sign into an international symbol of Riga, European Capital of Culture, as an employee of the Transport Department of the Riga City Council wrote in her explanatory letter (Delfi, 2014). The symbols of identity: the language and traditions were challenged, thus not distilling into strong brand equity. The Transport Department of the Riga City Council’s opinion that the white-coloured part of the heart may serve as a diacritic mark over the letter I was not approved of by the State Language Centre experts who decided that by taking off the diacritic mark the Latvian language norms were violated (Delfi, 2014, LETA, 2014, ir 2015). Copyright issues were neglected. The Riga city sign was cast by the artist Valdis Celms, and for many decades it was considered to be an outstanding symbol of the city. The Riga City Council violated copyright laws and commercialized the symbol instead of developing it into positive brand equity. In their open letter to mayor Ušakovs, 57 well-known Riga residents, including former Minister of Economics, asked the Riga City Council to reinstall the signs in their earlier shape and further on to protect the logo of Riga from any unprofessional activities, from altering it and placing any objects around it that would make it visually less attractive (Delfi, 2014). The fear was triggered that similar attempts would continue in future. The same letter to the mayor described this fear that the sign might not only suffer from attempts of commercialization like the one discussed, but also could be abused in political election campaigns in future. The authors of the letter requested the city council’s protection for the sign against such attempts (Delfi, 2014). The concern that the mayor of the city would be too loyal to Putin’s Russia was activated, thus politics precluded positive brand equity development. On March 5, 2015, the Latvian Minister of Culture issued an order that the Riga city sign should be included in the list of cultural monuments of Latvia thus concluding a long debate with the Riga City Council about the ethics of such re-branding (LETA, 2014, Kulturas Ministrija, 2015). 6. Riga results The external view was a priority for the authors of the first campaign at the Riga City Council who used the phrase “people like it” for their defense. The fallout of the campaign with the local audience was caused by the neglect of the local view. The same letter by 57 well-known Riga citizens required that an environment be recreated that develops
211
212
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
and increases the standards of good taste of the residents of Riga and brings honor to the city (Delfi, 2014). This action could also be read as a marketing strategy: the brand identity that the residents can relate to could simultaneously produce an attractive image from the outside view. By neglecting the old city principles, the re-semiotized message caused unforeseen reactions. For the Latvian city politicians, the response resulted in socio-political reactions very distant from the intended rhetorical purpose. The case did not leave anybody indifferent, but most offended. The internal forces backfired at the city’s attempt to cater for its external stakeholders 7. Analysis Aarhus Aarhus, Denmark is a slightly different story. The original slogan was “Århus – Smilets By” and in its English version “Aarhus – the city of smiles.” The roots of the slogan are imprecise, but most people give the explanation that it was first seen in a baker’s shop and then slowly developed from there. In 1938, the tourist association launched a campaign with the slogan: “Århus – Sommerens og smilets by.” [Aarhus – The city of summer and smiles.] Then it slowly developed from the roots of the city to become the official slogan (FIG, 2014; Køster, & Stagis, 2014). After a process starting around 2009, the Aarhus municipality presented a rejuvenated strategic story of Aarhus in 2011 with the slogan “Aarhus. Danish for progress.” There was no Danish version of the slogan. When introducing the slogan, the mayor’s office wrote: “The new brand statement (or slogan) encompasses Aarhus’s vow to the world embraced in one sentence. This gives a dictionary definition of what Aarhus is, which is the Danish word for ‘fremskridt’ [progress] – or metaphorically speaking development in the Danish/Aarhusian way.” i (Aarhus Kommune 2011). In the process of creating this new image, two London-based consultancy companies had been hired: Goosebumps Brand Agency and Global Cities. These two agencies defined the strengths of Aarhus in the following way: “Aarhus is a city taking on the huge challenges of the world.” And “Aarhus is a city which cooperates.” And “Aarhus is a city experimenting and rethinking the conventional ways of doing things.” And finally “Aarhus is a city working with the goal of creating improvements” (Aarhus Kommune, 2011). After the introduction of the slogan, some of the most important T&I organisations joined to form Aarhus Marketing Alliance. A toolbox of texts, logo generators, pictures, etc. was created. The website www.withaarhus.com was made. Coordination between different events was instigated. Workshops were set up for people to learn to use the brand. A film competition was made (Aarhus Kommune, n.d., but between 2011–2014). A magazine called Aarhus. Danish for progress should be launched once a year in English (Aarhus Kommune, 2012). The then Man. Dir. Niels Milling of Dansk Erhverv, the confederation of Danish enterprise, was eager to comment on the success of the new slogan, and in the municipality’s press release, the organization was quoted: “Aarhus is one of Denmark’s two growth centres, and a clear profiling of Aarhus strengthens the international marketing of Denmark significantlyii” (Aarhus Kommune, 2011). Not everybody in the press was enthusiastic. The Danish press loved to caricature the slogan. A Copenhagen Newspaper came up with an alternative slogan: “Aarhus – engelsk for noller” [Aarhus – English for ‘noller’.]iii There were 40 comments to the article, both referring to the slogan, but just as many starting a discussion of what the word ‘noller’ meant (Information, 2011). BureauBiz wrote in an analysis article that discrepancy was pitfall number one: the city council’s wish to be known for something other than what the city was actually renowned for. The municipality becomes a business plan and loses its soul. Aarhus already had a very strong brand, which will be remembered (FIG, 2014). The fact alone that two advertising agencies abroad should be able to deduct the essence of Aarhus created a stir during the process, partly because of the money spent on these two foreign agencies, partly the process itself. Letters to the editor were numerous. And they kept popping up. From December 2014, three years after the introduction of the slogan, for instance the following three letters to the editor could be read in the local newspaper. One was a rewriting of the slogan into “Aarhus – Danish for the city of garbage”iv (Holm, 2014). Another ridiculed the rethink association of the slogan and the incorporation of the word Danish by saying that in American the slogan would be interpreted “Aarhus – Danish pastry for progress!”v (Wehner, 2014). A third scorned the use of English words in Danish, giving the Aarhus slogan as the absolutely worst example. As the writer concludes, maybe it is time to rethink (Hansen, 2014). The Danish pastry discussion had gained momentum, and it was associated with the slogan very early. In one of the responses along this vein, there is a reference to the testing of the slogan by the advertising agencies in eight countries, where this was not the association (Harder, 2011 a). The mayor referred to the same fact when the
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
slogan was abandoned (Nyvang, 2014). Throughout the process, almost all articles and letters to the editor also mentioned the price of this initiative: one million Danish kroner which the taxpayers had to pay (Markedsføring, 2014, BT, 2014; Harder, 2011b; Holm, 2014; Hvid, & Elstrup, 2014), which seemingly was the official price paid to the agencies alone. Add to that the costs in the municipality for copy material, manhours spent, etc. The main problem with the slogan was probably that it was never really understood. “Aarhus – Danish for progress.” First, how is ‘for’ going to be interpreted? To advocate, to be in favor of or similar expressions? Who is not for progress, by the way? The differentiation, which is so paramount in destination branding, was missing, and led to ridicule. Second, is ‘for’ going to be interpreted as ‘means’? If that is the case, there is an extra link inserted between the two words that should be defined by each other. Is it Aarhus that means progress, or Danish? And exactly the word Danish in the slogan was the word that was the cause of most ridicule and the word that took on the meaning ‘Danish pastry’ equals progress. Moreover, the exact constellation of the slogan meant that it could not be translated into Danish. It only existed in global cyberspace, and lacked local roots. In August 2014 – three months before abandoning the slogan – the survey institute Epinion made a survey among the T&I organizations in Aarhus, and from the responses, only 48% recognized the slogan, which seems surprising taken the media storm into account. Maybe ‘recognize’ in this context meant understood. The municipality’s Director of Business Development refers to the results as certainly not enough (Hvid, & Elstrup, 2014). When after three years, the critical voices did not die out, and the survey showed that the slogan did not gain acceptance among the local T&I, either, something had to be done. On 20 December, 2014, the mayor of Aarhus announced that the slogan would be abandoned, because it did not work, and because “people have to incorporate the international branding strategy”vi (Dalhoff, & Estrup, 2014). However, the mayor said that going back to the old slogan would not be the immediate choice. The additional copytext for the slogan called “With us” should be kept, but should be used in combinations. (FIG, 2014). The accompanying website www.withaarhus.com does not exist anymore. The two advertising agencies do not leave a trace of having worked with the Aarhus slogan on their web sites. They are too busy boasting their prizes (Goosebumps Brand Agency, 2016; Global Cities, 2016). In a response to the withdrawal of the “progress” slogan, some articles declared that now “Smilets by” (city of smiles) was back (Markedsføring, 2014). Even years after the slogan was abandoned, the example of Aarhus was used in an article to discuss the use of slogans. According to Kjøller, associate professor at Copenhagen University, a slogan must take its starting point in how the environment sees its municipality (Larsen, 2015), in other words, it must be in harmony with the internal view. In addition, a brand must create a mental image to work (Bjerre Toft, 2015). In another article, she adds that a good slogan must be concrete and guide the receivers towards what they think is good about their town (Vestergaard, 2015). 8. Aarhus results The Aarhus example showed that the old slogan could easily be translated into English for global use, because image equaled identity. The new slogan was born in English, but it did not carry any identity and had to be abandoned eventually, because it could not be translated into a Danish matching slogan, and it could not create an image that would match citizens’ identity of Aarhus. People did not understand it, and they did not relate to it at all. The fact that it was an English slogan added to the foreignization of the slogan among the citizens and in turn created hostility. 9. Conclusion A given success cannot be created by focusing on the image of a city. On the contrary, the starting point has to be in the identity of the city. If the identity and the image are congruent, it might work. Although other city slogans also seem naïve and empty of content, they work because citizens make the slogans work. Just think of Wonderful Copenhagen, The Big Apple/I Love NY. They only work, because citizens and tourists alike embrace the slogans. Rebranding through re-semiotization is a challenging task, which may have a top-down lead, but must include the internal stakeholders, in particular the citizens. It does not work to explicitly exclude the citizens in the redefinition or re-semiotization of the brand. When it comes to differences between Riga and Aarhus, Riga’s controversy with the slogan had its roots in the historical development of Latvia as an independent state and with Riga as its capital, and in turn Latvia’s standing and identity as an independent nation. The city’s change of the slogan disregarded the importance of the original slogan
213
214
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215
and disregarded how this slogan had become a rallying point for people who sought their local identity in the slogan, and moreover disregarded how this slogan supported the Latvian language. Consequently, the change caused resistance. The Aarhus controversy also had historical roots. However, the Aarhus slogan was not a matter of independence, but a matter of identity. The very slow, even unclear, historical background bears witness to that. The change of slogan in a Danish context was probably rather a response to a replacement of local identity for a global identity without any particular roots. The response seemed to be resistance to the lack of local rooting, also in the form of the language shift away from the Danish language, rather than resistance to independence. In our two examples, the similarity is that city branders tried to find a global voice, which contradicted local traditions. Disregarding local sentiments, emotions, tradition, developments and the shared understanding among citizens may backfire seriously on the city’s management. The lesson to be learned from the two examples is that a city or a municipality is not just a board of marketers planning a city’s development. A stakeholder negotiation across the stakeholder groups, cf. Fig. 1, must take place to ensure that the identity, the positioning and the image of re-semiotized city planning, cf. Fig. 2, can stand up to resistance and eventually can be embraced by citizens and other stakeholders alike. References Aaker, D.A. (2010). Building strong brands. London: Simon & Schuster. Aarhus Kommune. (2011). Aarhus skal være mere kendt i udlandet. [Aarhus must be known better abroad.] Aarhus Kommune, 24 August. Aarhus Kommune. (2012). Aarhus. Danish for progress. Aarhus Kommune. Available at www.aarhus.dk (no longer available). Aarhus Kommune. (n.d., but brochure 2011–2014). Kommunale veje til vækst [Municipal roads to growth]. Aarhus Kommune. BC. (2014). Usakovs: It’s easier to talk about practical matters in Moscow, than in Berlin or Washington. The Baltic Course, 1 October. Retrieved 7 March, 2016 from www.baltic-course.com Bjerre Toft, K. (2015). Vi skal prale mere og gøre op med den vestjyske beskedenhed. [We must brag more and stop West-Jutland modesty.]. Jyllands-Posten, 20 July. BT 2014. Aarhus skal ikke længere være “Danish for progress.” [Aarhus is no longer to be “Danish for progress.”] BT, 20 December. Cai, L.A., Gartner, W.C., & Munar, A.M. (2009). Tourism branding. Communities in action. Bingley: Emerald. Dalhoff, M., & Elstrup, M. (2014). Aarhus skrotter omstridt slogan [Aarhus scraps controversial slogan]. Jyllands-Posten, 20 December. Delfi. (2014). Vēstulē Nilam Ušakovam prasa izbeigt Rīgas vizītkartes saķēpāšanu [A letter to Nils Ušakovs demands putting an end to spoiling Riga business card]. Delfi, 20 August. Retrieved 20 March, 2016 from http://www.delfi.lv FIG. (2014). Derfor fejlede Aarhus’ 3 år gamle branding-strategi [That’s why Aarhus’ three-year-old branding strategy failed]. Bureaubiz, 30 October. Retrieved 20 March, 2016 from www.bureaubiz.dk Global Cities. (2016). All web pages visited. Retrieved 30 April, 2016 from globalcities.eu Goosebumps Brand Agency. (2016). All web pages visited. Retrieved 30 April, 2016 from goosebumpsbranding.com Govers, R., & Go, F. (2009). Place branding: Glocal, virtual and physical identities, constructed, imagined and experienced. Palgrave Macmillan. Hansen, T. (2014). Engelske ord i dansk. [English words in Danish]. Jyllands-Posten, 19 December. Harder, T. (2011 a). Aarhus-slogan er testet i otte lande. [Aarhus slogan tested in eight countries]. Ekstra Bladet, 24 August. Harder, T. (2011 b). Aarhus bruger 1 million på nyt slogan. [Aarhus spends one million on a new slogan.] Ekstra Bladet, 24 August. Hardy, T. (2013). 10 Rebranding failures and how much they cost. Canny creative, 14 October. Retrieved 22 April, 2016 from canny-creative.com Holm, E. T. (2014). Aarhus—Danish for svineriets by. [Aarhus—Danish for the city of garbage]. Jyllands-Posten, 30 August. Hvid, J., & Elstrup, M. (2014). Aarhus. Danish for … hvad? [Aarhus. Danish for … what?]. Jyllands-Posten, 5 August. Iedema, R. (2003). Multimodality, resemiotization: Extending the analysis of descourse as multi-semiotic practice. Visual Communication, 2, 29– 57. Information. (2011). Aarhus—engelsk for noller [Aarhus—English for ’noller.’] Information, 12 November. ir. (2015). Uz AB dambja “nelikumīgi” atgriežas Rīgas robežzīme ar zili balto sirdi [Illegal return of the Riga city sign with a blue-and-white heart on AB dambis]. Retrieved 3 July, 2016 from http://www.ir.lv/ Jones, A. (2015). London 2012: Urban Imagery and City Branding, in Merkel. Kamman, S. (2008). Destination marketing organizations in Europe: An in-depth analysis, international tourism management and consultancy. Breda: NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences. Køster, A., & Stagis, N. (2014). Danish for progress: Smilet blegnede aldrig. [Danish for progress. The smile never faded away.] Kommunikationsforum, 29 October. Kultūras Ministrija. (2015). Robežzīmes RĪGA tiks iekļautas valsts aizsargājamo kultūras pieminekļu sarakstā. [The RIGA city sign will be included in the list of cultural monuments protected by the state]. Retrieved 12 May, 2016 from www.km.gov.lv Landry, J. (2005). London as a creative city. Retrieved 21 March, 2016 from www.cpu.gov.hk Larsen, P. (2015). Eksperter: Et byslogan skal ikke klistres på udefra [Experts: A city slogan should not be glued on from the outside]. JyllandsPosten, 26 July. LETA. (2014). Rīgas robežzīmes autors: Rīgai nepieciešama mākslinieciskā vadība [According to the author of the Riga city sign Riga needs arts
Gunta Ločmele and Birthe Mousten / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 208 – 215 management]. Retrieved 10 July, 2016 from http://apollo.tvnet.lv/ Lucarelli, A., & Berg, P. O. (2011). City branding: A state-of-the-art review of the research domain. Journal of Place Management and Development, 4(1), 9–27. Markedsføring. (2014). Farvel til “Danish for progress” [Goodbye to Danish for progress]. Markedsføring. Merkel, U. (2015). Making sense of identity discourses in international events, festivals and spectacles. UK: Palgrave Macmillan. North, S. (2014). Why do most city branding campaigns fail? Retrieved 21 August, 2015 from www.citymetric.com Nyvang, L. B. (2014). Sloganet ‘Danish for Progress’ fik rigeligt med tid. [The slogan ‘Danish for Progress’ got ample time]. Lokalavisen/Aarhus, 20 December. Rehan, R. M. (2014). Urban branding as a sustainability tool in urban development. HBRC Journal, 10(2), 222–230. Sandstrøm, L. (2006). Corporate Branding. Samfundslitteratur. Taiji, C. (n.d.). Why placebrands fail. Placebrand. Retrieved 21 May, 2016 from placebrand.ca Vestergaard, M. (2015). Landsbyen Billum er tæt på alt det, der betyder noget. Men hvad er det? [The village Billum is close to everything that matters. But what is that?] Jyllands-Posten, 18 July. Wæraas, A. (2014). Making a difference: Strategic positioning in municipal reputation-building. Local government studies. Wæraas, A. (2015). Municipal reputation-building in Norway: A reputation commons tragedy? In A. Wæraas & M. Maor (Eds.), (pp. 327–340). Wæraas, A., & Maor, M. (2015). Organizational reputation in the public sector. New York: Routledge. Wæraas, A., Bjørnå, H., & Moldenæs, T. (2015). Place, organization, democracy: Three strategies for municipal branding. Public Management Review, 17(9), 1282–1304. Wehner, F. (2014). Aarhus-gæster i Latinerkvarteret mødes af kassebyggeri og trafik. [Aarhus-guests in the old quarter of town face box-building and traffic.] Jyllands-Posten, 17 December. Zavattaro, S. M. (2010). Municipalities as public relations and marketing firms. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 32(2), 191–211.
Our translation of: Det nye brand-statement (eller slogan) sammenfatter Aarhus’ løfte til verden i en enkelt sætning. Det giver en ordbogsdefinition af, hvad Aarhus er, nemlig det danske ord for fremgang—eller i overført betydning udvikling på den danske/aarhusianske måde. ii Our translation of: Aarhus er et af Danmarks to vækstcentre, og en klar profilering af Aarhus styrker den internationale markedsføring af Danmark markant. iii ‘Noller’ is a dialect word which is said only to be used in Aarhus. It means a little bit crazy, but also slightly funny at the same time. It is not listed in the official dictionary for the Danish Language, ‘Retskrivningsordbogen’. iv Our translation of: Aarhus—Danish for svineriets by. v By referring to the ambiguity of the meaning of the word Danish. vi In Danish, the phrase used was ”Man skal kunne forene sig med den internationale brandingstrategy.” The phrase ’forene sig med’ has no clear match in English, but means to accept and to incorporate. i
215