Glasgow is looking for a new slogan that captures the spirit and soul of the Dear Green Place in time for next year's Commonwealth Games.

Yesterday Glaswegians were invited to put on their thinking caps and come up with a replacement for "Glasgow: Scotland with Style".

City Council leader Gordon Matheson launched the month-long public consultation by inviting suggestions for what he called "the next chapter in the city's brand story".

This is a process that is likely to contain a number of pitfalls, especially if the consultation fails to generate anything beyond the cheesy or cringeworthy. Mr Matheson is already under fire over his plans to upgrade the city's George Square, partly because of the perceived lack of public input. That pressure could intensify if, having appealed for suggestions, he goes on to reject them.

Choosing a city slogan is generally a thankless task. Frequently the chosen form of words is either controversial or forgettable or both. However, it would be hard to do any worse than Edinburgh's recent slogan search, which culminated in turmoil after councillors wisely rejected "Incredinburgh". A predecessor, "Inspiring Capital", also failed to set the heather alight.

Glasgow certainly needs new branding. "Glasgow: Scotland with style" was a clever idea, rather than an inspiring one. It was intended to recruit Charles Rennie Mackintosh to do for Glasgow what Gaudi has done for Barcelona and Frank Lloyd Wright for Chicago. But critics said it failed to resonate with the people of the city and said more about the smart city centre as a destination for shopping and cultural outings than the struggling housing schemes or east end where much of the population lives. In the same week it was launched in 2004, NHS statistics showed male life expectancy in Shettleston was less than 64, 13 years below the UK average.

Of course, there is another problem. In the 1960s the city adopted the motto "Let Glasgow Flourish", a truncated version of some of the words of Saint Mungo, the city's patron saint. But in the 1980s it launched the "Glasgow's Miles Better" campaign, which was perhaps the most successful city slogan ever, with the possible exception of "I Love New York". Its catchy, cheery, cheeky, cockiness not only imprinted itself on the collective consciousness of Glaswegians but also achieved its objective of making the world take a second look at a city with a grim past. In addition its double entendre made a sly sideswipe at the city at the other end of the M8. All in all, it is a very hard act to follow.

The lesson of the Miles Better campaign is that an effective city slogan needs to embed itself in the affections of its own people. Then, without the need for fat marketing budgets, they will sport it on their car bumpers, coffee mugs and branded T-shirts. Ultimately, what makes Glasgow great is its people.