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.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article