"So, places of the world: Differentiate, brand or die." I came across this cheery directive in Air Canada's enRoute magazine on a recent trip from Toronto to HK and managed to while away time pondering the question, "what exactly is Toronto's brand?" Does "You Belong Here" really capture all that this city is or is the challenge greater than that? Are we a city deserving of a brand? In a world where finite tourism and investment dollars flow freely what do we have that is worth "buying"? What do you think Toronto's brand is?

1. Media coverage on this issue lately has focused on the unpopular “Toronto Unlimited” campaign. Some feel we need to have a trademark or slogan to rival “I [heart] N. Y.”.

   When I choose a vacation destination, my mind doesn’t turn to slogans or logos, but rather to things I’ve heard about the city. This may be from friends, things I’ve read about the city, or images I have of the city from movies and television.

   Perhaps by working on these portrayals of Toronto we’d have more of an impact than trying to come up with a clever “brand”. Not to mention working on the quality of the city itself.

   Can a diverse modern city ever really be summed up by a catchphrase?

   A quality product speaks for itself in the marketplace.

   Posted by Kevin  on  09/02  at  10:41 PM

2. It’s disappointing that a city would go through a ‘branding exercise’, but I think it’s more indictive of the firms that have somehow convinced city officials that a city even needs a ‘brand’. Cities, of course, do have personalities and quantifying those personality traits into marketing slogans and trademarked catch phrases by tourism boards is inevitable, especially in a service sector driven town like Toronto. Yet, what is a brand? It is not a logo, colour swatches and a catch phrase. It is something greater than the sum of it’s parts. Classic brands are developed over years and more importantly are not only formed by a corporation but their employees and loyal customers. There’s the rub. Cities that develop such strategies have forgotten their most loyal of customers, their citizens. A brand is more often an ideal than a logo or a poster. Unfortunately, we’ve formulated the act of creating a brand the same way we try to bottle the brand itself. Cities, their citizens and their visitors deserve better than to be swatched and codified like a piece of business logic.

   Posted by peter Rogers  on  09/09  at  10:56 PM

<< Back to main