Brand Sydney project, with a committee of 14 ‘stakeholders’ from government, corporations & quangos (lovely term) spent 12 months and $1 million of taxpayer funds to discover how Sydney should be marketed to the world.
Geoff Parmenter, head of Events NSW, released its findings: “..we are strong on the natural beauty and the sincerity and honesty of Sydneysiders..” OK, he probably meant physical beauty of Sydney, but surely the good burgers of Emerald City (home of the Rum Corps and property developers) wouldn’t be seen as sincere and honest? He added “..the vibrancy of the city and vitality of our thinking.” No, not drinking, because that obvious truth was dispelled by coining a phrase ‘work hard play large’. Clever!
The essence of brand Sydney was defined as (drum roll): ‘VIBRANT MAGNETISM’. Work is under way to develop brand, logo and marketing paraphernalia to be ‘rolled out’ somewhere, no doubt with lots more taxpayer dollars.
In the recent Labour Party conference, Annabel Crabb (SMH July 31) had interesting insights into the Ruddbot (term of endearment for our PM) use of language. Referring to previous conference resolutions, Kevin said: “Those resolutions represented the consistency of our purpose! The conviction of our resolve!” Crabb pointed out that his words could in fact be re-arranged and still make bland sense. “Those convictions represented the purpose of our resolve! The resolution of our consistency!” It works beautifully.
So Brand Sydney team could also try an inversion, like ‘MAGNETIC VIBRANCY’. Or even more down-to-earth, in Sydney’s image – what about ‘sticky shaking’ or ‘shaky stickyness’? Could be an allusion to political donations or some such, but needs more work.
KOOKYNIE COURIER 