Slogan schmogan
Because it's a good slogan!
We welcome guest posts on this blog and after one on Tuesday today we have another. This time our guest poster has a stab at getting to grips with the proliferation of council slogans and brands employed by local authorities. If you’d like to contribute please drop us an e-mail at welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com… But not until you’ve enjoyed today’s post.
Have you ever noticed the different brands within Councils? There maybe a brand for the Olympics team, the Parks team or even Democratic Services.
Councils seem very apt at creating a community feel through their slogans underneath ever changing logos and corporate identities.
Here is a list of some of the slogans used by Councils – recognise any of them?
- Number one for service and value
- Let yourself Grow
- Where people chose to live, work and stay
- Let’s make it happen
- Your County, putting <<name of county>> first
- Performing well, one place
- Widening horizons
It makes you wonder, whether in these times of dire straights and redeployment opportunities, if Councils have thought these through. What’s more do communities have a say in these strap lines that offer uniformity and should provide borough or county pride?
Let’s compare this to some of the more public facing strap lines:
- Cat’s like Felix, like Felix
- We all adore a Kia-Ora
- I love New York
- If it’s on, it’s in
- Free enterprise with every issue
Save for the last two, each has the name of the product in it. Each appeals to it’s target audience, is simple and in plain English.
Some may go to say that they are even quite witty.
When researching for this article, some Council slogans were hard to find. They didn’t even make it to the homepage of the website. Surely this is marketing 101 – create a logo, create a slogan, bang it everywhere you can think of?
In other words no more half hearted measures, multiple slogans and confused branding.
Open our eyes to wider horizons, perform well and let’s make it happen!
Points go to readers out there to find the wittiest Council slogan in the UK. Please make a note of them below…
Tags: felix, local government, slogan
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We Love Local Government 
March 17, 2011 at 9:29 am
‘Fellowship is life, lack of fellowship is death.’
This at least is carved into the building next to the town hall of the Council and I think part of it is on the shield of the Council, but after that it disappears. If you are wondering, its a quote from a William Morris.
March 17, 2011 at 9:32 am
Reading Council is “Leading The Way” …or at least it was.
This was their claim back in 2009, but now it doesn’t appear on the website other than in their Corporate Plan (2009-12)- I guess the new council isn’t quite so confident, but can’t get approval for “Trailing behind”!
March 17, 2011 at 10:39 am
Leading the way… to what?
Slightly gloomy reading from Morris. But then he always was a little down in the dumps!
Loving Chief Executive’s blogging pages at the moment. Favourite today has to go to CEO of Gloucester County Council – Julian Wain: helping to shape future services. What happened to current services?
March 17, 2011 at 1:20 pm
One of my favourites from a few years back, when being green was all the rage, was: “Wirral has heard the cry of the Earth”.
March 17, 2011 at 4:37 pm
Harrow was “the best of capital and country” when I worked there. Pretty inoffensive – and unmemorable.
Perhaps we should have “Anyborough Council – we’re not as bad as all that” and “Any County Council – fulfilling our statutory obligations pursuant to the Local Government Act 1972”
Loads of places seem to be “The Brighter Borough” or variations thereof.
American states are the best. One brave council ought to adopt “Live Free or Die”.
March 17, 2011 at 7:28 pm
My favourite from my end of the country is ‘if only ALL councils were like Dartford’
Even if you read this in a positive light it just smacks of bigheadedness. Get the feeling they have ‘small man syndrome’ next to their bigger, London, boroughs…?
June 27, 2011 at 9:54 am
I liked the one they came up with about recycling etc. and that you could see from the train: “Dartford’s Councillors are Talking Rubbish”, I wouldn’t have dared to use that in the days when I worked for one the Council’s claiming to be “London’s Leading Borough”.
March 17, 2011 at 7:59 pm
If cutbacks mean the death of the local authority slogan, I suspect it is one cut that people will not miss.
March 17, 2011 at 8:16 pm
[…] Council slogans: missing the mark Leave a Comment Posted by benlowndes on 17/03/2011 A guest on the excellent We Love Local Government blog has written today about spread of council branding (although it actually faces rapid decline as communication activity is frozen across the public sector). While I do not agree with all of it, the key point that local authority brands are often badly managed is hard to dispute. And I said purdah is a grey area.. We welcome guest posts on this blog and after one on Tuesday today we have another. This time our guest poster has a stab at getting to grips with the proliferation of council slogans and brands employed by local authorities. If you’d like to contribute please drop us an e-mail at welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com… But not until you’ … Read More […]
March 17, 2011 at 11:48 pm
Witty it ain’t but one council had, until fairly recently, the visionary rallying cry “To be recognized as a leading authority in Northern Europe by 2013”. I’ll spare their blushes and leave them anonymous. Commercial break – for more official nonsense see the Jargon Bin on my blog at http://helpgov.wordpress.com/the-jargon-bin/
March 18, 2011 at 7:14 am
Enfield’s used to be “London’s top borough” (a witty play on their geography, I’m sure you’ll agree). My understanding is that as performance continued to fail to live up to this bold statement it was quietly shelved
October 25, 2011 at 2:23 pm
The one I’m waiting for:
“This is Grumpshire, now get the hell outa here”