Brand Canberra wants Australia to embrace “new way of thinking” about the city
Canberra has launched a campaign led by a two-and-a-half minute motivational video aimed at encouraging residents to embrace a “new way of thinking” about Australia’s capital city.
The ‘Brand Canberra’ initiative aims to move how the city is talked about into a new phase following it celebrating its centenary, addressing perception issues for the city by highlighting its strengths.
A series of talking heads appear in the video explaining why they love living in the city, while a new logo CBR has also been created to represent the brand.
The campaign, developed by Generation Alliance and Coordinate, is supported by a website which outlines the plans to “create a powerful brand for Canberra. Not just a logo. But a whole new way of thinking and talking about ourselves”.
The website, built by CRE8IVE, asks people in Canberra to get involved to push the brand and make it successful, with the key message: “The most important thing to change is your thinking. Think it, believe it, and you’ll change the way you talk about Canberra. Then others will believe it too.”
It also outlines the “five key values that, in combination, make Canberra unique”:
- Ideas
- Free spirit
- Challenge
- Discovery
- Quality of life
“Brand Canberra” is asking for individuals and organisations in the city to embrace the brand, saying “the more the brand is proudly embraced by people here, the more it will be seen beyond our boundaries and the greater effect it will have.” It’s asking for people to get involved to “play an active role in how this story unfolds.”
Linkedin
No porn and fireworks? I think they’ve seriously overlooked Canberra’s one true selling point.
User ID not verified.
Canberra has one of the highest HDI’s in the world (UN ranking on standard of living).
But I guess it’s not cool to shove that in Australian faces when it’s their money paying for it … so, we get this crap.
User ID not verified.
Boring promo for a boring town.
User ID not verified.
I grew up in Canberra and spent my teens and twenties bagging the place unmercifully.
These days, I love it. I visited a few months ago and realised that it has a lot more to offer than the bland collection of suburbs I grew up in. Would I live there now? I probably wouldn’t get a job there and I’d miss the Inner West, but I certainly don’t hate the idea. And it’s definitely a fantastic place to visit, something that I wouldn’t have said even 10 years ago.
I completely agree that it is time to change outdated perceptions of Canberra, but sadly I don’t think any video, let alone this one, is going to change that. However I wish them luck in at least starting a conversation because I think Canberra deserves it.
(My teenage self is gagging right now ….)
User ID not verified.
Attention? none.
Interest? Absolutely none.
Desire? hell no.
Action? was there even a point in that video?
User ID not verified.
As a Canberran (can I say that after 16 years here?), this does little to break down the perceptions about our little city. The only value that really applies is ‘Quality of life’ – the rest are just wank words. Perhaps getting under the skin of the stereo-tyical Canberra images would have been better rather than superficial art as this appears to be, to change opinion and avoid derogatory comments as those expressed here.
Does anyone else think it smacks of tokenism and labours from about half way (perhaps about 45 seconds too long)? One gets the impression that they found a piece of music and tried to match the images to it…
User ID not verified.
mmm…I bet none of you live here or have even visited??
I came to Canberra 10 years ago from Melbourne. I didn’t like it at first but I made a lot of friends very quickly. Regardless of what you might think, this town is very exciting – there is so much happening every day of the week that I cannot fit everything in!
I love the lifestyle, the unclogged roads, the fresh air, the restaurants – which are just amazing, the nightlife, cafes, outdoor activities our universities – just to name a few of our highlights!
As a resident, I pay taxes too and no, I don’t work for the government!!
Come and visit sometime. You may be pleasantly surprised!
User ID not verified.
One of the best things about Canberra is that only Canberra people know how great it really is!
User ID not verified.
Canberra – it’s Melbourne in Dad Jeans.
Leave Canberra alone. I spent four weeks there one night.
User ID not verified.
I’m a Canberran, I love it and I don’t give a rat’s what the haters think (not that they’d know). In fact, keep hating, stay away (or bugger off if you’re already here) and leave us to enjoy the place all to ourselves.
User ID not verified.
Canberra = a good city getting better all the time, deserves a visit and generally a bit less of a beating up.
This brand campaign = making “CBR” look like a new kid trying to fit in with the cool kids. This is what gets the new kid beaten up in the first place. Hypercolor Tees from the 80’s anyone?
User ID not verified.
@Jules
I’m Canberran.
The city has been progressively made unlivable by a combination of unnecessarily high wages and local govt addiction to land sales. Talk to students about how difficult it is to get/maintain accommodation.
The restaurant scene you describe attempts to ape the class of Melbourne or flash of Sydney, but somehow manages to homogenize everything into a bland, beige soup.
There are pockets of underground culture, but these are hard to access, especially for visitors/tourists.
The transient public service workforce is risk-adverse and, well, boring in conversation.
Also, self-import middle-aged Lycra-clad cyclist plagues,
Cheers,
Ex-ex
User ID not verified.
Didnt even watch the video… its Canberra
User ID not verified.
Welcome to the most generic place on the planet, promoted through a corporate video that looks and sounds like something that should be delivering census data, to a soundtrack that belongs on a TV soap.
I’m not proud of being from Canberra right now! Canberra is great and I loved living there, but unfortunately this video does nothing but reinforce the stereotypes that it aims to challenge.
User ID not verified.
Ex ex you sound like a proper tool. Please remind me to avoid you. As you all know, brands take time to grow and create meaning. How about we all cool our jets and wait and see how it works out in a couple of years. Oh sorry that’s right, its the internet and we have to bad the sh*t out of everything. I came here 20 years ago from Sydney and laughed out loud when I saw last week’s Sunday Tele front page that said Sydney’s traffic jams are now as bad on a Saturday as they are during the week. Next time you have slowed to a crawl or stopped, please think of me and my daily 10 min commute. It’s 8 minutes if I don’t get the light. So to all the knockers, just keep paying your taxes and we’ll keep enjoying spending them. Yours in paradise.
User ID not verified.
“Five key values” – who writes this stuff?
User ID not verified.
As a long-term resident, I’d say that the most boring thing about Canberra is the people from outside the town who keep complaining about how boring it is.
Sadly, this video doesn’t do it justice, despite its valiant attempt to show that nobody under 40 lives in the place.
User ID not verified.
Cool track and great logo, not sold on the talking heads but overall it’s a very cool start to a new look for Canberra
User ID not verified.