Urban List builds on local focus in brand refresh
The Urban List has dropped its prefix in a rebrand focusing beyond local markets, as part of a major brand overhaul.
Now known as ‘Urban List’, the new branding has launched with a campaign, ‘Urban Culture Is’, which celebrates the people driving culture in communities.
The Urban List’s new logo is bolder, says marketing boss Jason Stella
Jason Stella, head of marketing at Urban List, said the re-brand was part of the publisher’s efforts to be a “brand-led organisation”.
“We’ve been a very content-led organisation and the content is really what’s helped drive our growth, but to continue to grow and innovate and get into the categories we are wanting to get into, we are really putting a focus on brand and building out,” Stella said.
“We know that in order for consumers to engage with us and spend money with us, live and breathe our experiences, what they need to connect with, is our brand, just as much as the other content.
“In January we put a lot more focus and rigour into style, design, music, entertainment, career and money. So we want to transition our focus from local to global in terms of the content offer, and the brand really needed to help position us in that space.”
The new logo, which moves to Helvetica Font from Playfair Display and no longer features the two feathers crossing over, was created internally at Urban List.
Stella hopes it better reflects the size of Urban List’s audience.
“It didn’t need to happen,” he said of the brand refresh.
“We’ve been a brand that’s been founded and driven by culture, and essentially the culture moves. As a brand with culture as our centre proposition, we really need to update. We needed to freshen up and remain relevant.
“I didn’t feel the brand was having the impact, and the brand was aligning to where our content and the size of our audience was. We really wanted to create a brand identity that was impactful, bold and stood out.”
The new brand campaign features elements of Urban List’s content – fashion, career, money. But the focus has moved away from the hyper-local branding, such as The Urban List Sydney, or The Urban List Melbourne.
The old logo
“A large part of this campaign and what we are doing now is really getting out our global perspective, so you won’t see local across any of our positioning at all,” Stella said.
However, he added local was still a major focus for the publisher.
“A key line we toyed around with is ‘Urban List is where culture starts and city is where culture starts’. A city – Sydney or Melbourne – is where it comes to life. We’ve open up a new global channel on Instagram, and the reason we did that is because we wanted to focus on where the culture starts across music, fashion, style, design, and then the local markets bring [those ideas] to life.”
Another reason for the re-brand is Urban List’s pivot towards creating experiences, Stella said.
“Our brand platform pushes us into our new experiences program next year, under our new division in the business. We have explored macro trends in urban culture, with a particular focus on the common norms, values and ideologies, and will be bringing these to life for youth in our cities. We have invested significantly in this space, and won’t be doing your ‘run of the mill’ event or activation. No, our focus is on ‘world-first’ experiences that truly shape urban culture – and our initiatives must meet this criteria to fit as part of our new Urban List movement.”
