Iom Branding: Phase 2

[=^..^=]

Funny, I got a different take on this and didn't read it as being about tourism - I think its about marketing the name of the Isle of Man as a whole and not just one sector.

 

Its presenting an image for Films, for Finance, for tourism, for a million and one reasons for people to invest in the Island.

 

And why do I think that ?

 

Chief Minister Donald Gelling, who chairs the steering committe, said Acanchi

If it was solely tourism it would be David Cretney chairing it.

 

I could of course be wrong though.

[Pragmatopian]

In any case, their website is rubbish - it looks like a five-year old has gotten hold of FrontPage and run amok... actually that's a slur on five-year olds... replace 'five-year old' with 'chimp... actually that's a slur on chimps...

 

And you're trusting these people with your marketing strategy??? Once again, money well spent.

[manxman8180]

Its about time we had experts running the likes of the tourism and all the rest of the departments not 50p shop owners, chemists and chimney sweeps.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But isn't it vital that, at the heart of every democracy, there is the ability for normal every day folk to be able to stand and represent their community / Country. Why should that be restricted to the 'elite'. And, frankly, you won't get real experts who are at the top of their industry to stand as politicians, because it doesn't pay anyway near what they could command in the Private sector.

 

Lest not forget, that we do have supposed 'experts' running these departments in the position of CEO's. The Minister / Members of each department may well sanction policy or certain decisions, but they come from the Civil Servants, like it or not.

 

EDIT:

Funny, I got a different take on this and didn't read it as being about tourism - I think its about marketing the name of the Isle of Man as a whole and not just one sector.

 

That was my reading of the whole exercise as well.

[Ripsaw]

The "Branding" exercise *is* supposedly marketing the Isle of man "as a whole".

 

It is supposed to look at all aspects of the island whether it be tourism, manufacturing, service industries, etc., to pick out the bits that diferentiate us from other jurastrictions. The idea is to then develop a means to push the message onto the Global marketplace with the intention of generating new inward investment.

 

The IOM Online (hit or miss) search facility brings up the following page when looking up "branding": Search Results

 

According to the report of 25 Nov 2003...

The committee's end goal is to 'Help strengthen the Island's economic performance and sense of national identity, by positioning its distinctive advantages more clearly, across all stakeholders, both inside and outside the Island'.

 

Tourism is one part of the Branding Initiative, but the impression I receive from all the various reports is that Government would rather generate income from those who have very little reason to actually set foot on the Island.

 

Using the Financial marketplace to generate wealth is a high risk but high value method, as we all know, Shares can go down as well as up, and to my uninformed mind that is the sort of income we are becoming more and more dependant of, thus the worries that some tropical Island in the Mediterranean could open it's doors and we'd be left high and dry.

 

The Branding exercise needs to discard anything that others do as well or better than us, then promote what is left, with the underlying message that there is more to the Island than public birching of homosexuals and Manx Cats being run over by maniac motorbike riders.

 

To be honest, the challenge is not a simple one (just finding areas where we excede others is a challenge in itself). The main problem is that many businesses and individuals don't think nationally, never mind internationally. As long as they are ticking over ok then "I'm alright Jack!". Actually a common conception.

[simon]

How about we rebrand the weather?

 

In France, when the the weather gets crappy; when the autumn wind blows such that the tiles blow off ... then they get all rustic about it. It's never just a 70mph wind in France and Northern Spain; it's the Mistral, or the Cers, or the Scirocco, or the Tramontane, or the Le Vent Autan - or masses of other local names for the wind. Depending on the strength and direction. These are romantic and traditional winds from distant places.

 

Give the wind directions a name and you can appreciate them in a different way. You can light a log fire and bed down towards winter as the traditional rustic autumn winds blow the roof off.

 

If we named the different wind directions and the rain and the mist (perhaps in cod Gaelic) then we could feel good about the evil winter weather.

 

Perhaps we really don't adequately appreciate grotty weather on the IOM.

 

This daft thinking is also directly linked to my equally daft notion of re branding Jurby as a model WW2 village. Which is based on my idea that if Cregnish can make postive from 19th century relative poverty - then maybe Jurby could do the same for 1940s life.

[stookie]

This so-called "branding" is a load of hogwash and a waste of money. The government gave a shed load of money to promote the Island's financial sector (may have been as much as £1mmpa) and all they got was big mouthed Essex girl who told us the weather here is better than in Jersey (someone must have been on crack to come up with that!) organised junkets to the Middle East and surprise surprise has since found herself a job in Dubai - maybe that's a clever piece of sabotage?

 

If this contractor did such a great job on branding Northern Ireland, why am I, as a man in the street, at a loss to have a clue what that 'brand' is. Once again, it's kitchen sink politics played by kitchen sink politicians. Until we reduce vastly the number of MHKs and pay a proper salary so you could actually attract quality people to the job, we're going to be stuck with this I'm afraid.

 

Ain't it funny how on the (admittedly few) interviews I've heard on Manx Radio with budding MHKs, they all seem to have had plenty of 'business experience' but none of them have told us how successful they've been? Qualifying as an accountant and working in an accounting practice doesn't cut it with me at all and is a false flag if ever I saw one - now if you yourself had built up a hugely successful accounting practice, that would be impressive, but why would you want to give that up and be an MHK....?

[Lonan3]

If we named the different wind directions and the rain and the mist (perhaps in cod Gaelic) then we could feel good about the evil winter weather.

 

The cold East wind was always "there's a bit of 'couth' about, today," when I was a kid. So if the East wind is 'couth,' what about the others?

[Jacqueline]

I don't know - but when it's northwesterly I have to hold on to the front door with one foot and grab the porch door with two hands just to get out.

 

Let's see Simon work his French poetic magic on that one!

[Lonan3]

I'd actually forgotten that I attended an Acanchi 'creative workshop' at St Johns Mill in February along with other artists, writers, historians etc. It was a pleasant afternoon spent in good company (the sandwiches and cakes were lovely!) but whether we did anything to help in "developing the thinking for the future development of the island" or not, I really wouldn't like to say.

[sarahc]

"The hoolie" is quite poetic?