Editorial: Time to can Pure branding

Time to get rid of 100% Pure branding, says Craig Cooper.

100% Pure - really?

Tourism New Zealand's advertising agency says we should stick with the advertising slogan 100% Pure.

This is despite the slogan being referred to as "festering sore" by China's state news agency after the Fonterra contamination scare.

Founder and director of advertising agency Whybin-TBWA, David Walden, says the slogan has never been touted as a claim about the environment. So it should stay.

It must be difficult for the ad agency to give an objective opinion on the phrase. Because even if 100% Pure wasn't intended to be about New Zealand's environment, that's how your average person in the street interprets it. Particularly an average person deciding to visit New Zealand for the first time because we are so pure nothing will go wrong when they are here.

The problem with the phrase is that it allows any critic or cynic easy opportunity to cut it down.

100 per cent ... maybe 99 or 95.

Although 95% Pure doesn't have the same ring to it, does it. Almost Pure. Partly Pure. Kind of Pure. If we are honest and ask ourselves, can we live up to the 100 per cent mark, the answer is no. No one is perfect.

Occasionally, tourists are victims of crime. 100 % Pure? No.

Last week someone dumped a television and assorted rubbish on the roadside of a popular tourist route. 100 % Pure? No.

The phrase was doomed from the moment it left the lips of the advertising agency creative that coined it. It is always wise to reduce the potential for ridicule or criticism, by being careful what one says.

Tourism NZ is no different - no country in the world can live up to the lofty aspiration of being 100 per cent pure. It is a fine aspirational goal, but written on a long-term plan or whiteboard where the world can't see it. The festering sore should be given a large dose of Prime Ministerial antibiotic and erased.