Philippa Stevenson: Cracking the code for city branding

The new grammatically correct billboard for Hamilton's branding.

For weeks this year, every time I drove into Hamilton from the south I had cause to smile.

Brightening my day at the entrance to the city was a large, stunning billboard featuring bright, red poppies against a sea of white flowers and the sandstone villa of the Italian Renaissance garden at the Hamilton Gardens.

Just two words reflected the happy marriage of cultures - bellissimo and Hamilton. (Actually, not a happily grammatical marriage. The Italian word should be bellissima and, apparently, will be on future billboards.)

On another major road entering the city I encountered the large face of one of Hamilton zoo's tigers, on another a couple of chimps. "Meet new people," read the legend on the pictures above the ubiquitous "Hamilton".

When the balloon festival sent magnificent, brightly coloured shapes scudding across our skies some billboards mirrored the event and carried the simple message "lift off". When university students were graduating the occasion was highlighted by showing two gowned people in a joyous hug underscored by the words "well qualified".

Naturally, rugby and Waikato's distinctive red, yellow and black got a run - daubed all over the beaming faces of youngsters at a game.

As a past critic of Hamilton's attempts to brand itself with silly slogans (Hamilton, where it's happening; Hamilton, more than you expect) and its misguided search for something distinctive (Fountain City, renaming as Waikato City) I've been intrigued by this new turn on city events.

Has it finally found a way to dispense with its inbuilt cringe factor and celebrate what it has and does well?

Certainly, Hamilton City Council communication and marketing general manager Philip Burton wonders whether it might be getting close to this branding nirvana.

"We think we might have cracked the code," he laughs.

The odd submission to the annual plan suggests some people would still prefer visitors to be greeted by more traditional signs such as ye olde "Welcome to Hamilton, population 120,000". Yawn.

But generally, says Burton, there has been good feedback to the billboards.

"The idea is to tell a story about the city through the images rather than have a slogan," he says. "One image can't define a city."

The closest the city now gets to a slogan is the way the word Hamilton is printed on signage for city-sponsored events. The final two letters of the name are emphasised in a different colour to the rest of the word.

If success in a branding exercise can be counted by lack of the kind of howling outrage that felled the Waikato City proposal it would seem Hamilton's latest efforts have won some measure of it.

So far, the worst that has befallen the billboards has been vandalism and even that has, in a sense, been complimentary. It seems the vandals are particularly partial to the words "rocky horror" that feature on a dramatic depiction of one of the city's latest artworks, the Riff Raff statue. They have been cut from the pictures, which are made of a material that is stretched over a hardwood backing.

The material means the pictures can be produced easily and re-used but has the disadvantage of being vulnerable to deliberate attack. Burton worries about costly damage and hopes the frequency of the attacks won't spell the end of the initiative.

Me too.

Will my treasured garden return to brighten the dreary winter days or maybe I'll be surprised, pleased or jogged by something else echoing an event, occasion or place in the city? I can't wait.

I like this new perspective on Hamilton. Bellissima!