"Hi, your name is... Hi, your name is..." Slim/Shady (approach to London Branding)

charlie.tims@demos.co.uk ( Charlie Tims ) — Thu, 31 May 2007 12:01:24 UT

Our 10 ideas for Brown are in the New Statesman at the moment. Somewhere in there is a call for “a more inclusive, less corporate Olympics”. I’m not sure if the current hoo ha being cooked up around the release of the brand for the London Olympics is quite in this spirit. If you want a “sneak preview” of the messages that will attempt to define what London and the UK stands for over the next 10 years you can register for the website and then answer a series of cryptic clues. Not sure that this is the DIY ethic needed to legitimise the games.

(how to) go down like london.

charlie.tims@demos.co.uk ( Charlie Tims ) — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 23:48:21 UT

The London Olympics in 2012 will be the first “post-exotic” games. The Beijing games the summer after next will mark the end of a 20 year run of host cities that used the games as a global launch-pad to announce themselves to the world. Our perceptions of Seoul 88, Barcelona 92, Atlanta 96, Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 are all built on images and associations created during their Olympiad’s. For the majority of the 4.5 billion people watching London’s Olympics, the games are unlikely to be the first time they have seen or heard of London.

The question of how the UK’s capital city should position itself in the eyes of the world has lead to much chin-stroking in conferences, seminars, branding agencies and cultural institutions pretty much since London won the bid. This has led us to the Olympic Studies Centre in rainy Lausanne, to look at some of the lessons of previous Olympic cities. Here are a few potential pathways open to the Organising Committee, based on our first days reading.

1.    World Leader City – London is the first city to stage the games that can truly claim to be a cradle of different cultures living together. Might seem obvious to us, but none of those cities in the “exotic period” up there come close to London on this one. While this is one of London’s most attractive features, London shouldn’t over-claim – we know it can be difficult. All the same, London seems in a good position to say that because it is a home for the people of the world, it has a duty to care for the world. In other words – rather than using its cultural diversity as a statement of what London is, it should use it as a platform to connect with people across the world and push on a particular issue. As a “World Leader City” London could use this platform of legitimacy, to lead on one of the growing global-issues that presumably will have growing significance by 2012 – like Climate change. The wind-turbine that will power the Olympic site seems to be a step in the right direction. Another, less controversial option, might be continuing the development of the Olympic Truce, which seems to have run aground in recent years.

2.    The Secure City – London should face up to why it won the games. Because it was one of the only cities in the world capable of staging a secure games. The games have grown to such an extent in the last 25 years that only a select group of cities are big enough to handle them (it’s not all running round a track; try football, tennis and triathlon for size). It’s no coincidence that the likes of Havana, Rio and Leipzig lost out to Madrid, New York and Paris in the bidding stage. The experience of Athens tells us that it doesn’t matter what messages you try and tell the world about your city – if you can’t guarantee the global media that your games are secure, you can forget it. In fact it doesn’t even matter how many times you tell the world that your city is safe, they’ll only actually believe you when you’ve done the games. Only then will you have the space to say something about who you are. London shouldn’t worry about cultural events, opening ceremonies and city brands – it should just make sure that the venues get built, the trains run on time and nobody gets hurt. In the world we live in now, that’s the most that people can expect from an Olympic city.

3.    The Collaborative Games – London doesn’t need to worry about presenting a face to the world. It already does – in the commercial, social and political connections it makes to the world on a daily basis. Products produced by London’s creative industries, social innovations like Fair Trade and the work of our security services (as seen in the Athens Olympics and the World Cup in Germany). London should use the Olympics to promote products it has produced with the world as part of a global commons. It could use the games to emphasise and raise a platform for these connections. It could institute an Olympic commons of ideas, products and tools that could be shared under an Olympic Commons licence. Furthermore, the ultimate manifestation of collaboration is democracy – not necessarily voting and parliaments, but collective decision making in offices, schools, on streets, in families and voluntary organisations. London could institute an annual international award for democratic innovation awarded to countries across the world annually during the cultural Olympiad.

Well, this is a sort of work in progress.

Demos Project : Demos Projects on the 2012 London Olympics

"Hi, your name is... Hi, your name is..." Slim/Shady (approach to London Branding)

(how to) go down like london.