So I have just seen some of the posters from David Cameron’s “GREAT Britain” campaign; his re-branding of Britain as “great” in a bid to attract tourists and foreign business – especially in the run up to 2012, where all eyes will be on our country and our capital.
The announcement of the campaign was made from the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday night; the PM was in the US ahead of his first address to the United Nations General Assembly.
- Entrepreneurs are GREAT Britain
Heritage is GREAT Britain
Unsurprisingly, it has provoked rather a lot of criticism. Not first because the PM and government have spent much of their current reign criticising ‘broken Britain’, and indeed turned the country’s perceived damage into a key strategy for winning the 2010 election.
After a summer of rioting, arson, and damaged police/government/social relations – not to mention the inexorable economic despondency – it seems a largely ignorant and denialist publicity campaign, in the face of contrary evidence.
“We want to extend an invitation to the world to take a fresh look at everything we have to offer,” said Mr Cameron. “Britain today is simply a great place to visit, study and work. A great place to invest and do business.”
While, yes, plenty of things about Britain are great; indeed the topics in the posters evoke evidential greatness – the present timing of this drive seems fundamentally flawed.
It does not ring true with the messages being sent out by British politicians, media and indeed public. How is it feasible to speak of broken Britain on our shores and Great Britain across others? Surely someone in the Government could have identified this deceptive flaw? It’s akin to how the Seychelles government used an ‘innocent until proven guilty’ approach to shark presence.
Innovation is GREAT Britain
The brand development has cost the Government £510,000. It is intended to give the country a single brand which will be used by UK Trade and Investment, Visit Britain and the British Council.
Creative Director of CST Advertising, Dave Trott, (whose company were responsible for the 2009 “Enjoy England” campaign) said of the ‘GREAT’ campaign: “I don’t think anyone pays any attention anyway”.
He even made a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that London embrace their current culture and call a spade a spade, by marketing itself as: “The most exciting city in the world right now because it is out of control”.
Indeed, he went on BBC Radio 4 declaring: “Of course [the riots are a selling point]. That’s what we’ve got. Don’t deny it. Don’t pretend we’re Switzerland or Singapore. No amount of pretending we’re not that will change that”.
Journalist Stryker McGuire makes a good point, citing that Britain has had an “identity crisis” over “what it means to be British in the world.”
It feeds into how the posters have a certain air of dictatorship, or, dare I say it, East German propaganda.
The semantics of the posters are also perhaps off key. Instead of suggesting how much there is to experience in Britain, it seems more to be of the tone: ‘Look how great we are; just saying’. There is a conceited undertone of the posters that can never sit right alongside our internal attempts to solve societal, economic and cultural issues.
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt, however – obviously – had a rebuttal to the criticism. Claiming it was not a rebranding and “setting the record straight after some of the terrible events that happened this summer, which created a negative image.”
The declaration of greatness immediately withdraws the greatness. Like saying: “I’m cool,” negates ones element of cool.
And indeed, the insistence on greatness ‘full-stop’, as opposed to a more welcoming question and /or invitation, adds to the element of ominous totalitarianism suggested by the aesthetics of these posters. A fundamental flaw of the posters is a distinct lack of humour, irony, visual/textual pun… it is very to-the-point and has a tainted deficit of room for inference.
Incidentally, the GREAT posters include:
Countryside; knowledge; sport; heritage; innovation; green; music; shopping; creativity; and entrepreneurs.
But what do you really associate with 2011/12 Britain?
Let’s get the JD Sports boss on this PR jig!
It could have been these!:
– “RIOTS are GREAT (Britain)” – insert: photo of a burning Croydon
– “INVADED PRIVACY is GREAT (Britain)” – insert: photo of Rebekah Brooks
– “EDUCATION is GREAT (ly expensive)” – insert: photo of University Fee protest
– “SPORT is GREAT (Britain)” – insert: photo of England’s goal that never was vs Germany
– “COUNTRYSIDE is GREAT (Britain)” – insert: blueprint of plans to build on England’s rolling countryside
You get the picture…
Pursuit of Nattiness 
