I really wanted to be positive about the work of
Marketing Leeds. However, I'm struggling to think of anything positive to say about it.
Most of the pieces seem to be there, just. But it's the implementation
that is so sloppy. Where is the innovation? Where is the proof that
Leeds leads?
It's the sort of thing that if it had happened in the 90s you would
have thought "Wow, great stuff". In 2005 it is just so not there.
Where do you start? My first thought was I'll back the campaign and start by putting the logo on my
councillor blog, my PR blog and my
company website. A good bit of viral marketing support.
Well actually no I won't because they don't want anyone to! The draconian
brand guidelines
(sorry but all they have is a PDF of a CD case cover) start off well
saying "The Leeds brand will be adopted throughout the city by
residents, visitors, students, businesses or commuters. It
will be used [my emphasis]
by anyone promoting the city as an endorsement on marketing material."
So far, so good. However, it goes on to say "For authorisation to use
the Leeds brand on your marketing material please contact Marketing
Leeds on 0113 214 5200". Can you seriously expect many people to jump
through this hoop, especially "visitors"? And maybe it would be polite
if they asked people to back the campaign rather than dictating that
they "will" do so.
Compare this with the much more
intelligent and open approach of the
London 2012
Olympic bid which provided a simple script to include the logo on your
website, and cleverly automatically updated it to say Thank You.
The online
press room
(because they aren't interested in broadcast or online coverage?) looks
like something from the dawn of the internet era and insists on
providing its scant amount of facts and figures as PDF downloads. The
photo library looks pretty bare to begin with, but on searching for
"solicitor" (having failed on legal, law and lawyer) I get a picture of
KPMG's office - which last time I heard was still an accountants! The
"Contact us" simply opens an email, with no phone number to help a
journalist on an urgent deadline. And as for anything even vaguely 21st
century such as RSS feeds, then forget it.
Looking at this dog's dinner you would never guess that Leeds is one of the UK's premier media and technology centres.
I then visited the
Leeds Champions
website which actually turned out to be just part of the main Marketing
Leeds site and consisted mainly of a price list to become a champion.
I'd naively hoped we'd get something innovative such as a group blog by
the champions telling us why they "Leeds, Live it, Love it".
I really didn't intend to be so negative but you can only judge by what
you see and so far that it very poor and is an insult to the fantastic
businesses, universities and people that we've got in Leeds.
