Contributor Opinion By Sean P. Carr: Brand On The Run
Feb 7, 2011 6:30 - 9 Comments
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By Sean P. Carr:
A brand should be something that ties a community together, that unifies its diversity, that identifies something special or unique about the community.
By a 3-2 vote, the City Council brought the community together — but against the brand. In news stories and online comments, people in Rockville have agreed on one thing: they just can’t “get into” the council’s choice. Sure, “Get into it” is simply awful. Uninspiring. Too begging of the question “Get into what, exactly?” As Brad Rourke wrote at Rockville Central, “I assumed that it was just the third option the consultants presented because they had to present three.”
But the choice’s dubious quality is not the real problem.The real problem is that the council asked the people of Rockville for their opinion — and more that four in five picked something else. Yet, three members inexplicably selected the least popular option. One can argue that the poll was not scientific. One can argue that there weren’t a lot of votes. But the council did ask the question. If you’re going to ignore the answer, don’t ask the question.
Actually, the council did worse than ignore the results — it voted in direct opposition. Out of four choices, it picked the least popular, one preferred by just 17% of respondents. This sets a bad example. Seventeen percent may be a higher percentage of the vote than any of them won in the last election, but it also means 83% preferred another option — such as the near-winner, “No choice made.”
Last year, a group of volunteer city residents served on a Communications Task Force created by the council. After months of meetings, interviews and reviews of city practices, we generated proposals to help city government speak with and listen to the people of Rockville. Two recommended principles were to clearly communicate how the the city is hearing feedback and addressing concerns and to solicit ideas “to encourage citizens to help improve the city and its operations.”
In Rockville Reports, Councilmember John Britton wrote about a “disconnect” between city government, residents and businesses and called for “increased communication and information sharing.” After all, he said, too often “we fail to address such issues and concerns through a long-term and community-inclusive approach.”
We couldn’t agree more. That’s why we call on the council to reverse its vote. If a branding initiative is to be continued, the process must be respectful of the perspectives of residents.
Noreen Bryan
Sean Carr
Sam L. Elowitch
Shashi Koduru
Steve Maroon
Waleed Ovase
Russ Rubin
Members of the Rockville Communications Task Force, 2010
This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to [email protected]. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!
Good points all.
I wonder if the number of “No Choice Made” responses were viewed as “we don’t care, go ahead and pick something” rather than the more likely “we hate them all, please go back to the drawing board and get three better ones.”
So let me clarify my own “No Choice” vote: To me, none of these represented the place I live. None of the options presented were IMO worth the money spent on them. I think a call for submissions from Rockville citizens themselves would have not only produced a bigger selection but a better one as well, and for far less money.
I expected better.
I am sorry to report several friends were outraged with the City of Rockville spending $75,000 for branding a name.
One person told me, “How can they spend $75,000 for a brand name when the government is broke?” I had to explain that Rockville is not broke; it is the county and state that have deficits. Rockville spends a lot of money on consultants, who love to come to Rockville because in the past we have had enough money for extra studies.
I also had to explain this branding issue is not new and was first discussed with the previous Rockville Mayor and Council. I was also asked, “Why did the Council vote for the brand name with the least votes by the citizens?” My reply was “That is politics.”
It is my opinion our citizens expect our city staff and the city council to make good financial decisions. They expect good representation by their elected officials and they don’t believe they should have to come to city hall to voice every opinion. In this case, the citizen’s opinions were ignored. What does that tell the voters?
I agree with the general consensus that paying money for “branding” Rockville was profligate, but the initial decision to pursue it was made by a previous administration. I also agree the resulting logo and phrase were mediocre at best. However, this branding campaign has been common knowledge for quite awhile now, and anyone who pays attention to Rockville Reports or watches Mayor and Council meetings knew about it, so anyone who didn’t contribute their own feedback to the survey doesn’t really have the right to be outraged. It’s like people who object to political issues but can’t be bothered to cast a vote.
Temperance - I did vote in the survey, and I would venture most of the others writing in on this issue did too. My displeasure doesn’t rise to the level of outrage, there are bigger problems in the world.
Regarding people who object to political issues but don’t vote, they get what they deserve. In the case of the survey on the brand, our votes were in effect ignored. There’s a difference.
Regards
Tom Martin
I have been getting a lot of “razzing” and jokes, about the tag line, from friends who do not live in Rockville, about the tag line. A lot of people, in Rockville, are laughing at it, too. Some people are having even deeper negative feelings, such as alienation, resentment, and anger, about the tag line.
“Get Into it.” just does not work, for a lot of reasons. Rather than be positive, the tag line has become a point of mockery, toward our City, and is causing a considerable number of people, within our City, to feel disconnected from and not represented by the City’s government.
Of course, decisions, by politicians, cannot always be popular, with the people the politicians represent, but politicians, generally, should try to represent the views of their constituents, unless the views of their constituents go against the politicians’ consciences or their own deeply held beliefs. Citizens cannot voice their opinions, on every issue politicians are called upon to consider. There are too many issues, for the average citizen to voice opinions. That is one reason we have elections.
This aside, I think the negative feelings caused by selecting “Get Into It,” as the City’s tag line, could have been avoided. This alienation could have been avoided, if the City Council had followed a process, such as the one recommended, Brad Rourke recommended, in his contributor opinion, “I Feel Branded,” on this website.
Of course, as The City’s 2010 Communications Task Force wrote, so rightly above, choosing “Get Into It.” increased, rather than decreased the very aspect of government, for which the Task Force was created: lessening the “disconnect” between city government, residents, and businesses. This is the more unfortunate aspect, of the tag line. This is the kind of lack of communication, between the City’s government, residents, and businesses, which causes residents and businesses, of Rockville, lose faith and trust, in its elected civic leaders. That is no joke.
Brigitta, I know what you mean, but it’s not just politics. It’s current Rockville politics. Like many others, I participated in the survey and said that I thought my 9 year old niece could have come up with better tag lines and that my 7 year old nephew could have done better artwork. So the City knew very well what at least one citizen thought about the branding ideas, and apparently I was not alone. After hearing the results of the citizen survey, I assumed branding would either be tossed out as a bad idea from the start, or at least be sent back to the drawing board.
But silly me for assuming anything like that. I happened to be watching the Council meeting at home that night when, inexplicably, Councilman Britton capriciously tossed aside the survey results, and in the blink of an eye was able to sell his buddies Pierzchala and Gajewski on his own personal favorite, “Get Into It”. Britton said it would keep us in Rockville from sounding like “old fogies.” (Mid-life crisis?) It struck me like three frat boys saying, “Yeah, man… that’s cool…now let’s all go get drunk on brewskis!” Before you knew it, a motion was made, and those three Councilmen voted for it. There it was, a done deed, come hell or high water, citizen input be damned. I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. And now, because of those three jokers, we’re the laughingstock of the DC area. We’ll never live it down.
What I don’t understand is why the council didn’t ask the consultant to go back to the drawing board and come up with an acceptable tagline using the input they received. It would take just a few modifications to the least-disliked option using the input from the city residents that took the time to write. I’m not sure why ROI didn’t do so on their own, if for nothing than to maintain their reputation and prevent being known forever as the consultant that came up with “get into it.”
Maybe the three members shouldn’t have voted for “Get into it”, but I don’t recall any other viable options presented by the other two members. Just saying we shouldn’t have wasted the money is not an option since the money has been spent. The money was used, now let’s get into it and create something positive and not let it be $75,000 down the hole!
Agreed, the chosen tag line is atrocious. It does NOTHING to signify or promote anything that is great about Rockville. I kind of liked the “world class hometown/city” theme. But “get into it” just sounds like the tag line of a really bad 1980s sitcom!
Wow, I’m sorry to say, but I think this decision reflects poorly on some Council members’ judgment. I mean, no one is perfect, and no one agress with everything council does 100% of the time, but this situation doesn’t add up.
Rockville Rocks. We have a slogan embedded in our geographic name, and it didn’t cost anything. When I wrote about the branding (http://rockvillecentral.com/2009/07/contributor-opinion-by-herb-winkler-indigenous-rock-for-rockville.html/), it came across as mascot, but it can also serve as a tagline.