Lucire’s editor-in-chief, Nicola Brockie, ventured to New Zealand’s Southland region over the weekend. Folks there were supportive of the magazine, and the businesses, tourism companies and local government agencies spoke highly of it. The hotel where she stayed, hearing she was coming, bought its own copy. Now, that’s impressive. To top it off, the Hokonui Fashion Design Awards were a world-class affair.
   Contrast this with Wellington, where we are based. Nicola wrote to the tourism group here, since it’s our home city, and suggested it may be a good idea to do things together. No reply. In fact, when we ran in to the people at that government agency, they claimed they got her email but didn’t know Lucire was a print magazine. Frankly, you have to be living in a hole not to know in this town. They thought it was just a web site. No reason not to respond, as the web site reaches 40,000 people each week and is good for the place. And they still haven’t responded, despite receiving the complaint from her in person.
   Talk about contrasts and patriotism, and how it varies between Southlanders and Wellingtonians. We have a broadsheet that is so scared of us that it apparently has boycotted me from its social pages, a tourism body that is ignorant and misguided (you should see its latest TV campaign, which must have been done by people who neither understand destination branding nor strategy), and evidently petty people in positions of influence. I now know how Peter Jackson must have felt when they told him he was a looney for making his films. God only knows why he and I stay here and insist on promoting this city, when we get more respect in other places.
   I just can’t help but feel the city is lying when it does its destination branding. First sign of bad branding: when the body behind the marketing does not care whether its constituents live or die. At this rate, there may be no businesses to promote, because there will be no businesses bothered to stay here, especially with the comparisons we can so readily make. posted by Jack Yan, 10:40 AM  permalink