In the spotlight: The leaf stays
UPDATED: includes info regarding the members of the Brand Council.
Ziarul Financiar, the main Romanian financial daily, published the list of the 33 people that were part in the Brand Council that voted for the Romanian tourism brand. The list includes owners of companies that activate in tourism industry, politicians, journalists, different people, some of them only with their name but no explanation regarding their job.
Out of all people on the list, there are only 3 or 4 that work effectively in advertising and PR agencies or for specialized press that can actually have an articulated and experienced opinion on matters regarding communication / advertising and branding. Those people are Felix Tataru, General Manager GMP Advertising and President of IAA Romanian Chapter (institution that assisted Tourism Ministry to make the pitch documentation), Rares Petrisor, owner of Media Pozitiv agency and president of Romanian Association of PR Professionals, and Andi Moisescu, Romanian TV presenter that hosts a show centered on advertising on Romanian Pro TV and that is the host of choice for almost all the Romanian advertising competitions and festivals. Also, another person who’s opinion might weight more than others is Oana Marinescu, former director in Foreign Affairs Ministry.
The list also includes, among others, Valeriu Turcan, spoke man of Romanian Presidency, Cristian Mungiu, Romanian director that achieved international recognition with its movies, and Emil Hurezeanu, journalist turned into analyst.
Those and the rest mentioned on ZF’s list formed the Brand Council, reunited at Romanian Regional Development and Tourism Ministry on Monday and that decided to keep the leaf in the visual identity of Romania’s tourism brand and, eventually, to make small changes of it
According to members of the Brand Council, the council agrees THR-TNS solution and will keep the leaf, that will be slightly modified. The council also reviewed the branding process and considers it was done properly.
In spite of that, the representatives of the Council also announced the ministry won’t pay anything towards THR-TNS until the situation will be clear from a juridical point of view.
The controversies, the pro’s and the con’s related to the leaf continue in Romania, the discussion reaching now to the highest political levels. According to an article published by Gandul Daily and quoted by Mediafax, the Romanian president considers that the logo should be improved because, according to his spoke person, he doesn’t like it.
Monday, at the Brand Council meeting, Elena Udrea, the Regional Development and Tourism minister, said there are similarities between the leaf in the Romanian Tourism brand and the logo of a transportation firm in UK. She also reiterated the fact that her institution can pay THR-TNS for the moment only for the research made for the tourism brand and not also for the creation part.
Diffferent politicians expressed also their opinion on the tourism brand, considering it either a good one, because it gets attention, either “ok”.
According to an exclusive interview for Mediafax, Elena Udrea said that the new tourism logo will soon appear on the labels attached to a series of products. She also added that the logo can be used by companies, with respecting of some certain conditions.
Today, Brandient, one of the companies that was involved in the pitch in a consortium led by Wally Olins, published on its site its point of view related to the scandal that started regarding the new Romanian tourism brand and its visual.
I think that the worst thing to do now is to judge blinded by political passions and egos. The Tourism Ministry must act professionally and take responsibility for the future of the Romanian Tourism. The remaining 73 million euro, destined for the brand’s communication campaign in the following years, can be invested profitably, generating value for the country, or can be spent wastefully. Positioning doesn’t mean differentiation for the sake of it, but it means finding that sustainable and relevant differentiation, capable of delivering growth for a business — in this case, the Romanian tourism. It’s not a tragedy for a client (notice to the Tourism Ministry) to return to the designated consultant and to request other differentiation alternatives. It is a tragedy however, to carelessly carry on, especially when large amounts of public money are at stake. We must stop the national bickering and do what is best for us, the Romanian people, not for some foreign company or some politician.
Aneta Bogdan
Chartered Marketer & Managing Partner Brandient
4 comments
That’s a fancy name for nothing: “Brand Council meeting”
This whole story get’s on my nerves.
Seriously now, why things must be done upside down? Instead of debating 1 month and a half before, they rather stick to anatomize leaf after leaf, missing the whole other 95% point of the matter.
I wonder what other main top story will overrun this, besides of the FMI negotiations.
Peace!
To be honest, I don’t even dare to think about another story to overrun this one. But yea, all the fuss is getting to be a bit too much and pointless. Maybe the solution is to turn and do something. As the head of one of the companies that lost the pitch said, they can always ask the company to modify / change / come with other proposals…Will that help? Who knows? 🙂
In that case, the whole Ministry staff will have to overrun their high-mindedness.
Btw, have they made the dedicated project team public?
Not as far as I know. But I’m only human and might not have heard 🙂
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