Who’ll pay big for a subpar slogan?
What’s not excusable though is how those sorts of low-level anxieties are being whipped up and exploited by Opposition leader Judith Collins.
Ifelt sorry for Ashburton this week and that doesn’t happen a lot. The place has a slogan – ‘‘Ashburton: Whatever It Takes’’ – that’s been getting a bit of stick lately. District councillors have unanimously backed moves to dump it.
But I’m wondering if it’s really any worse than some of our other municipal slogans. Remember ‘‘Hamilton: City of The Future’’? And – stones and glasshouses, people – how can we forget our very own ‘‘Christchurch: Fresh Each Day’’, apparently inspired by a passing Fonterra tanker.
Seriously though, how can we forget that? Suggestions welcome.
Nevertheless, just as yesterday’s ill-conceived attempt to ride your kid’s skateboard is tomorrow’s YouTube sensation, it’s Ashburton’s slogan that has found itself going viral.
So here was RNZ Checkpoint’s Lisa Owen this week, gleefully trolling the town’s mayor with hilarious new alternatives like ‘‘Ashburton, for a pie and a pee’’.
To his credit the guy gamely took it on the chin, knowing he was probably on a hiding to nothing.
It is, after all, the fate of smalltown mayors that whenever they appear in the national media it will probably be because they have been hospital-passed the job of making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Phrases like ‘‘this is a problem that could happen in any community’’, and ‘‘I guess I really should have closed the beach after that first shark attack’’ spring to mind.
The history books are silent as to who came up with the slogan ‘‘Ashburton – Whatever It Takes’’, but oftentimes this kind of thing is the brainchild of a crack team from a marketing agency that charges like a snowplough clearing a runway.
Famously in the UK, when Bradford College and the University of Bradford merged, a research company came up with three name suggestions: Bradford University, University of Bradford and The University of Bradford. The cost? A snip at £20,000.
Speaking myself as an impecunious scribbler, can someone please, please tell me where I can get a cut of that highpaying thesaurus-thumbing action.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the country knickers are being twisted over a call to restore the town of Kamo to its full name, Te Kamo. Now unlike your slogan situation it costs exactly zero dollars to have a crack at properly saying those three – count ‘em, three – syllables but apparently that’s too much for some.
One long-time resident was quoted as saying ‘‘… a lot of us grew up here, went to school up here, and it’s always been Kamo’’. Which, just re that last bit, it hasn’t ‘always’, has it – that’s kinda the point, and if you’re going to play the how-long-we’ve-been-livinghere card you might just find yourself trumped.
I am inclined to put that particular response under ‘‘none of us like change’’. What’s not excusable though is how those sorts of low-level anxieties are being whipped up and exploited by Opposition leader Judith Collins.
Thrashing round for something that will simultaneously put the phone back on the hook with the electorate and deflect incoming knives from her back, Collins has found herself with just one card of her own left to play and – I’m shocked, shocked, to discover – it’s the one marked ‘race’.
Separatism, special treatment, we’re heading for hell in a handcart. Or more likely, apartheid in a waka.
Yeah, except we’re not. It’s a bull-puckey beat-up. And with that here are my words of comfort to my fellow fair-skinned folk of a certain age: we live in changing times, and yet somehow we’ll cope. Remember when the country went metric, and we had to buy eggs by the kilojoule? We made it through that, and we’ll make it through this.
And I’m pretty sure we’ll do it without having our land confiscated or being punished for speaking the language we grew up with. And you know, we might just find that the change is for the better. In the meantime, kia kaha everyone.
Mind you, it gives me an idea for Ashburton. Apparently, the Ma¯ ori name for the area is Hakatere, and that opens up a whole range of possibilities in the slogan department. How about ‘‘Hakatere: Hard To Leave’’. I’d call that flatout brilliant.
Having said that, ‘‘Ashburton: Flat-Out Brilliant’’ could be a strong contender itself. Take your pick, my Mid-Canterbury friends, and don’t bother thanking me: I’ll send you an invoice.