Some months ago I wrote about the controversy surrounding the London Olympic logo for 2012.but I never got around to posting it. I thought with games on in China this would be a good time to post this blog and see whether the people of the UK have in the last few months warmed to the logo that caused such heated debate.
*For non Brits reading this I'm sure your own respective local governments from time to time make equally foolish decisions that waste money. The London committee for the Olympics is no exception. For anyone has not seen the logo yet here is a link. www.london2012.com
Firstly how or why any company needs to charge £400,000 ($1 million dollars) for a Logo is hard for most ordinary folk to grasp. The fact that London in its arrogance was prepared to pay such a sum shows how out of touch and egotistical politicians have become.
The Logo was controversial on another front by being labeled confusing by some members of the public at its unveiling. Seemingly the proposition by the decision makers was....if a top PR company is chosen for the task and the cost is expensive the logo will bound to be a success. Well, Olympics come and they go but who can remember the logo from Athens or from Sydney?
Businesses and Government can often make bad choices because people run them and people make mistakes. They waste money on things they didn't need to spend money on. In this case it shows arrogance and a lack understanding and it's the taxpayer who is paying for this unnecessary waste of £400,000. Why can't they use the logo that was used for the campaign to get the Olympics in London? Or if Sebastian Coe wants the whole of the UK involved in the Olympics why couldn't they have a competition to create a logo, surely the winner wouldn't be any worse?
This logo is a bit like the Emperor's new clothes, no one was brave enough to stand up and say how bad it is.
I once knew a successful pizza restaurant owner named Rob, he and two other partners jointly owned 3 successful pizza restaurants. Then the partnership broke up and they decided to split the restaurants up between them. Rob had taken the restaurant with the best location but had agreed to change his recipes and the name of the restaurant in return.
A clever and successful businessman by all accounts Rob felt it was necessary to use a PR company to come up with a new name. He felt that the restaurant needed a big re-launch under its new name so he hired a big daytime soap star then used all his local media connections to get them to attend, which they did complete with local TV News cameras.
Let me take a moment to explain the very successful concept of these restaurants. You took your raw pizza base over to the toppings bar and put as much pizza toppings as you wanted before handing it back to the kitchen for them to cook it.
So for a cool $100,000 and several months work the PR agency came up with the name Pizza PIES On. because the customers make their own pizzas.
The big day of the re-launch arrived and the new name was going to be unveiled by the TV soup star. The weather was great and the soap star had attracted several thousands of people to the opening bash. Balloons and face painting for the kids. Free pizza and cold drinks helped to create a party atmosphere. The newspaper reporters and the local news crews rolled up as promised, ready to give this re-launch a highly publicized beginning.
Unfortunately the covering sheet got tangled in the new name so the sign was only partial unveiled. A young boy shouted in earshot of the cameras "Look mom. Pizza Poison." Just an unfortunate mistake. but the local TV news people picked up the story. Within 18 months the restaurant closed.
So just because a lot of money was spent didn't mean the name or logo was better.
The highly talented PR people and a successful businessman failed to spot obvious
that there new name could be mistaken for Pizza Poison.
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