Blown back again
Advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi came up with the Absolutely Positively Wellington motto adopted by the city council in 1981. Now two members of the company’s Auckland office, Matt Sellars and Ray McKay, are responsible for Wellington – Blown Away, the winning design for the sign to go up above the Miramar Peninsula.
The irony is not lost on Doug Matheson, a former chief executive of Wellington City Council. He says Absolutely Positively Wellington aimed to present Wellington in a more positive light, and away from its image of a windy grey public sector town.
“Wellington had a poor reputation throughout New Zealand as a place to live in, to visit, to have your business in,” Matheson says. “This reputation was from a combination of its geopgraphic location, its topography, its climate, particularly its winds – in fact its brand was pretty much ‘The Windy City’.”
Matheson says Absolutely Positively Wellington was now considered to be the most successful branding of a city, or region, in New Zealand.
“It has been adoped and used everywhere in Wellington, and any everybody, and is associated with everything. A great vision for the city and a fantastically successful brand.”
The verdict is out on whether the same can be said of the new sign to be erected on the Miramar Peninsular.


.jpg)







Have Your Say
0 Comments
No comments.