Rebranding isn’t reinvention
The Scottish Executive has decided to change its name to The Scottish Government.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6974798.stm
No doubt they read too many blog posts where the author referenced “The Scottish Executive (Scotland’s government.) ” Naturally!
As the name of a legislative authority, “The Scottish Executive” was daft. Branding a government something else for the sheer sake of it was a symptom of the pretentiously superior regard that it held itself in, and still does.
But if those behind the decision think that changing an authority’s mentality is as easy as changing their name, they’ve been listening to too many ex-authority consultants. It is going to take a lot more than new letters and signs to turn our government into a true means of representative democracy, rather than a haven for unskilled and parochial careerists who would last five minutes in the private sector.
I am amused by the quoted figure for the rebranding: just £100k. Not bloody likely. It will take a minimum of half a million to complete the change. Put another way, I know of a certain quango which spent over £60k rebranding a local development agency which only served 40,000 people. How does it cost that much? Because rebranding is not just about ordering new signs and letterhead. Factor in the consulting fees, man-hours and meetings, press campaign, marketing diktats and charges, and the costs of the “partnership working” culture which demands the dithering and dilution of even the simplest tasks. If you carry out the job quickly, and efficiently, and under budget, you have obviously failed to involve all your “partners” in “consultation”, and your task is reassigned to someone more willing to be “inclusive”. This is the sort of entrenched nonsense – not the verbiage on letterheads – which the government should be fighting tooth and nail.
Could it be that the rebranding for the community group was grossly inflated to grease the wheels of the marketing and consultancy gravy train, while the rebranding of the whole national government has been grossly underestimated to keep up appearances?
The Scottish government’s rebranding is a positive and necessary step, but it should be considered what it is – a minor cosmetic process. Just get on with it, don’t use it for point-scoring and self-congratulation, and move on to the real work at hand.
Sorry to sound like a stupid American, but do you know how long before I finally realized what “The Scottish Executive” was?
Then, to discuss topics about Scotland – its culture, people and the gov’t, do you know how many people give me the ‘Hah?!’ look whenever I mention The Scottish Executive?
So, yeah it helps. To me, ‘executive’ sounds like something derived from the private sector.
Linda
4 September 2007 at 3:32 am
Speaking of legal name changes…
This brings me back to the good ol’ days when I worked for National Financial Services Corp. (Fidelity’s stepchild) needed to make an immediate name change to NFS LLC in 2000. Literally, I had to drop all of my current projects to implement these changes. I had to modify anything and everything from NFSC to NFS LLC.
And no, we’re not talking about changing letterheads and return addresses on envelopes. This change impacted hundreds of internal areas because all of the pamphlets, checks, tax forms, applications, letters, mainframe systems, corporate resolutions, statements, needed to reflect the new name. My department alone, was responsible to update all of the banking agreements or else those issued checks would bounce like tennis balls.
In my case, I managed the project from a treasury business systems angle to ensure our mainframe system supported this change. Once the edits were in place, I had to test the heck outta the system to make sure the name was changed, spelled properly, and showed up in the right places before the major install.
You’d be surprised how big this initiative this was and just to illustrate – a programmer banked in over 5 hours of ‘man’ time to modify the name AND center the new name on the check. That’s $1,250 right there.
No, it didn’t cost a mere $100K. I believe the firm allocated over $2MM for this firm-wide initiative alone. Departments responsible for letters and statements had a tougher time testing because those documents were generated from mass-production printers. So the guys down in the printing facility would continually mount and dismount these large rolls of paper (at least 6 ft wide) from the machinery – only to print 3 sheets of paper.
And like anything else, if you don’t test properly, it’ll come back to bite your butt big time.
Linda
4 September 2007 at 4:13 am
[...] Rebranding isn’t reinvention. [...]
Official Scottish Government Bulletin: The Wardman Wire » New Scottish Goverment launches Official Website
4 September 2007 at 2:16 pm
[...] Rebranding isn’t reinvention. [...]
Politics at the Parish Pump » New Scottish Goverment launches Official Website
4 September 2007 at 2:18 pm
[...] Rebranding isn’t reinvention. [...]
New Scottish Goverment launches Official Website
4 September 2007 at 2:25 pm