They employed the finest minds, threw a fortune at focus groups.
and promised a world class brand for God's Own County.
Ayup wades through the manure steaming around the new genetically modified Yorkshire rose.

__________

The hype for Yorkshire's new county rose has been going on since the stroke of the millennium. It was the big idea of Yorkshire's own regional development agency, Yorkshire-Forward and involved several of Leeds' top PR agencies. The idea was a good one. The county was in dire need of county wide co-ordination. Something that a diverse range of businesses and organisations could rally round. Something that could galvanise the county and raise it's profile across the globe. Yorkshire-Forward was in the ideal position to make this happen and achieve this illusive "common cause", having a brief that transcended the usual corporate and county boundaries.

Yorkshire Forward Chairman Graham Hall gets hot under the collar for the BBC Look North cameras at the Harewood House business convention. 9th June 2000. __________

The hype reached it's zenith at the 2000 Yorkshire International Business Convention where the buzzwords were flying around at rocket speed. "World-class branding" "dynamic" "opportunity". Susan Johnson, Yorkshire Forward's Executive Director of Business Development (and the only female speaker during the entire day's proceedings) talked at length about the extent that this branding has been consulted and focus-grouped into submission at a cost of over £250,000 to what she called "Yorkshire and Humber PLC". The team seemed desperate to convince us that they'd been deep in consultation with half the planet before reaching this momentous moment.

The result of all this corporate flannel was thus unveiled by the Yorkshire Forward Chairman Graham Hall who seemed impatient to get out in front of the TV cameras, where he proceeded to put on a notably edgy performance. Clearly rattled by the idea that his new "marque" might not have hit the mark he got all tetchy on that evening's news.

Out in the conference the hype continued apace. This time it was one of the stars of the Yorkshire business firmament. ASDA/Wallmart's Allan Leighton was in fine form, preaching like a Baptist Minister. "Great brands are live, living things. If they do not satisfy they die! Underpinning all this is trust and if you are not trustworthy as a company or as an individual you are not going to be successful or grow..." he talked of value and of dynamism and of heritage. A hall full of the hardest nosed plain speaking Yorkshire businessmen just sat there and listened to this tosh.

He stood in front of the quivering new logo which looked for all the world like it wanted to be somewhere else. The more he talked about the evils of expedition marketing the more it dawned on us that the logo was a creation of precisely this approach. You spend thousands of pounds and man hours trying to find what the customer wants then satisfy that want. The idea of taking the "customer" where he wants to go, but doesn't know it yet, was hardly the approach outlined just a few minutes before. The longer he talked the weaker the new logo became. By the close of his act, the logo had rolled back up into the scenery, presumably from stage fright.

The sad fact is that Yorkshire Forward bottled it. They built up a terrific concept, which is to create a civic logo that speaks our for the county and embodies our pride, our drive, our dreams. The words - as always with public relations types - were quite wonderful. The Mission Statement was marvellous. The hype was classy. World class even. But the solution they unveiled falls far short of expectations. Because for all the fine words it is not the Yorkshire logo.

Yorkshire needs something to place alongside the Welsh Dragon and the Royal Ensign and stir our collective spirit. And we have an advantage. We have a logo already - it's part of our heritage. It's a specific heraldic design - anything outside of that five petalled face-on design ISN'T A YORKSHIRE ROSE and that's the fundamental flaw within this new one. This version is not respectful of that tradition in a basic heraldic sense. Any interpretation - modern or classical - has to be accurate in this respect. Any designer who has done any research on civic design would know that in this field there are long traditions and deep feelings. "Yorkshire and Humber PLC" might not like it but the five petalled heraldic dog-rose that we all know and love will ALWAYS signify Yorkshire in the hearts and minds of the Yorkshire people and it can't just be replaced by any old rose no matter how many time you send it through a focus group and tell us it is "old fashioned".

A job needed doing. And still does. Our rose needs refining so that we are not all using slightly different ones. Not too difficult. It isn't even an issue of "modern" and "classical". There are a hundred different ways that you could do a modern spin on a design classic. It needed colour, shape, contour, and context. But they had another meeting and decided that this was "old fashioned" and "wrong" - forgetting that the Scottish Saltaire flag or the Union Jack are equally "old fashioned". But these emblems have meaning. They work. They stir the heart and the spirit and the soul. They embody history and place and people. They are ours in a way that this new ghostly green chocolate box rose will never be.

This new solution is uncomfortably like the Labour Party Rose that Tony Blair is busy airbrushing out. It's a spin-doctored solution. It is not an emblem in the truest sense, since it includes a qualifying statement. You can't turn it into a badge or a flag or give it any kind of colourful civic treatment. You can't wave it around at a sport stadium or make a fashion statement with it, like you can with the Catalan or Amsterdam identities. You can't paint it on your house, or fix it to the car. It is just another blooming rose to add to the already crowded vase.

To make matters worse the tacked-on graffiti slogan is a dreadful cliché and not related to our county in the least . You could say "Alive With Opportunity" about a job centre in Cornwall, or a stage audition in Inverness. Very provincial local government. Very Theme-park Yorkshire. The stated ideal of having international appeal then building a barely legible English statement into the core of it is self defeating. We shouldn't have to "translate" a logo to foreign visitors if the brief is specifically to have international appeal. The tired Matisse style illustrative approach and the dated eighties typeface combines with a dull colour combination to create something that looks cheap and dated before it's even been used.

This sad exercise in overselling and under-delivering serves to highlight what happens when we let the public relations people make creative decisions. Yorkshire needed a strong creative lead, and a real sense of direction. It didn't get one. For all the consulting and research done, our business leaders are still back at square one. And according to Mr Hall, there's no going back on it. In many respects this has been a thankless task, and with so many vested interests in such a grand project the result was never going to be earth shattering. That such a project has gotten off the ground at all is amazing. The corporate world is rallying together and marching to the same drum and flying the same flag. That alone is a major achievement and can only benefit the county. Let's hope that the logo has the impact the spin doctors say it will.

And before you ask the designers WERE from Yorkshire. Leeds' Poulter Partners (who normally work on stuff like Caffrey's Beer and Flymo) take a bow.

By the way - THIS is a Yorkshire Rose, boys. And we're already very well branded, thanks very much. Take a look at your history books.