Copenhagen's clever new campaign has a huge range. Open Copenhagen is designed to transcend and reinforce promotional efforts for tourism, business, events, investments, and more. Previously, each rogue group boosted their similar programs independently without any coordinated brand to tie it all together. OPEN COPENHAGEN arrives at a time when the city's northern european neighbor cities have launched similarly rhetorical proposals to would-be visitors — I AMSTERDAM deploys a similar wordplay.
I love Copenhagen. The city has been labeled one of the most livable, green, tolerant, trade-friendly, design-friendly, business-friendly and pretty places in the world. One third of the population bikes to work. Those who don't can be found on the spotless metro where all passengers seem to have rolled out of a cryonic spa on their way to a super-secret club to sip Carlsberg with other blindingly blond models, rockstars, and royal friends of the welfare state. The capital city of nearly 2 million is composed of delicately packed mansions, apartments and commercial buildings which are mostly human-scale and in impeccable condition. Apart from the occasional Lutheran spire or round tower, there is a striking absence of high rise and brutal modern boxes, and the city is hosting a renaissance of great architecture. The only tangible drawback is that it gets really effing cold and dark in the winter.
Jacob Saxild, the Brand Director for OPEN shared his rationale for the brand:
"I think our brand is strong compared to most other destination brands because it is a) value based and b) flexible — thereby useful in many contexts."
The concept and logo was designed by the Danish advertising firm, PeopleGroup, who won the assignment after 30 (mostly Danish) firms showed interest. Surprisingly, three of the five selected firms pitched variations of the OPEN concept, but PeopleGroup's design was selected for its ease of use as a campaign.
[Hint: make real buttons, hand them out, take real pictures of real Copenhagenites wearing them! button-makers are really cheap]
One can imagine that the campaign will evolve over time, but in some of the preliminary brand applications the non-sequitur imagery varies wildly from being cliché to painfully inaccessible (the brain, html, horizontal lines). However, even faux buttons work as a populist icon; they signify a personal, discrete mode of expression, protest, or endorsement. Presumably, the intention was for these buttons take on a life of their own as virtual spokespeople in their own right. Even if buttons and rounded type become unfashionable someday, this campaign will continue to resonate for the city.
BONUS: You may enjoy translating this Danish Brand Book.
The title of this post owes an apology to "Hamlet", Act 1 scene 4.
Thanks to Thomas Christensen for the tip.
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