Nothing unique

Lithuanians tend to be overly patriotic and sincerely believe that the country has a lot of unique features. Unique sand dunes of the Curonian Spit, unique amber, unique passion for singing (Eurovision?) or basketball. To be honest, nothing is unique, not even the national scandals.

You may remember my earlier post on the competition to choose a logo for the country and the scandal surrounding it. Well, the competition has been finally cancelled and it might be relaunched some time soon. In this respect, I even started to believe that the situation was of no precedent and unique. I was wrong.

In 2012, London will host the Olympic Games, which is a big deal. This entails an influx of visitors and their cash to the city, not to mention newly-built infrastructure. Last June the logo for the 2012 London Olympics was unveiled and caused a whole lot of public debate, criticism, and even online petitions.

Six months later, in January this year I still read an article in the FT about the logo and the opposition against it. It's interesting how an emblem can cause so much reaction, comments and discussions.

The rationale behind choosing the graffiti-style logo for the 2012 London Olympics (pictured below) is the ambition to engage the multi-cultural young audience in Britain. "...to create a Games for everyone, where everyone is invited to take part", as the official 2012 London Olympics website says.

The style and colours of the logo are a matter of taste. But I especially liked the commotion around the logo and how, for example, the media accept the new product. A quote from the same FT article:

Martin Lambie-Nairn, chairman of the Lambie-Nairn firm, which has rebranded UK broadcasters Channel 4 and the BBC, thinks the Olympic launch was always likely to be controversial, particularly to a UK media critical of the rising cost of the games. “Launching brand identities to journalists is always very dangerous,” he says. “You show something for three minutes, and people go, ‘Is that it?’ The only thing the media is really interested in is the cost.”

If you are interested to read more about the 2012 London Olympics logo, here's an interesting column by Tyler Brûlé, editor-in-chief of Monocle.

Tree or no tree

A number of public procurement competitions in relation to the branding of Lithuania have taken place over the last few years and unfortunately most of them failed. The most recent one, designed to choose a logo for Lithuania, has turned into an international scandal.

Earlier this year the Lithuanian Tourism Development Agency announced a competition to develop a logo, a visual symbol, for the country. Advertising and communications companies participated in this competition and suggested their versions of the country logo.

The trouble began when the purchasing agency announced the winner of the competition. A local ad agency with international affiliation came up with a green tree with the word LIETUVA ("Lithuania") written below. I'd say, the visual solution provided by the agency is a matter of taste. But within a week it appeared that the tree is absurdly similar to the logo of the Canadian town of London.

The local media started a heated debate whether it is appropriate to choose a logo for Lithuania that is undoubtedly similar to London's symbol, whether it is a clear case of plagiarism or simply a coincidence, whether to avoid any confusion and legal implications the purchasing agency should disqualify the winner and pick the project suggested by the "second best" participant in the competition.

Some experts defended the drawyers of the tree others spoke of a clearly unethical case.

Finally, the municipality of the Canadian town of London was contacted and informed of the situation to get their view on the trees.

The Canadian officials said that they objected to Lithuania using a logo similar to their town's symbol. The response from the Lithuanian side was: we will check with the lawyers if there are any legal implications if the Canadian opinion is disregarded.

I once again feel pity for Lithuania, its public servants' inability to do their job right, and the fact that we still don't have a proper branding strategy for the country. Some of our neighbours have gone far beyond us in this field.

Why not pick the second-place winner in this competition and avoid all the hassle, not to mention the legal costs?

Trees in Lithuania and Canada. Picture from Verslo Zinios daily