JOY Eurovision

6 Feb 2012

Musings – What’s in a slogan

Musings, Uncategorized

Posted by Andy “Turn Your Radio On” Bell

We are all use to slogans by now.

The word comes from the Scots Gaelic sluagh-ghairm, a war cry or gathering cry used among the clans back in the day.

Anyhow, slogans are all around – they’re everywhere, they’re everywhere.

And the Eurovision Song Contest is no exception.

For the last ten years each year’s ESC has been sloganised or rather “branded”, as I am sure the clever-clogs consultant say over & over.

And the impact of that sloganising, though slow at first, has now become substantial.

The 2002 shindig in Estonia had the sub-title “A Modern Fairytale”, but this didn’t appear on any bill matter.

Thank Monsieur Clifford Brown or some higher authority !

“Magical Rendez-Vous” was the slogan in nearby Latvia the following year.

And on it went.

Sometimes apt other times plain puzzling.

“Under The Same Sky” in Turkey in 2004, “Awakening” in Ukraine in ’05, “Feel The Rhythmn” in Athens in 2006 and, what the hell, “True Fantasy” in Finland the following year.

Still the thing was labelled “Eurovision Song Contest”, that was “the brand”.

But once the bods in marketing at the European Broadcasting Union get a bee in their chapeau the outcome is inevitable.

We were being softened up for Belgrade.

Confluence … it means meeting or gathering, but sounds kinda classy.

Great work by the team at W.A. Nka Ltd of Bratislava.

The following year the slogan was “Firebird” which was seen but not read.

It’s the only one I like as it keeps the key idea of the ESC and gives it a one off logo.

CLASSY and clever.

By the following year it was all slogan and not much else when the great & the good faced the media in Oslo.

If you look very closely you can see “NRK” denoting the Norwegian public broadcaster, there is some recognition of the actual contest and, inevitably, the logo of a sponsor. If you were wondering, Telenor is a mobile phone company.

But what you can’t miss is “SHARE THE MOMENT”.

So in a few short years the slogan had snuck up, benignly mugged us and taken over the thing.

As it does in music, attitude & televisual demeanour, the ESC was reflecting a wider world.

And, as elsewhere, the form of the branding teetered on the brink of inane. (Hey, “Brink Of Inane” is SO Eurovision !)

Anyhow, by last year & Düsseldorf …

To this untutored eye there’s a wee bit too much going on in this picture, but hey it delivers all KPI’s to stakeholders with World’s Best Practice outcomes.

Seriously, the look of it cements the heart concept of Eurovision and thus strengthens the <all together now> brand !!

It also makes English, the official language of less than a handful of competitor countries, the one and only lingo that matters.

And so to Baku and 2012.