Branding Brussels – memorably unmemorable

Long-time resident and new Belgian Gareth Harding shares his thoughts about life in Brussels and Belgium

While Paris and Amsterdam are desperately trying to get rid of tourists by taking out advertising campaigns urging them to go elsewhere, Brussels is desperately trying to attract more of them.

You can see why. Amsterdam has 12 tourists for every inhabitant, Paris has nine, while Brussels just two.

The city’s image, which is often associated with grey skies, grey buildings and grey suits, doesn’t help. Few people dream of visiting Brussels like they dream of visiting Prague, Venice or even Bruges.

In a bid to entice tourists and investors to spend more time and money in the Belgian capital, regional officials, cultural bigwigs and marketing whizzes have spent the last 18 months devising a new international brand for Brussels.

The result is a banner slogan – ‘Perfectly Imperfect’ – that is as bland as it is baffling.

Firstly, the message is so generic it could refer to almost any city. The marketing agency behind the campaign said it referred to the local expression ‘non, peut être’ or ‘no maybe’ and was a nod to the self-mockery of Brusseleers. But I wonder how many people outside Belgium will get this reference.

Secondly, the slogan – which is made up of two abstract metaconcepts - doesn’t stick. It is neither personal or passionate – like the Iamsterdam or I❤️NY logos. Nor is it catchy – like ‘Malaysia. Truly Asia.’ In short, it is memorably unmemorable.

Thirdly, the message it sends – that Brussels is supremely imperfect – is too negative. “We’re a city of organised chaos that has a smile on its face,” says the campaign PR. “We break the rules, but it’s to find new paths, and no-one gets hurt.”

Brussels ministers in front of the city's new slogan. Credit: Belga

Anyone who has lived in Brussels can confirm it’s a chaotic city where locals take a perverse pride not respecting rules and authorities take a perverse pride not enforcing them. And this ‘creative chaos’ can be amusing. Who didn’t chuckle at the recent photo of bar-hoppers setting up tables in the middle of a building site?

It can also be inspiring for artists. After all, who wants to live in a sanitised city, scrubbed of imperfections? Or As Harry Lime says in Orson Welles’ Third Man: “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

However, what appeals to creatives is unlikely to appeal to investors looking for stability or newcomers looking for well-funded schools and hospitals, safe streets, clean and punctual transport and efficient public services. Chaos rarely makes for a liveable city – which is why well-ordered but slightly strait-laced places like Vienna, Copenhagen and Zurich always top the league tables of the world’s most liveable cities. More positive campaigns – like ‘Inspiring Iceland’ – are usually more attractive, and more memorable.

Great city marketing usually leans heavily on the unique selling point of a place. So what’s Brussels’ USP? For me its three stand-out features are that it is cosmopolitan, indulgent and quirky. Cosmopolitan because 75% of the EU capital’s residents are either foreigners or born with a foreign background - making it the second most international city in the world after Dubai. Indulgent because it is home to the best beer, fries, waffles and chocolate on the planet and has beautiful bistros, cool cafes and a buzzing bar scene. And quirky because it revels in surrealism, celebrates differences and scoffs at pretension. After all, the city’s most famous monument, the Manneken Pis, literally takes the piss.

To be fair to the campaign, it does a good job promoting the playful, free-spirited side of the city. “In Brussels, We Dare You to Be Yourself,” says the marketing blurb, vaunting the city’s “authentic, approachable attitude to life” and its “playful-rebellious spirit.” But too often the pitch has the motivational mushiness of a LinkedIn post with its boasts of being “inclusive, convivial and non-hierarchical” and its pleas to “feel free to be yourself and find your tribe.”

Brussels is a massively underrated city that is rapidly changing for the better – it jumped 22 places in last year’s liveable cities index. To attract more talent and tourists it needs the world to know this. But this PR campaign is a “perfectly imperfect’ attempt at doing so.