If Branding is Good for Cities, Why Not for Kids?

Two front page stories in the Anchorage Daily News Friday got me to thinking. First this one about finding stolen goods from a MySpace picture.

Picture of stolen cross may be on MySpace
Man who tried to pawn goods stolen from church posted photo with crosses
By MEGAN HOLLAND
Anchorage Daily News

Published: February 2, 2007
Last Modified: February 2, 2007 at 09:40 AM

The Rev. Bob Young of Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Eagle River didn't expect to see his processional cross again after it was stolen from his church in the middle of the night more than two weeks ago.
Then he was directed to a MySpace.com Web page, where a bare-chested teenager posed with a handgun among drifting marijuana bongs. In his other hand, the youth held a cross that Father Bob instantly recognized. When the priest looked closer, he saw the boy also was wearing a cross necklace he wore while leading Sunday mass. [Click here for the rest of the story go to]


Then this story about the branding of Anchorage with a new logo.

'Big Wild Life' marketing brand gets cool reception
FIRST REACTION: It's a shock for some, a positive step forward for others.
By KYLE HOPKINS
Anchorage Daily News

Published: February 2, 2007
Last Modified: February 2, 2007 at 09:47 AM

Stoked. Puzzled. Mouthy.
That's the range of reactions this week to Anchorage's new marketing brand: "Big Wild Life."
On the Internet and over the airwaves, residents critiqued and questioned the slogan as soon as it was unveiled Wednesday.
"Instead of spending money on a new, really bad slogan, why not make use of the award winning 'Wild About Anchorage' slogan of years past?" wrote one visitor to a heated dissection of the brand on the Daily News Web site. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
Others defended the brand, saying the marketing campaign has barely started and it'll get more popular as it sinks in. {for more click here.


People complain about how kids package themselves on MySpace, how they wear strange clothes, tattoos, and pierce parts of their bodies. But if cities spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to 'brand' themselves, to package their image to 'sell' themselves, then why shouldn't the kids think it is perfectly all right to brand themselves?

Of course the branding zealots, like my Jehovah Witness visitor yesterday, believe so wholeheartedly in their mission, that they don't even question it. Or did they know they were selling Anchorage snake oil and they're sniggering at the idea that they got $200,000 for putting three words together "Big Wild Life"? And, of course, the people who spent the money have to believe in the product they got. But at least the posts to the website seem to indicate that most of the public wasn't taken in.