Brand Kisumu and its Conflicting Signals
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- February 28, 2023
It’s a global trend to brand countries or places to attract interest across the globe to your location as the most ideal for a particular feature, resource, leisure, or business.
Some of the extensive campaigns that have had global success are “Visit Rwanda,” “Magical Kenya,” “Make In India,” and many more. The effects of such campaigns can never be underrated in any way. They work when done right.
Kisumu My Pride
Kisumu has been actively engaged in a quest to brand itself for tourism, culture, and investment purposes for about 5 years. The county’s tourism department some years back launched the “Love Life. Love Kisumu” tagline. Catchy and apt enough, it should have stuck but never really picked up.
A newly launched slogan/brand campaign is “Kisumu My Pride.” Sounds very personal, passionate, and confident. I like it, it’s very sellable. Unlike the previous slogan that sounded to be calling on people to come to tour Kisumu, invest and even live here, this new slogan looks more inwards to the spirits of those already living here, the people of Kisumu.
It aims to stir that flame of pride inside us, be proud of and show the world our positive outlook on this magnificent energetic Kenyan city. After all, before outsiders come to love and be proud of it, we, the people of Kisumu, must first love and manifest to all be magnets. Good slogan it is, therefore.
Conflict- Identity Crisis
What am I to make of all this sloganeering then when I walk across town and get boldly welcomed by county government road signs unabashedly shouting, “Welcome To Euro City.” Yes, and not just at one random point in town but several strategic entry points into the CBD, smack in the middle of highways.
How in God’s holy name am I supposed to be proud of Kisumu while, at the same time, the same authority fanning the pride in me is labeling my city with foreign, unAfrican names? Euro? Why not Afro City if we can’t simply keep it truly Kisumu? Aren’t we proud of Kisumu again? What kind of identity crisis is this?
Live it, Don’t Just Shout It
It’s either the slogan “Kisumu My Pride” is only for the glossy streets of social media and “Kwa ground vitu ni different” (things are different in reality). Or it’s a sad case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing in that county government.
That slogan should be oozing from every pore of every single county employee first before it gets spread to everyone else. The policymakers and implementors should live it, not just shout it.
Otherwise, the passionate slogan will fizzle out as another social media hashtag that never knew how to connect with the people on the ground. And only lived in air-conditioned offices, grandiose workshops, and glitzy, bougie concerts across town.
