The Minneapolis Police Department has painted its squad cars new colors, hatched new slogans and tag lines, and otherwise embraced the full monty of branding.
A firm called Kazoo Branding stepped up to the challenge of helping the force burnish its reputation within minority communities. It seems the cops have a history of brutality complaints, and suffered a racial-discrimination complaint by five high-ranking officers in 2007. The big idea was to recruit more minority officers.
So they went to a branding firm?
I mean no slight to the project, which selected absolutely beautiful colors for the squad cars. The new tag line -- "Be looked up to" -- is a fine statement, even if its English is a little strained. Kinda like "think different," right? There's a slogan, too, which reads "To protect with courage, to serve with compassion." Posters for the campaign have a retro-happy-thing going, which I actually like.
But back to my question: why a branding firm?
The Chief Of Police reports that the project has been a stunning success. "This year's recruiting class is 50% minority, the highest percentage in department history." Buried in all the blather about how the police rank-and-file thought the approach was utter hooey, there's the revelation that "a greater emphasis" put on placing ads and materials at schools, churches, job fairs, community centers, and other places where the force might connect with minority applicants.
Duh. They recruited more minority candidates by recruiting more candidates.
Nothing else changed, really. Whatever polices and procedures were however responsible for the alleged insensitivity to racial minority communities weren't part of the branding analysis. The character and conduct of the rank-and-file officers who'd earned the negative reputation by their actions (and/or by their omissions) didn't likely appear on the brand architecture, DNA, or whatever nonsense metaphor Kazoo uses for expressing its findings. None of the high-falutin words of the new slogan had actions and metrics attached to them.
I'’s a miracle of branding. Until reality catches up to it.
Let's give the Minneapolis Police the glossy new paint jobs and pretty posters. Fine. But wouldn't it have been far more meaningful if the force had instituted a study of the behaviors that had earned it the bad brand reputation, and then launched substantive changes in addition to the nice new visual branding?
Granted, the strategy could be to simply inject a motherload of minority officers into the force, and hope that they'll effect de facto change. But that wouldn't be a miracle of branding either, would it?
You can't cop a better slogan. You've got to live it.
