Say goodbye to surfin' dudes and babes, the amoral party that is Hollywood, and any fashion or legislative references that might imply peace, love, or pukka shells. California is rebranding itself.
Yesterday, its Supreme Court upheld the voter-passed ban on same-sex marriage by a 6-1 margin. The state has a seriously (and frighteningly) direct, participatory democracy thing going on, which allows the ballot box to directly set legislation and regulations (they decided they didn't want to pay too much in property taxes a while back, for instance, so a referendum made it so). It turns out that a simple ballot initiative can also make verbatim changes to its constitution.
California has been crowdsourcing its government for years.
The Court's ruling simply upheld the legality of the voters to do this sort of thing; voters had decided the state constitution needed a line in it that specifically defined marriage as something that only occurs between a man and a woman. They could have decided to give healthcare benefits to Martians, or declared flowering plants a protected minority, and the Court's conclusion would have likely been the same.
Never has the disconnect been between what we think about the state, and what it is been more obvious.
Many millions can get spent to tell us that we should visit, or that California is a great place for economic development; many millions more speak to its image indirectly, as individuals, organizations, movies, songs, and whathaveyou sing the praises the ideas for which the state stands. Yet a majority of California's active voters beg to differ; their actions speak louder than words, and their efforts translate a hazy, feel-good brand image into something much more tangible and real.
As one of the brighter lights who reads this blog suggested to me, last November's Prop 8 last November was a demand for a voice in co-creating a relaunch.
It's probably not the branding that most Californians want, whether they agree with the ban or not. It telegraphs conflict to would-be tourists and business relocators, and its values-based agitation seems a bit tangential to the other issues voters could choose to care about. The bankruptcy of its government would be one such topic you'd think they'd consider; as the state fires tens of thousands of workers, services risk interruption, and the future looks even more bleak, the fact that voters and its courts want to make sure marriage only happens between men and women says a lot about what brand California really means.
Or does it?
I'd posit that all the news coming out of California defines its brand and, as such, brand California is constantly twisting, changing, and evolving. A few weeks ago its car emission standards served as the lingua franca for the entire automotive industry, and yet today it's the poster child for bickering, angry extremists. In a few weeks, it'll be something else that'll thrill or shock. If you are a fan of wading in the blogosphere, you don’t have to wait until then. Berkeley bans nukes. Simi Valley absolves cops. The brand changes minute to minute.
California is as California does.
I think there’s a lesson here for how we understand brands generally. Doing is more important that declaring or associating, and giving your consumers the context for these factoids is probably more important than trying to spin them.
Sure, California is rebranding itself. It does so all the time. So does your brand, whether you know it or not.
