“What I heard Al Morrison say is that they wanted to get the message out to New Zealanders that DoC isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.”

Oh, and why would a government department want to get that message out in an election year? I smell a rat.

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Re-branding can be good for a number of reasons but a lot of companies spend way too much money on it. That goes double for government departments who should be spending the minimum possible to get the job done.

Put it out to high school students as a competition to design the new DOC logo. You could do it for less than $30,000, schools love that sort of thing, and you get a new generation thinking about DOC, the services they provide, etc.

You update your business cards and signage when they need replacing anyway. For a government department to look like they’re saving money is better than to look like they’re all flash (and flush) with brand new signs and logos and heaps of taxpayer money to throw away.

Well, that’s how I’d do it

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…The branding of government departments and the requirement that they ‘compete’ and show a profit in the commercial sense is a product of the National Party’s so called reforms of the ’90s.

What do you mean exactly? What does MED, MSD, DOC etc compete on?? They provide the type of government services that are *never* commercialised, so what would they compete on? I was under the impression that the government departments didn’t compete – more State Owned Enterprises that sold something, like Meridian energy…

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Question – what politicians have a business interest in the production of 1080?

Maybe the logo could be – Department of Native Bird Murderers !!!!!!!!!!!!

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What makes you think I agree with everything any political party does? I vote for the least worst.

I agreed with you, Frog. You are correct on this issue, in my view.

After all, I don’t think government has any place being in “business” in the first place…

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Woah Blue Peter. The branding of government departments and the requirement that they ‘compete’ and show a profit in the commercial sense is a product of the National Party’s so called reforms of the ’90s.

While I heartily agree that ‘branding’ is an unnecessary exercise for govt departments, it is exactly what we used to get every time we swapped between Labour and National under FPP. Neither party has seen fit to put an end to this nonsense. We also expanded the number and pay of civil servants, now called CEOs and Board Members, while also increasing the pay of others by firing and then outsourcing specialists so that we could pay them more for the same service they used to provide in-house.

It is disingenuous for either Labour or National to complain now about spiralling costs in the civil service.

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Agreed.

What on earth do government departments need brands for? They aren’t competing with anyone, and everyone knows who they are already.

They are DOC.

My perception now is that they are incompetent egomaniacs who appear to have lost the plot. Same goes for any government department who feel the need to “brand”, using our money.

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Some simple type numbers from private sector experience (all numbers approximate)

Agency fees for developing a new logo and tag line $150,000
Cost of replacing all business cards and other paper based branding $500,000
Cost of re-branding ‘stores’ $20,000 per store (read ‘location’ for store)
Cost of re-branding head office, including web pages, etc., $1,000,000
Cost of parties to launch new branding $50,000

Value of re branding – zero in terms of stakeholder value, vast in terms of CEO’s ego.

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What I heard Al Morrison say is that they wanted to get the message out to New Zealanders that DoC isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. This isn’t rebranding, this is trying to wake up the average lethargic New Zealander who believes everything should be done for them and they shouldn’t get off their rear and do some things for themselves. “Why don’t they do something about the possum problem, etc?” we constantly hear. Here’s a novel idea – do something yourselves. Isn’t this the same message (that conservation isn’t a luxury) that the Greens are trying to get across?

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Don’t worry frog, by re-branding they mean their staff are going to have a shave from the”environmental” to the “goatie” and they are going to make their shorts 3/4 pants!

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I’ve just been on DOCs website. Their current brand looks pretty good to me.

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