Embracing less of the shamrock and more of the emotional ideal

IT'S not just a new logo, says Bord Failte. No, indeed. Around Temple Bar, that Dublin city centre mecca for many who answer Bord Failte's siren call, it means much more.

It's - let's see - "Popeye?" (an American guess). Two "caterpillary thingies?" (ditto). "A nipple? Yes it 15, if you turn it this way." (Italian). "Something to do with football?" (English).

A Frenchman refused to surrender, downing a glass of wine in prolonged, puzzled silence, before pronouncing: "Arms!"

Yes! A huge advance. But what were the arms doing? "A dancing festival?" This can hardly be welcome news for the designers.

"Dejected? Not at all," says Tom Meenaghan, creative director of Designworks, the Dublin company which won the £100,000 contract to develop the new logo (which, for the record, depicts two people embracing and exchanging a shamrock and carries no allusion whatsoever to North South relationships).

Though he is too polite to say so in so many words, this sort of vox p9p is really just an ignorant exercise by newspapers which should know better.

A logo is not something that can be judged in isolation. Ten years ago, for example, if someone had hawked the Nike "swoosh" logo around the young denizens of Graft on Street and asked what it meant, the most printable suggestion would probably have been a hurley stick. Now it is one of the most coveted symbols on the planet.

A logo, however inspired and meaningful, is only as good as the exposure it gets. Come back in a couple of years, says Tom Meenaghan, because only time will tell.

Confusion and controversy around logos is nothing new. In recent years, Aer Lingus failed to amuse us with its "tipsy" shamrock, dreamed up for a six figure sum by an English company; nor did AIB with its million pound bird on an ark (or "mouse looking over a wall with linnet on its head" in the words of one dissenter), Irish Life with its opaque rendering of the legend of Aengus Og, costing half a million; the GAA with its Celtic motif involving dots and strokes, which turned out to he figures reaching for balls, or RTE with its new "sharper" image rolled out at the expense of the St Brigid's Cross.

Yet, for better or worse, they have become a part of the landscape. Do logos matter? Yes, if taking lookalikes to court is any yardstick. AIB found itself in trouble over the resemblance between its old logo and the Mercedes Benz mark. Our own disputed "ownership" of the shamrock has been a lawyer's delight for over 30 years.

Though happy with the thrust of the new campaign, Fianna Fail spokesman on trade and tourism David Andrews remains concerned about the shrinking shamrock. He sees its new incarnation as a mere "punctuation mark" in a design that resembles "two inverted Claddagh Rings".

He says the logo "bears a worrying similarity to a number of existing logos in common use which adopt the embracing arms theme. There can be no confusion in the market regarding our international image".

As for its impact abroad, it has no significant meaning in precisely those markets Bord Failte is trying to target, says Peter Kruseman, a Dutchman who works as design director for the Identity Business, graphic designers in Dublin, a view backed by Bord Failte's own research.

Ask a German what the shamrock means and he will probably answer "sausages". Ask a foreign traveller what it means, draped lopsided across Aer Lingus planes, and he will see it as just "an airline's logo". As for those who see it attached to the words "Bord Failte" in the old brand mark, they are twice puzzled - both about the meaning of the words and the emblem.

In any event, lest we forget, our official symbol is the harp (which, by the way, foreigners were clueless about as well); our official colour, blue. All of which makes one wonder why Bord Failte has taken so long to do something out it.

BUT who, now, is going to buy Ireland? Not stag parties in Temple Bar, our planners hope, or campers in matted jumpers, importing a fortnight's supply of German rations in their haversacks and budgeting on £5 a day. Year round quality, not seasonal quantity, is the catch cry.

The kind of people worthy of our embrace and a sprig of shamrock will be sophisticated, busy, urban creatures earning more than 50,000 a year (because the Irish off season idyll will not be their main holiday); will travel in pairs (ruling out those drunken stag party types); be outward looking, active yet reflective types, probably with some New Agey reading in their libraries (yes, they will have libraries). Oh, and another thing: they drink very little - if at all.

How to appeal to these fascinating creatures? Not by offering enormous mountains and greenery (a crowded market already and Scotland's mountains are bigger than ours) or huge beaches for sunbathing (where there is a distinct dearth of sunshine), or great pub life (not much point if they hardly drink and recoil in horror from cigarette smoke).

The new advertisements concentrate instead on the clean, green "emotional" experience. It is the people who loom large, not the mountains; this is a fun place adventurous in a cosy sort of way.

The beaches are for playing or for riding horses; the soft rain (a new departure, this) is positively healthy and romantic; you may dine in majestic dining rooms attended by liveried waiting staff, but the food is of the net age.

So is the Cranberries music a big departure from riverdance and available to anyone who rings Bord Failte and is left on hold. But lasting memories will be emotional", intertwined with native wit, warmth and hospitality.

Some critics have described the video "as just another series of pretty pictures", but others point to a clever mix of stunning and stunningly shot traditional and modern images, set unashamedly in 1996.

Irish advertising agency, Peter Owens, won the multi million pound contract - against international giants such as M. & C. Saatchi, Lowe Howard Spink and J. Walter Thompson, which were in the final shake up.

It is understood that the agency's ability to service at least 10 overseas target markets through its links with DDB International - itself one of the world's biggest agency networks and initiator of the much admired Spanish tourism campaign - was crucial to its success.

And by happy chance, the Spanish campaign - with the Miroesque sun as the unambiguous logo - was a conspicuous model in the minds of Bord Failte's planners. Right now, Bord Failte's only problem is finding the funds to meet the £30 million investment this campaign will require.

Initially, it seemed that cobranding agreements with half a dozen, well established Irish brands such as Murphy's, Bailey's Guinness and Waterford Glass might go a long way to meet the deficit. None has rushed to sign up and there is little enthusiasm in the ranks.

In September, Bord Failte cast its nets for a broader catch with press advertisements seeking "tourism marketing co operation". No one is rushing to answer this either. The next big campaign may be to persuade the Irish tourist industry to put its money where its vociferous mouth is.