Sometime this month – so presumably between now and Tuesday – the new-look official government website, Gov.UK, will ‘go live’, as they say, these days.
It follows a 拢532,000 ‘brand refresh’ by M & C Saatchi. This ain’t any old refresh, it’s a half-a-million pound refresh.
Still, if you’re feeling sceptical, let me reassure you that the taxpayer has got its pound of flesh out of the Saatchis. Half a million quid sounds a lot of money, particularly when you’ve got a 拢22 billion black hole to fill, but a lot of work has gone into this rebrand.
Sometime within the next four days the background of the Gov.UK logo will change from black to royal blue. And the full stop between ‘Gov’ and ‘UK’ will move from its normal place on the bottom of the line, to the middle, where a decimal point would normally go. And its colour will change from white to turquoise. How refreshing is that?
I’ve never understood why any public sector monopoly would feel the need to spend even 拢532, let alone 拢532,000, on corporate branding. I can just about understand why a private business in a dog-eat-dog competitive market might think it worth spending a few quid to gain an edge over its rivals. Although even then, half a million quid to change the background colour, and move a full stop to the incorrect position, does sound like money for old rope. It’s more than the transfer fee for Peter Withe, whose goals fired Aston Villa to their first league title in 71 years.
But why would a government department, or perhaps more pertinently, a local council, spend anything at all on this? It’s not as if we can take our custom elsewhere, is it?
Then again, I’m a little perplexed as to why more than a hundred people would queue for the opening of a new noodle bar in Wolverhampton. On a Monday morning.
It’s always good to see businesses investing in the city, and if it has captured the imagination of locals, that can only be a good thing. But don’t you feel we’re starting to lose our collective heads when people will queue halfway up the street, on a work-day morning, to be the first in line at a takeaway?
I could just about understand the people who used to go to the car showroom at midnight on August 1, so they could be the first to have the new letter on their number plate. I struggled more with the people who used to spend their Christmases camped outside the furniture store, so they could get a bargain-priced sofa in the January sale. But queuing round the block for a carton of noodles? Really?