Aucklanders are eagerly looking forward to not one but TWO new looks!

Their vain-glorious elected representatives have been busy spending other people’s money to toss out stuffy old logos and replace them with dynamic new ones (naturally, without asking the ratepayers’ permission).

But, as hard-pressed citizens will discover, this comes at a price that is probably not worth paying. It won’t add one cent of value to their services, and it won’t make Auckland look any prettier.

According to newly-elected Auckland City Mayor John Banks, the decision to change the City of Sails to a simplistic triangular logo was made by his predecessor Dick Hubbard, who allegedly wanted it all done and dusted well before the election.

That’s understandable, because if Aucklanders had fully understood what was being proposed in their names and what a dumbed-down logo they’d be saddled with, some might have considered taking Hubbard out and hanging him by his ears from the nearest lamp post, rather than merely dumping him at the polls.

Banks, showing commendable restraint in line with his election promises to no longer be a loud and vexatious person, is stuck with a triangle logo that is not only boring, but looks very much like one owned by somebody else, who is very annoyed. No one outside the council (and possibly inside the council) yet knows just how much will be charged by the creative suppliers to ratepayers, for Auckland City’s perhaps not-so-original new logo.

Meanwhile, over at nearby Auckland Regional Council, they voted $160,000 for a logo redesign that no one (apart from the designers) has yet even seen. Not even a rough draft.

In both cases, we’re only talking about the logo – not the knock-on consequences, about which more shortly.

Logo designers have turned their simple art of scrawl into a highly lucrative business, though much of the creative input often happens in the restaurant toilet, shortly after that long and expensive lunch spent entertaining and greasing up to the client.

Much of these lunchtimes, brainstorming sessions and so on is devoted to flattering the client for his or her in-depth knowledge of 21st Century communications and their advertising expertise. The “suits”, as these account executives are dubbed, know that their client has not the faintest notion of what any idea – good or bad – is worth.

Later, everyone at the client end (they’re the people spending our rates) is at pains to downplay the cost of the new image changes, because they still don’t know what they’re worth. Such folk frequently become economical with the truth about it in public, overlooking the spin-off expenses that will be incurred throughout their organisation.

For a start, there’s the thick, forensic and expensive guide to using this new corporate identity, and training the advertising agency/PR company how to get that logo correctly sized within a couple of nanometres. And you must get the specified and difficult colour(s) absolutely spot on, or there will be a dispute with the printer.

Then there’s the costs of redesigning stationery, signage, badges, vehicle repaints, flags, rate demands, ratepayer newsletter, advertising, airport posters, TV commercials – you name it, there is potentially no limit to the reach (and expense account) of the empowered logo design agency.

This goes on and on, until the next civic egotist in charge decides that the logo is old-fashioned and needs a radical review. It will involve a costly search for a new logo design agency.

People who commission such projects are fond of saying silly things such as “We are an international city/airline/telephone company, and we have to rebrand ourselves to remain recognisable and globally-competitive”. Often, it is revealed that they have also been screwing up badly elsewhere in the organisation and are then smoothly shunted out with an eye-watering golden handshake, funded by the ratepayer or shareholder.

The justifications for new logos are usually nonsense, spouted by people who don’t have to personally pay the bills. British Airways and British Telecom have rebranded themselves several times at a cost to consumers of billions, but the public still perceives them as relics of State-ownership and these companies often behave as if they still belong there.

Today, the executives who changed the logos but did nothing for the customer are now gone and forgotten, having been replaced by new incompetents.

Changing logos in Auckland won’t change anything else – it will simply push up rates without returning any tangible benefits to the real clients.

And just in case you thought that image-making was the preserve of the bigger players, there’s a similar example of irresponsible use of public money down at humble Hawke’s Bay Hospital, already the subject of alleged conflicts of interest in contract awards and a place of care where many hundreds of sick people were bounced off the waiting list and sent back to their GPs because there were not enough resources to look after them.

It used to be called the Hastings Memorial Hospital, because it was originally funded by public donations to recognise the fallen in World War I. Now, following a 10-year fight, the District Health Board is preparing replacement signs that call it “Hawke’s Bay Hospital, Soldiers Memorial”. The local RSA stormed the board’s battlements, taking no prisoners as they finally forced the issue.

But this farce will not stop at the gate. For example, there are the internal wall signs, the fleet of vehicles, staff badges, bed linen, the stationery and the phone book entry. All the contracts for staff and external suppliers will need a review (copied, of course, to expensive lawyers for checking). It will affect, and add cost to, virtually everything apart from basic patient care.

When you take a closer look at all this rebranding, you have to wonder what those soldiers died for. Why is the RSA so concerned about rebranding a hospital to remember the dead, at public cost, when there are so many surviving RSA members on whom the money would be better spent?

Then you have to wonder why hospitals and councils “in crisis” choose to spend unspecified and apparently unaccountable fortunes on cosmetic changes, rather than on helping living, breathing, tax-paying people to get what they have already paid for, and what they expect, when they need it.