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After the controversy over an exclusive flag for Karnataka, the Siddaramaiah government on Sunday unveiled a brand logo for Bengaluru.
Bengaluru is the only city in the country to boast of a logo of its own, State officials said. With this initiative of the Karnataka government, Bengaluru joins New York City, Melbourne, Singapore, and other global cities to have its own tourism logo.
With universal appeal, the logo, ‘Be U’, is a mix of typography in English and Kannada. The first part of the logo is in English and the rest in Kannada. The uniqueness of the logo is that every one can associate with it, pronounce it easily, and also various gift-articles can be crated out of it.
The crowd-source-designed logo comes with an option of colours (green, red and yellow) depending on the occasion.
The logo now aims to make every person coming to the city to spend on memorabilia. Current best-sellers of Karnataka, such as Mysore silks or Chanapatanna toys, have no direct Bengaluru-recall to them.
The new logo, it is felt, will thus generate jobs in creating T-shirts, mugs, fridge magnets and other city-specific memorabilia.
‘Perfect identity’
Explaining the logic for Bengaluru to get a logo, Priyank Kharge, Karnataka Tourism Minister, said: “Like in ‘I love New York’, New York is written in a particular way.
“Also, London, Amsterdam, Lyon, Melbourne... How do I identify Bengaluru outside the city? Now, we have the perfect identity that captures the spirit of the city and its people.
“What’s more, the design comes from the very people of the city.
“The logo will help leverage Bengaluru’s identity better and create a brand value that could, in turn, stimulate the hospitality industry and create jobs by attracting more footfall,” he added.
Genesis
The idea of a logo for Bengaluru started when the realisation came that though the State gets a steady flow of international and domestic tourists, there was nothing to tell them about the experiences Bengaluru offered.
A report of the Legislative Tourism Subcommittee, comprising elected members from both Houses of the State Legislature, also said that though the city receives a good number of foreign tourists, there was no avenue to make them spend even $100 per person while smaller cities across the globe have successfully branded themselves as destination cities.
From this emerged the idea of exclusive marketing of Bengaluru and then a logo.
“The idea of the logo is to integrate all experiences of Bengaluru online along with seamless offline solutions to ensure we are India’s first tourist-centric city and gateway to South India,” said Kharge.
Bengaluru Habba
As part of the logo launch, the Tourism Department held a Bengaluru Habba on the city’s unique culture and heritage, and showcased the art, music, tradition, technology, and food that make Bengaluru a unique metropolis.
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