How the Danish Tourist Board sees Denmark

Say you’re a guy (José) from Barcelona, 29 years old, who has decided to spoil your girl for a weekend. You take her to Copenhagen because you both like architecture and design. Nice sharp Scandinavian design. Simple and very industrial. Not really emotional (like Gaudi, which they also love) or anything.

You get out of the plane and walk into Copenhagen International Airport. You are greeted by the slogan: Welcome to the Land of Passion and Luxury.

Ok, recap. WHAT?! Danish people are nice, friendly and when you get to know them a little they’ll invite you to go for a beer some time. But passionate? About football, maybe, but even there I must say, mwah.

You and your girl (Naïda) walk through the Copenhagen streets and see a lot of people wearing black coats, looking kind of greyish (because of the weather). You start wondering about the slogan.

You go to a jazz bar where there’s a world-jazz fusion band. It’s early, just 10pm, so you get yourselves a nice bottle of red wine and sit down in one of the nice couches.

After the band has played for half an hour, Naïda wants to dance. As the music is turning somewhat ‘tango-ish’ and you both love the tango (the dance of passion), you start dancing. People look at you, but no one follows. Only after encouragement from the band (and after 10 minutes), two ‘wild’ girls join you.

My point is that branding yourself is a great thing. But seriously, be honest to yourself and others. You’ll look like a leaking bucket when you start stating things that don’t make ANY sense at all.

You cannot force yourself into a desired identity. Identity is a natural thing, like water is fluid and air is gas.

In the end, you’ll end up being unbelievable and laughed at. Nobody wins in that situation. Disappointment is very hard to recover as a company or marketed brand.

My advice to the Danish Tourist Board: take those signs down and burn them.

Replace them with: Welcome to the Land of Fantasy, Design and Luxury.

G’day.

P.S. The fantasy part is not ONLY because of the passion thing, also because Denmark has known great fairytale writers.

Denmark goes to the polls next week. But will the next government really improve our lives? Designers could teach politicians a thing or two about how to run the nation.

There’s less than a week until Denmark goes to the polls to vote for its next government. And like in many other countries today, red is fighting blue.

Each day the nation’s attention is focused on two people – our potential prime ministers – and who is winning the verbal duel. What a waste. Whatever happened to the more important issues, like making life easier and better?

The current government hasn’t made life easier – at least in terms of bureaucracy. They’ve issued a record number of new laws and legislation. They say it’s for our own benefit. But I doubt the average Dane understands them. These new laws just complicate our lives.

Why not let designers deliver some serious service design for the nation? On a local, national and European level, we could create politically unbiased solutions that aim simplify and improve our world.

Yes it’s possible, fairly easy and the impact could be felt far beyond Denmark’s small borders. All we need is political support – and a few good ideas.

My idea number one: simplify the rules for law-making. For example, permit law changes only if it simplifies the existing law and deletes two existing laws.

Number two: improve our education system by involving external experts. Form teams that work intensively on a project basis.

Number three: reduce performance testing to a minimum and delegate. Right now we’re too focused on testing others that we create unnecessary bureaucracy.

An old Chinese saying says: when the wind of change blows, some people build windshields while others build windmills. Let us build windmills. Let us be proactive, sustainable and innovative – and cut the bureaucracy. Because if we want live in a prosperous country, we need solutions that make our lives work.