ed Konglish slogan

Seoul needs better one than 3 finalists or none at all

As John Burton, a Korea Times columnist, pointed out last week, Seoul has ended up with three unattractive finalists from its year-long campaign to find a new slogan for the city. You should be the judge. The three are “SEOULing,” “I.Seoul.You,” and “Seoulmate.” None of them sound catchy or are clear in what image about Korea they intend to bring to the world.

Whichever one wins, Seoul will likely be stuck with another hard-to-understand slogan that will draw a great deal of ridicule from foreigners until the next mayor comes into office and changes it. Remember “Hi! Seoul” and its companion, “Soul of Asia.”

The city plans to hold a big party this week to reveal the winner. To be fair, Mayor Park Won-soon tried to use his expertise as a former civil activist by crowd-sourcing the candidates. More than 16,000 entries were submitted. They were culled to 200 first and then reduced to 20. Still, he repeated the same mistake as his predecessors did.

Above all, the first button on a shirt was inserted on the wrong hole, so to speak. The city should first have asked Seoulites what they like most about the city or what they think is most representative of their city. This survey was necessary to set clearer guidelines for applicants and encourage them to make submissions on a designated set of areas rather than taking potshots.

Any of the slogans may well reinforce foreigners’ perceptions that Seoul has few distinct features that make it different from other big cities. Such a perception has a lot to do with a lack of systematic effort to better brand Seoul internationally.

The new slogan should be the start of a serious, long-term rebranding effort. But unless the city has a last-minute change of mind, the slogan competition is set to become another wasted opportunity that will also certainly prolong Seoul’s soul-searching for its own identity.

Worse, there are suspicions that the mayor may not really understand the importance of a new and better slogan, and is merely using the campaign as a crowd-teaser for prospective voters. For example, the city has overemphasized the domestic aspect in selecting an English slogan with a panel of experts that has only one native English speaker. A token presence like this cannot make much difference. Considering the English slogan is aimed mainly at foreign visitors, the city should have brought more ordinary and professional expats on board. But it obviously had no such plans in the first place as shown by the fact that few people even knew about the slogan campaign because of poor or no publicity.

Foreigners checking into the official website to make submissions would have found it difficult to find their way around and to submit their entries. An online vote for the winner has been made easier for foreigners to access, but the city still has not actively promoted it.

So do we have to live with a slogan that makes the city’s residents look bad and, worse, make us the butt of jokes? We suggest you write to the mayor at the city’s website or call city hall to express your dissatisfaction. We are running out of time, so move fast.

The city should submit the winning slogan to Seoul residents to see whether they like it. If they do not, city officials can restart the process as suggested.

Or maybe it is not a bad idea to forgo an English slogan rather than live with a bad one.