Taipei Mayor Chiang Wanan. (Photo by reporter Luo Peide)
The Taipei mayoral election continues to heat up. Legislator Zhang Yalin with a marketing background observed that Taipei Mayor Chiang Wanan has been trying to target middle voters and young families recently, whether it is a smoke-free city or childcare reduction, and even sang a cover of "Taipei Sky" during this year's Children's Month in an effort to rejuvenate the old brand. However, the latest campaign key visual released by the Chiang Kai-shek City Government, "Taipei Encore," reveals a fatal flaw in the serious rupture between the core concept and execution.
Zhang Yalin pointed out that "Taipei Encore" is taken from "live and work in peace and contentment, and have great potential". It literally conveys that past performance is worthy of recognition and hope to appear again. Therefore, the question is not the word "Encore", but what exactly is worthy of repeating? If "living and working in peace and contentment" is the core value of this campaign, it should be accurately transformed into a recognizable brand concept and carried through subsequent creative execution, rather than being reduced to an empty slogan.
Zhang Yalin analyzed that "Encore" is a creative platform that can be easily extended, and the competition is also trying to introduce terms such as "support items", spotlights, and support sticks. But the logic of selecting campaign items is "What will young people use?" rather than, "What can best express the Brand Idea of "Taipei Encore"?"
Zhang Yalin bluntly said that knowing the usage context of young people can help you choose the right products, but a complete brand system must not only have people want to use the products, but also continuously accumulate brand awareness. However, considering that several KMT politicians have openly ridiculed the hand-lamp and star-chasing culture of support in the past, it is indeed a bit of a slap in the face to suddenly want to translate "support" into their own brand language. All I can say is that they tried their best.
Zhang Yalin further analyzed, and at the same time, more obvious fractures appeared now. The items of campaign souvenirs try to continue the youth trend, but the display method and the tone of the overall visual design do not complete this translation simultaneously.
Regarding the beauty and ugliness that are hotly debated by the outside world, Zhang Yalin bluntly said that the problem is not aesthetics, but the strategy is to move closer to the youth, and the selection of items wants to follow the trend, but the final display and visual vocabulary return to conservative tradition. She criticized that this highlighted the inability of the entire brand language and execution to keep up with the changes after the direction was set by Chiang Kai-shek's team. This problem of "break between concept and execution" not only appeared in the campaign packaging, but had also repeatedly appeared in Chiang Wanan's implementation of policies.
