The Berlin Brand

The capital's famously flamboyant mayor Klaus Wowereit recently appointed a "Berlin Board," entrusted to "position the Berlin brand" internationally.

Its illustrious line-up includes architects Hans Kollhoff and Peter Hall, Catherine Mühlemann, MTV's head of central and emerging markets, and the city's Education Minister Jürgen Zöllner.

The mayor hopes the team, which began work in August, will help steer the capital to lasting global stardom, consolidate its reputation as a cutting edge cultural hotspot and provide it with useful professional contacts.

But Wowi, as the mayor's affectionately known, is also keen for the public to do its bit and has called on the city's denizens to help come up with a new slogan for the city.

"A corporate identity for Berlin needs to come from its public," he said. "It can't be imposed from above."

Commercial clout

Wowi himself was the man who first labeled Berlin as "poor but sexy" -- not, perhaps, the most persuasive branding strategy even if broadly accurate.

Ideally, city slogans should be timeless, original and memorable. A good one, like a good title, can be a valuable tool of identification. And, as cities like Las Vegas ("What Happens Here, Stays Here") can attest to, an effective slogan can also have considerable commercial value.

The competition designed to reinvent how people see Berlin ends on Oct. 1, and the suggestions have been pouring in.

"The contest got a good reception," the Berlin Senate's spokesman Günter Kolodziej told Spiegel Online, adding that a second wind of enthusiasm was expected as the deadline approaches.

City of change

But not all the proposals have been serious.

Berlin's bi-weekly listings magazine Zitty suggested the phrase "We Do It All. But We Do It All Wrong," which has a certain ring of truth to it in the light of spectacular semi-disasters such as the expensive new central train station, which started falling apart as soon as the wind picked up.

Another suggestion was "Berlin: City of Encounters" -- a reference to the mayor's party-loving reputation.

But now it's up to the public. And according to the mayor, they're more than equal to the task.

"Berlin secret weapon is its people," Wowereit stressed on the Berlin city Web site.

"They are the real heroes of the Berlin brand. It is their personalities that make this city exciting and unique."