Our branding problem: Part 1 – “HRM”

This post is the first of a four part series about the Halifax Regional Municipality’s branding problem. The first three parts will explore specific topics, and the fourth will be a fun read that will include a call for participation.

This series is meant to be a conversation, so I really encourage comments below. I even beefed up the comments section by installing Disqus, so have at ‘er.

As people who care about this place we live in, we all have a product to sell. Whether it be its reputation, or actually as a destination for people to bring their families, businesses, and lives, we all have a bit of a responsibility in “selling” some aspect of our home, the Halifax Regional Municipality.

To the extent that we — residents, caretakers, and boosters of HRM — admit that we have a product to sell, we must also admit that we should concern ourselves with the branding of our product. The moment that one looks at HRM’s branding efforts is the same moment that one realizes we’ve been going about it all wrong.

If you look up branding tips on the internet or take a Branding 101 course, among the very top, if not the top rule to follow is to be consistent. Usually this ‘brand consistency’ rule refers to messaging, giving the very basic benefit of the doubt that a brand would, of necessity, be consistent with its name. But we haven’t even done that properly. The world knows us as Halifax, but we take care to refer to ourselves as “HRM”.

It is technically correct, of course, to say that the name of our home is the Halifax Regional Municipality. The old City of Halifax merged with surrounding communities (or surrounding communities merged with it, if you prefer), and together formed the HRM. The political pressure felt by public figures to use the name “HRM”, however, far exceeds what one would expect the public’s desire for accuracy would manifest into. Indeed, there is a real resistance from residents living outside of the old City of Halifax to be said as living in “Halifax”. They are often even woe to say they are from HRM at all, opting to leave that part out entirely, saying they are from Bedford, Dartmouth, Sackville, Fall River, etc.

The reasons behind this resistance are not to be dismissed. At least some part of it results from community pride — we’re not Halifax, we’re (insert community name here) — and community pride is nothing to scoff at. In fact, community pride is exactly what I’m going to call for, but I’m going to suggest that you don’t have to give up existing pride to experience new, or other, pride. You can be proud of more than one thing at once. Many of us already do this, being proud Nova Scotians and also proud Canadians.

I think much of the problem we have with the Halifax/HRM issue is simply a problem with lexicon. Presently, it is largely understood by locals that if one says “Halifax”, that they are referring to the old City of Halifax, but that if one says “HRM”, they are including all communities. This might often indeed be true, too — but not because anyone wants to exclude the other communities when they say “Halifax”, but because there’s nothing else to call the area once known as the City of Halifax. Therefore, people call that area “Halifax”, and other communities are quite right to say they are not part of that.

Notice what we’re doing here. We’re using the branded name, “Halifax”, in a way that is exclusionary to a large proportion of our fellow residents, being required to revise the term (calling it HRM, instead) when we want to include those communities. This is backwards. “Halifax” should mean all of us, and it should only be when we want to be more specific that we have to amend our language.

We should flip this on its head. We should all be proud to say we live in Halifax. If you want to be more specific than that, only then should you add something in, and in the case of the old City of Halifax, I’d like to propose we simply refer to this area as “Metro”. In the example below, we’ll see this can work quite happily.

This exchange:

Person A: “I’m from Halifax.”
Person B: “What part of Halifax?”
Person A: “Metro.”

Works just as well as this exchange:

Person A: “I’m from Halifax.”
Person B: “What part of Halifax?”
Person A: “Sackville.”

In both of these cases, Person A could have used “Halifax Regional Municipality” or “Halifax”, and the rest of the conversation would have made just as much sense. It’s like when I talk about where I grew up. I tell people I grew up in Winnipeg, and it’s only if asked for more specificity that I will name the community, “Transcona”.

And so, for my part, I am going to start calling us like we are: “Halifax”. This does not come from an egotistical drive to consume the other communities, but rather a default position that there are more reasons to talk about ours as a single community of communities rather than a divided collection. We are all united — proud as we are, and proud together. We have national and international value in our brand that we have every right to leverage, and embracing it here at home will also help restore its value for us.

Do you think we should start using “Halifax” instead of HRM?
Do you think all communities would be able or willing to support this shift?
Comment below.