At Inventive Increase, we’re captivated with Manchester. It is the place we had been born, the place we proceed to thrive, and someplace we would encourage anybody and everybody to go to. However we’ll be the primary to confess that Manchester has an issue with its personal mythology.
For many years, town’s inventive identification has been wrapped up in the identical drained tropes. Employee bees. Yellow and black color schemes. Countless references to Tony Wilson’s Manufacturing unit Information period. So we had been overjoyed to see a latest city-wide marketing campaign for the launch of F37’s Mancunio typeface intentionally flip its again on these well-worn clichés… selecting as a substitute to have a good time town’s sharp wit and hyperlocal humour.
Manufacturing unit was 40 years in the past
Inventive copywriter Ellen Ling, marketing campaign lead on the venture, is refreshingly direct about why they selected this strategy. “It is like 40 years on,” she says of the Manufacturing unit Information legacy. “There’s nothing flawed with it, however we’re residing right here day in, day trip, and also you simply see it quite a bit. Significantly in company campaigns, or on hoardings for brand new developments—which aren’t going to be marketed to, or purchased by, anybody native.”
The marketing campaign, which she led for font foundry F37, was born from an uncommon discovery. The typeface itself was modelled on Manchester’s last-surviving authentic picket indicators, hidden behind railway brambles at St Michael’s Place. “There are some actually beautiful particulars in it,” explains Ellen. “Significantly the S and the C.” The identify comes from Mancunio, the Roman fort that after stood in what’s now Castlefield.
Moderately than launch with typical design business fanfare, F37 wished one thing that gave again to town that impressed it. “The transient got here to us with numerous stuff of what they did not need,” remembers Ellen, who collaborated with designer Craig Oldham on the venture. “It stated: We do not need bees close to it. We do not need it to be yellow and black. We do not wish to lean into the established Tony Wilson references.”
Deadpan humour
The answer was a black-and-white billboard marketing campaign that leaned closely into Manchester’s attribute mix of sarcasm and sincerity. “We selected black and white actually rapidly as a result of we had been like, it is proper for the sense of humour. It is proper for that form of deadpan,” Ellen says.
The workforce additionally drew inspiration from John Carpenter’s 1988 sci-fi horror movie They Reside and its iconic ‘obey’ aesthetic.
Briefly, the marketing campaign’s 9 hero messages, displayed throughout six billboard places and social media, had been designed to entertain relatively than promote. “We wished it to be like, what’s this for?” Ellen explains. “It was type of a little bit of enjoyable. Suppose nobody appears to be like on the font; cool. No less than you have made an influence and acquired individuals speaking.”
This strategy paid off spectacularly with one explicit execution. One billboard poking enjoyable at Merely Pink sparked a heated debate on LinkedIn, with dozens of feedback defending the maligned Mancunian pop group. “I find it irresistible a lot,” Ellen laughs. “Simply individuals being so staunchly protecting.”
Maybe the marketing campaign’s standout second, although, got here with its tribute to Boombox Barry, a beloved native character who spreads pleasure across the metropolis’s parks along with his moveable sound system. “He is somebody that passes by this workplace,” Ellen explains. “He is usually within the park along with his boombox. We had been like, if there is a method that we will do one thing for him…”
Consequently, the most important billboard within the marketing campaign was devoted to Barry. This required the workforce to trace him down for permission, a charmingly old-school course of involving cellphone calls and conferences within the park.
Genuine outsider perspective
Ellen’s strategy to the marketing campaign was knowledgeable by her personal expertise as a transplant to Manchester. Initially from London and adopted, she discovered herself drawn to town’s distinctive character. “It is that sarcasm and sincerity, but in addition irreverence and never taking itself too severely, and at all times this understated confidence,” she displays. “Assured in any room at any stage, and an actual put-you-at-ease high quality.”
This outsider-insider perspective was essential to the marketing campaign’s success. “You’ll be able to insult someplace as a result of it is yours,” Ellen notes, acknowledging the fragile steadiness required. “That sarcasm needed to come from the fitting place, a great place.”
The marketing campaign additionally addressed Manchester’s ongoing gentrification with attribute wit. One billboard declared, ‘Stockport is the brand new Berlin, Prestwich is the brand new Paris, nowhere is the brand new Manchester’ – a pointed response to the pattern of evaluating rising areas to established cultural capitals.
“For all its faults or the best way that it is evolving for the time being, really, nowhere generally is a reproduction,” Ellen says. “It is a one-off. Not for reprint.”
Shifting past nostalgia
Maybe the marketing campaign’s biggest achievement is proving that Manchester’s inventive identification does not must depend on its previous glories. Whereas respecting town’s musical heritage, the work carved out area for a brand new, extra genuine strategy to native delight, one which’s concurrently loving and ruthlessly sincere.
“If you are going to say one thing good, then it has to go the opposite method,” Ellen explains of the marketing campaign’s philosophy. “You do not wish to give them an excessive amount of.” This displays one thing important about Manchester’s character: town’s skill to have a good time itself whereas staying firmly grounded.
“We have at all times liked how Manchester carries its historical past in on a regular basis locations, like previous avenue
indicators tucked away in quiet corners,” provides F37 founder Rick Banks. “This marketing campaign is not about being loud; it is local-first, delicate and genuine, with good, heat kind designed for many who actually perceive what makes this metropolis distinctive.”
When requested to outline Manchester’s distinctive enchantment, Ellen admits it is onerous to explain. “It is one thing I felt like an enormous connection to from the minute I considered transferring right here,” she explains. “There is a heat, humour, embrace. It is an ideal metropolis made extra fantastic by its individuals.”
In an period of company place-making and developer-led regeneration, the Mancunio marketing campaign stands as a reminder that one of the simplest ways to seize a metropolis’s spirit is not by its official branding or vacationer board slogans however by the sharp wit and real affection of the individuals who name it residence. No employee bees required.
