(Wikimedia Commons)
Thus far in Studio 360's Redesigning Canada project, we've tried to gauge how much Americans know about their neighbor. (Not much.) Canadians told us what they think we should know about them. And we’ve received hundreds of submissions for our national slogan contest that put a new spin Canada's image. The winner will win a trip to Washington, D.C.
→ Enter the Canada Slogan Contest — and read hundreds of slogans submitted by listeners
To help make the Canada brand more vivid and memorable we hired Bruce Mau Design, an international firm that has created marketing and branding campaigns for Coca Cola, General Electric, and MTV. Hunter Tura, the firm's president and CEO, says that with offices in both the United States and Canada, he was excited to be working on the project. "This is a topic we live with everyday," he tells Kurt Andersen. The design team is focusing on two big ideas: the relative newness of the country (it was founded in 1867) and the way immigration and globalization have changed Canada in the 21st century.
The Bruce Mau Design team will reveal their work the weekend of Canada Day, July 1.
Video: What Should Americans Know About Canada?
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Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen is a co-production of Public Radio International and WNYC Radio, and is funded in part by Ken and Lucy Lehman and the National Endowment for the Arts. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Our Science and Creativity series is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Comments [7]
We are not a corporation that can or should be rebranded. Plus you national animal is the bald eagle, ours is the beaver, not the moose.
Good grief
M
Wow! When I suggested Canada (I probably wasn't the only one) for a redesign I didn't think Studio 360 would pick it.
Canada. More like us than you know.
@Peter -- I haven't heard the Rebranding Canada part of the conversation yet, but I have been listening to CBC's Rebranding the US -- so this has been designed as a cross-border conversation. Canadian's aren't above criticism from our american cousins. I can't speak for the whole country, but I am looking forward to the conclusion of the Rebranding Canada series on Canada Day (July 1) and I will be listening to my radio to hear what Studio 360 has come up with.
I hope you will continue your support of NPR and listen in to how Canadians think the US can improve itself, too.
Canada; Where cold doesn't translate to cool.
Peter and George --
We agree, Americans seem to know very little about Canada. And it would likely take a lot of work, across many platforms/channels, to change that. At Studio 360, we consider our Redesign projects a chance to have a bit of fun while challenging people's preconceptions about a variety of subjects (teachers, Uncle Sam, Christmas, etc.). We're doing this one because we want to learn more about Canada, and we feel that if we can open the door for others, they will too.
By the way, our friends at the CBC's Q are in the process of rebranding the US, and they're pulling no punches. And that's how it should be. We count on good friends to give us some healthy perspective (and maybe a little grief too).
Thanks much for your comments.
It has never failed to surprise me how ignorant residents of the United States actually are about other countries. That they are so about Canada--a huge country right next door with which the US shares a long border--is especially telling of this ignorance. As a dual US-Canadian citizen who has lived mostly in Canada, moving to the States was a real eye-opener. Canada does not to be rebranded for ignorant Americans. Ignorant Americans need to learn a little geography--and history and international affairs! I find this whole "rebranding" thing on Studio 360 deeply insulting, and have withdrawn my financial support from my local NPR station because of it.
As a Canadian who has lived in the US for 20+ years, it no longer surprises me when Americans don't know even basic facts about Canada. At first I felt insulted and couldn't understand why Americans did not know anything about a country that was so close and important to them. Then I realized it wasn't just Canada that Americans knew nothing about. They know little about anywhere beyond the city and state where they live.
Canada does not need to be re-branded rather America needs to take a good hard look at it's education system and ask itself how, after spending so much money, it continues to churn out so many uninformed and uneducated people.
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