The Australian Government allocated $20 million to deliver a new international brand for the country. In the month of May 2010, Australia revealed the new Australia nation branding concept -- Australia Unlimited.
The branding team spent millions of dollars in research for formulating this brand, but one thing they may have missed out is that the city of Toronto in Canada had also gone through a re-branding initiative in 2005 and came up with the brand--Toronto Unlimited. Unfortunately, the brand was not well received and was immediately trashed along with the $4 million spent to formulate the no good brand.
I personally believe that Australia had made a massive booboo. Firstly, the term (unlimited) can literally be attached to any city or country in the world, it just isn't unique and that is one the reasons it didn't resonate in Toronto. If Australia just spent $20 million to create this brand, they should have known that a similar brand five years earlier in Toronto flopped miserably, and I'm pretty sure that Australia Unlimited wont fly far as well simply because you can copy and paste the term unlimited to practically any major city or country in the world. A brand is suppose to be unique, authentic, memorable, and the stakeholders of the place have to be able to live and breathe the brand to make it come alive. I cant imagine how stakeholders can symbolize unlimitedness, and even if they were able to, places in say USA or elsewhere can do the same. To sum it up, its crucial to learn from others mistakes so you don't commit the same ones, especially when you are dealing with tax payers money.
