The City of Cape Town has made the shock announcement that it is to change the name Cape Town to Cape City from 1 January next year, to coincide with it hosting the World Design Capital 2014.
Making the announcement over the Easter weekend, a spokeperson said that the City’s new marketing unit had recognised that the ‘Cape Town’ brand name had got tired, being more than 360 years old, and that it was no longer suitable in describing what is South Africa’s second largest city. It is also no longer a town, given its size, and that the Cape metropole incorporates Somerset West and Strand too.
The new name Cape City lends itself to an attractive alliteration, and the acronym of CC, which is already in use on staff clothing, it was said. While the City recognises that there may be some resistance to the name change, it is confident that Capetonians (to be renamed Capecitizens) will get used to the new city name quickly, given that a number of road names were changing in the city as well, making it one big name change exercise. Funding for the city name change will come from the increased income the city is expecting to make from its status as World Design Capital 2014, which is likely to attract a larger number of tourists than has been the case in the past few years. A new logo is to be designed for Cape City, to be launched later this year.
The new city name reflects the modernity of our city, and its preparedness to reinvent itself, to meet the challenge of its status as World Design Capital 2014.
POSTSCRIPT 2/4: Yes, this was an April Fool’s Day story! We loved Gabrielle le Roux’s passionate response to it on Twitter, spoken like a true and loyal Capetonian: ‘What moron had the bright idea to rename Cape Town Cape City?! What an absolute embarrassment!’.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage
Jamie Goode is a well-known award-winning ‘wine journalist‘ and wine judge from the UK, writing his Wine Anorak blog for the past 14 years. Uncharacteristically he has lashed out at ‘wine writers ripping off wineries’, describing this as a ‘disturbing trend‘!
