You know how it was previously reported that The Bureau Formerly Known As BoM (TBFKABoM) paid a PR firm nearly $70,000 to help it rebrand to “The Bureau” and forgot to snag some Twitter handles? Well, apparently it actually cost *checks notes* more than $220,000!
ICYMI, on Tuesday TBFKABoM asked everyone to stop calling it “The BoM” and “the Weather Bureau”. Instead, it wanted to be known as “The Bureau”.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has done God’s work and requested a full cost breakdown of the rebrand project. The total sum was a tidy $220,296 — which is just pocket change.
how it feels describing the bom as “the bureau” pic.twitter.com/mroGigvmsc
— good engrams (@BenatarSeaOrg) October 18, 2022
According to The Guardian, Plibersek’s office said TBFKABoM’s $69,300 contract with C Word Communications Agency covered “communication and implementation planning support”.
TBFKABoM also enlisted the help of another agency called Era-Co, and paid it $118,177 for “brand strategy and design services, including visual style, brand position and logo, as well as design support to update collateral, systems and tools,” per The Guardian.
Era-Co was given another $32,819 to design pull-up banners to help with community and media engagement across Australia, plus “design support” to update shit like collateral, systems and tools.
Notices published on AusTender showed TBFKABoM also awarded Era-Co a few other contracts between September 2020 and August 2021: $50,000 for “brand framework”; $80,000 for “visual identity”; and $17,820 for “design services”.
Like all of us, Plibersek was bamboozled, hoodwinked and confuzzled by TBFKABoM’s rebrand.
“Stop calling us the BOM and start calling us by the correct name, which is the Bureau of Meteorology.”
Australia: pic.twitter.com/3LABwUGrEQ
— Byron Kaye (@byronkaye) October 18, 2022
“The rebrand commenced under the previous government for reasons I don’t quite understand,” she said in a statement, per the ABC.
“During this time of severe weather and flood disaster, I’m not focused on the name of the agency.
“I am focused on making sure the Bureau of Meteorology is providing the most accurate and timely information to communities affected by floods.”
It’s all mildly iconic that, despite so much dough being injected into the rebrand, it all still managed to go tits up.
You see, when TBFKABoM politely asked everyone to call it “The Bureau”, it listed the Twitter handles it would be updating its existing handles to.
Unfortunately, it did not secure said handles before announcing them, so randoms on the internet got the names first.
all three of the twitter handles the BOM planned to change their accounts to – @thebureau_au, @thebureau_nsw & @thebureau_act have all been taken within minutes of the media release coming out https://t.co/fA8ESHOUVr pic.twitter.com/O4JJSj79Wt
— Leonardo Puglisi (@Leo_Puglisi6) October 18, 2022
It seems I’m in the wrong profession. More than $220,000 to remove “of Meteorology” from its name and fuck up on social media? I’ve done a lot more for a lot less.
The name change itself is also bizarre, to say the least. It reminds me of when I was a 12-year-old and tried to rebrand from “Issy” to “Bella” after watching Twilight. It didn’t work.
