The Brand Called UK

The Brand Called Mulgan

Number 10 Downing Street is almost creepily understated. A preapproved visitor can enter without showing identification or passing through a metal detector -- which makes the place much different from its counterpart at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The lobby is empty and subdued -- more like the entryway of an upscale bed-and-breakfast than like the anteroom to the office of the leader of a nuclear power. Heels click. Clocks tick. The heart of British power beats quietly.

This is where Geoff Mulgan now works. He's an adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair, a member of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit, and the Labour government's point man on issues like family policy, cities, and welfare reform. He functions as an aorta of sorts -- carrying ideas and initiatives from the prime minister to the rest of the government and back again. Gap-toothed and freshly scrubbed, Mulgan looks to an American visitor like a cross between Austin Powers and Richie Cunningham. And although he no longer spends an enormous amount of time managing the ideas about rebranding that he helped to develop, he sees his current work as inextricably linked to that effort.

For example, he believes that it's extremely dangerous for Britain to be seen as the home of a sluggish welfare state and a disgruntled population -- an image that he calls "the Full Monty picture of unemployment, with a few riots mixed in." He argues that moving people from welfare rolls to rewarding work is not just a moral cause: In an information economy, it's a practical necessity. "To do otherwise would be like leaving your most valuable assets to rot in the rain," he says. There's another link between rebranding and rebuilding. Both involve what may be the most difficult task in either business or government: changing a culture. And a culture, says Mulgan, "does not change with the flick of a switch."

The slow pace of government occasionally grates on Mulgan. A young man in a hurry, he is annoyingly accomplished for someone of such tender years. He's won a fellowship at MIT, earned a PhD from the University of Westminster, written six books, run the office of Gordon Brown (now Britain's chancellor of the exchequer), taught at the University of London, worked for London's city administration, and organized pro-Labour concert tours by rock bands and comedians. The think tank he founded has been the main intellectual wellspring of the Blair government.

Yet he's hardly the club-hopping trendoid that some might expect. Although newly married, he works almost nonstop. Comfortably situated at one of the world's most famous addresses, he spends at least one day a week outside of London, visiting job centers and checking on the progress of programs that he oversees. "I don't believe you can trust what the system is telling you unless you check it out yourself," he says. Perhaps most telling, sniffs one former colleague, "Geoff doesn't even own an Armani suit."

Identity Meets Reality

Truth be told, "Cool Britannia" made its first appearance in the freezer case. Ben & Jerry's gave that name to a product -- a concoction of vanilla ice cream, strawberries, and chocolate-covered shortbread -- that it launched in Great Britain in 1996. (The product is no longer available in the UK.) Which is one reason why Cool Britannia, and the idea of rebranding in general, are easy to lampoon.

Another reason can be found at a place called Pharmacy. Located in the nicely yuppified London neighborhood of Notting Hill Gate, Pharmacy is thought by some to be the very embodiment of Cool Britannia. In the downstairs bar area, the walls are lined with glass cabinets full of pharmaceutical boxes. Waiters wear surgical scrubs and serve such drinks as Prozac Fizz. Upstairs, at the front of the dining room, sits a model of a molecule like the ones you'd see in a chemistry class, except that it's as large as a rhinoceros. The walls appear to be papered with pages from the Physician's Desk Reference, complete with life-size photos and quick descriptions of all manner of legal drugs. ("We'd like a table for two, please. Do you have something between the Tagamet and the Thorazine?")

If Pharmacy really represents the future -- of rebranding or of Britain -- then that country is on the brink of a long national headache. Mulgan agrees: "You can't fool people with glossy brochures or new buildings. You cannot sustainably change an identity unless it fits with reality." And in reality, a no-steak, all-sizzle place like Pharmacy embodies almost the opposite of the real challenges that the UK confronts. Great Britain today has plenty of steak. What it needs is a certain kind of sizzle. The country is the fifth-largest trading nation in the world, with higher per-capita exports than either the United States or Japan. Britain's film and fashion industries are in the midst of a renaissance -- leaving a deep imprint on style and culture worldwide. Britain has become one of the world's leading makers of computer games. New restaurants and various ethnic cuisines have replaced the country's once-grim parade of fish-and-chips shops.