Proud of Brussels? Say it with sprouts

It had me puzzled, to be honest. Sprout to be Brussels, it said on a revolving advertising sign in a Brussels metro station. Now, I’m used to Belgians using English expressions that I don’t understand. An invitation to a “walking dinner” is never going to make any sense. But this was even more baffling.

I finally found an explanation in De Standaard. The most hated vegetable has become an image campaign, it said.

It seems the unpopular Brussels sprout is being used in a bid to bring tourists back to the capital after months of negative news stories – terrorist attacks, crumbling road tunnels, transport strikes, you name it.

Now Belgians are busy trying to salvage their country’s battered image. Not with one campaign, but with lots. Positive Belgium, says one slogan. Share Your Smile, says another. There are almost as many image campaigns as governments in this country, De Standaard noted.

But one campaign stands out from the crowd. Anyone who has wandered around Brussels in recent weeks must have noticed the sprouts.

They appear on traffic signs, in the windows of shops and cafes and even on a huge screen on Place De Brouckère.

Sprout to be Brussels began as a campaign to restore the image of Brussels and was launched by enterprises such as Brussels Airlines, Bpost, the Brussels Hotels Association and ING.

But why choose the loathsome sprout, of all things? The advertising agency TBWA, which came up with the campaign, chose sprouts because the vegetable was strongly associated with our capital – and they’re even called “Brussels sprouts” in English.

It might sound like a mad idea, but it seems to be working. "In the beginning, we handed out stickers to 60 or so shopkeepers," said Geert Potargent of Sprout to be Brussels. They were, after all, the ones who were most affected by the ongoing terror threat.

The response to the sprouts was overwhelming. The campaign’s Facebook page gathered 18,000 likes in no time at all and lots of organisations joined up. It looks like we’re all Sprout to be Brussels.

Photo courtesy Sprout to be Brussels