A £50,000 new logo and brand strategy for Plymouth was “extraordinary value for money”, according to Plymouth’s economic development chief.

David Draffan, service director for economic development for Plymouth City Council, was responding to a councillor’s concerns that the new logo – featuring an arrow pointing at a “bright horizon” – had not gone down well with the public.

The city will still be known as Britain’s Ocean City but has a new image and new set of narratives designed to build confidence in its identity and attract people to live, work and study in Plymouth.

Cllr Steve Ricketts (Ind, Drake), chair of the council’s infrastructure and growth scrutiny panel told councillors and officers at a meeting last week that there had been some negative comments on social media about the logo and he thought it was worse than the old one which consisted of words only.

“People are confused about where the money has gone,” he said.

But Mr Draffan said that apart from the odd comment, he had not heard any negativity about it.

On the contrary he said there was positivity and optimism because what was being said about Plymouth in the new brand strategy was true – the city was charting an exciting future.

He said for £50,000 the city had not just bought a logo but a whole new way of telling the city’s stories, following the most “indepth, high quality research by the best people in the world”.

London-based research company PRD, and brand and design studio DNCO, who rebranded the London Overground and San Francisco, were commissioned by Destination Plymouth to reshape Plymouth’s public image in the wake of huge government investment in the dockyard and the need to recruit 25,000 new workers over the next ten years.

Local firm Mother Goose produced the “Make Life an Adventure” short film and an image library.

The work was paid for through UK Shared Prosperity funding from the government to Plymouth City Council and key partners such as Babcock International, University of Plymouth, Princess Yachts and The Box.

Mr Draffan said the money funded months of engagement, research, propositions and a toolkit.

“What’s most important is the six statements about how we talk about ourselves,” he said.

The statements are- “We are charting an exciting future”, “Over 500 years of innovation”, “The horizons are bigger here”, “Plymouth’s creativity knows no bounds”, “The city wild about nature” and “A community that goes beyond”.

The statements, images and logo can be used by local businesses and organisations to help promote themselves, create a citywide identity and drive recruitment.

This new brand strategy will be featured on hoarding boards at the soon to be revamped civic centre and on the interior of new electric buses.

The next stage will be to take it out on the world stage.

“I do not think this is about a logo but about the city having confidence to talk about itself,” continued the officer. “Let’s have confidence and let’s be brave.

“We have moved so fast the world needs to catch up. If we don’t have a device like this right now every large business will have their own approach, this takes everyone’s ambition about the city in different ways and corrals them around some single stories – that is incredibly powerful.

“My view is that the value for money was extraordinary.”

Cllr Jeremy Goslin (Lab, Peverell) agreed saying: “It goes beyond a logo, it’s an ideology, I came here 20 years ago but I had never heard of Plymouth or knew where it was before. It’s an amazing place and the strapline ‘Make Life an Adventure’ captures what is special about Plymouth and the opportunities here.

“This strategy gives confidence and ambition to the city at the right time, we need to get people to come here and invest.”

He said his only concern was that they had not been ambitious enough by using people with home counties “BBC accents” on the film voicecover rather than authentic local ones.

“You wouldn’t get that on a film about Scotland,” he said.