Andrew Eaton-Lewis: The campaign seems designed to lure, and flatter, a particular kind of tourist

HERE’S a fun game. This year, it has been decided, is the Year of Creative Scotland, and you have to choose six well-known people who are emblematic of our nation’s culture.

These people will feature on posters in airports across Scotland, greeting visitors as they arrive in the country, as well as in short films in which they will talk about what inspires them.

So, which six people would you choose? Would you pick, for example, poet and playwright Liz Lochhead, architect Malcolm Fraser, sculptor Sandy Stoddart, chef Tom Kitchin, cashmere entrepeneur Belinda Dickson, and – cheating slightly with my arbitrary rules – designer duo Mhairi McNicol and Chloe Patience?

The Scottish governnment did, and so, as revealed on Wednesday, these are the faces which will front a major marketing campaign throughout this year, chosen as “leaders in their field and excellent examples of Scottish creativity”.

They wouldn’t be my choices, but I’m intrigued by them. In an age obsessed with celebrity, here’s a list that shows little interest in it. Kitchin is a TV chef, yes, but if it was purely famous faces they were after, Gordon Ramsay would be a more obvious choice. Google Mhairi McNicol and Chloe Patience, meanwhile, and you get fewer than 4000 search results (although a search for their company, Bebaroque, will get you nearly a million).

In an age equally obsessed with youth, it’s also refreshing to see mostly older people chosen. No disrespect to Nicola Benedetti, who is an exceptionally talented musician as well as being young, attractive and therefore wheeled out whenever media coverage of classical music needs sexed up a bit, but the temptation to include someone like her must have been difficult to resist.

Of course, there were clearly deciding factors in play here other than “leaders in their field”. This campaign seems intended to lure, and flatter, a particular kind of tourist – people who are older and think of themselves as mature and sophisticated in their attitudes to food, designer clothes and architecture. It is not trying to sell tickets for T in the Park. It is also very safe, very establishment. I would have liked to have seen at least one troublemaker on there (Tam Dean Burn, perhaps). But it could have been worse. They could have chosen Susan Boyle.