Last month, my friend Martin moved into a new house in Toronto. Bell Canada moved his phone line. But in a story most Canadians can unfortunately relate to, Bell hooked up his service–Internet and all–to the credit card and debit terminal of an antique shop down the street. Martin, who has a home-based business, was without service for five days. Using the landline of a neighbour, it took Martin almost seven hours with 310-BELL to finally get service restored. Yet Bell gave Yet Bell gave all of us reason to believe such a nightmare couldn’t happen.

Marketing magazine

October 28, 2008

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The enemies of brand consistency lurk everywhere. Worst are “old friends.” These are the people inside the organization who are so tired of their own messaging, they assume everyone else is too. Old friends will agree to any new brand message ideas that come along, just to get away from their same old brand position or incessant jingle. They’re the people at Coca-Cola who are sick and tired of giving (or receiving) another red T-shirt, or the folks at Energizer who’d just as soon blow up that bunny as hear his incessantly beating drums.

Marketing magazine

February 25, 2008

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