The company I work for has recently launched a series of new television adverts. They are deigned to replace the one dimensional and completely commoditising 'Quote me Happy' campaign that NU ran for a couple of years.

The new campaign is centred around a promise to 'just make it easier'. The new adverts look fine - and in most peoples eyes are a big improvement on what we were previously running.

But here's the rub.

I was walking past a bunch of guys from marketing last week. I overhead a couple of them talk about how good the new adverts are (they'd been involved in helping to develop them) and 'how they had moved the brand on'. What! Moved the brand on? Who are you trying to kid?

Coming up with a new set of adverts doesn't move a brand on. Customers decide if a brand has moved on and they do this based on their experience of using it. Hmmmm... there's that experience word again.

As part of the internal communication about the new advertising there have been several statements about the progress that's been made in delivering better customer service. And there have been many improvements, especially across our claims areas. So in some senses it is getting easier for customers.

But the people in marketing who seem to think that brand experience is all about the advertising you do have not been involved in any of this improvement work. I doubt if more than a few of them could name any customer service improvements that have taken place in the last year. And the really sad and worrying thing is that some of the guys really don't seem to get the fact that advertising and marketing are two completely different things.