One of my colleagues has spent a chunk of time lately trying to get some post-cards produced for staff to send to customers. The basic idea is that it’s a way for people inside the company to connect in a human way with customers outside the company. Staff can send the postcards to whoever they like – customers who they’ve really enjoyed talking to on the telephone; customers who we’ve let down for some reason and just want to say sorry to; customers who are just having a bad day.
The point is that it’s designed to show that we’re not a faceless bureaucracy and that we want to connect with our customers.
In its own small way it’s a great idea.
But it’s not going to happen.
The brand police have stepped in and objected to the draft postcard design because it’s a cartoon image. Apparently cartoon images are not consistent with our brand image. They’ve suggested that we involve our local marketing agency and ask them to source some imagery and design the card. Estimated cost for this not including printing is £3,000.
Because we don’t have £3,000 of the company’s money just sitting around doing nothing, my colleague found a different image. It’s the one at the top of this post. Personally I think that it’s pretty cool. It’s colourful. It has personality. It’s entirely appropriate to the idea of recognising other human beings.
But the brand police have rejected this image as well. Apparently it too is inconsistent with the brand.
I must be really thick.
I thought our brand was the experience that customers have of doing business with us.
I thought that our brand was how customers perceive us and think about us
I thought our brand was how our staff treats our customers
But apparently not. Apparently it’s an arbitrary judgement of whether an image is allowed to be used or not.
Man, we’re a company going places.


