Canadian Marketing Blog

SEE YA LATer BEAVerS

Have you noticed the billboards and the station domination at Bloor Station with the ubiquitous "er". You can't really miss them. They're everywhere. I have to admit, I've been intrigued. But my first thought when I saw this teaser campaign was, I hope they don't let me down when they pay it off.

Well, you be the judge. Here's the pay-off:http://www.bell.ca/home/

From my perspective, it's actually not bad. But does it make me want to send the link to all my friends because it's so differentiating for a rather commoditized brand? Not so much. Is it clean and smart and more appropriate for the brand? I think it is. I do wonder however, whether Bell has gone from one extreme (cute beavERs, retail) to the other (clean, corporate, even a little cold) a little too quickly. Even the new logo removes any connection to humanity. (Remember the yellow swirl around the face in the old logo?)

In the end, it doesn't really matter. Bell is trying to do things differently and that's probably a good thing. But can the service and product offering fulfill on the promise of the new "BETTer" brand?

Someone actually told me a story recently that best represents how seriously Bell seems to be embracing change. The phone rang, my friend picked it up, said hello and heard: Mr. [Smith], I'm calling from Bell. How can I help you today?

In disbelief, my friend said, well, I'd like a FREE Blackberry Curve.

His account was credited $400.

Seriously.

Maybe, in keeping with the times, this is change we can believe in.

R.I.P. Beavers.

have you also seen the Bell ads for the samsung instinct with the phrase "apple bitER" ?? what Bell fails to realize is, in their attempts to describe the instinct as a superior product to the iphone, the word 'biter' is teenage slang for 'poser' or 'wannabe' or 'copycat'... maybe Bell should do their research and FINALLY put out a marketing campaign that's not flawed or annoying...

interesting blog. i blogged about "er" ads as well at http://inspirationbykarim.blogspot.com

kk

Nice clean website and I couldn't stand those beavers so I am glad they are gone but I find the logo so boring. I can hardly imagine that a marketing agency got paid thousands of dollars to come up with such a plain looking logo and might even win an award for it because they know the right people.

I was actually disappointed with the reveal in this campaign. There is a billboard just across from where I take the streetcar every morning and at first glance I just thought it was a new billboard. It took me a few seconds to realize this was the reveal to the billboard that had been previously blank. As an advertiser on the client side, all I could think about was the cost to produce and install one big blank billboard, only to have a so-so reveal pasted up a few weeks later. I asked myself: could this campaign have worked by itself without the teasers? Absolutely.

On the positive side, I was in Montréal visiting my sister the other weekend and I really enjoyed the angle of the same ad campaign, but in French. It's a lot smarter, and the teasers were a better hook. Instead of blank billboards with "er" printed somewhere, they had the same template but with a negative statement such as (in French of course) "Losing your voice..." The reveal was a line of copy underneath that said something like "...when you can text faster". Or "stuck on the subway... when you have videos at your fingertips", etc. And instead of just a Bell logo, it had the slogan "La vie est Bell" - which translate to "Life's good" (note: isn't that LG's slogan?).