I am me

Here is Orange’s new advert.  Half baked you think? They clearly don’t have any form of social media planner (not like our lovely Helen) as I can’t find a decent copy of it anywhere that I can embed here.

Worse still is the ‘I am’ site.  Woefully underwhelming and I’m being kind.  It doesn’t even follow the brand guidelines.  How on earth that got signed off I have no idea, but looks hastily thrown together with no thought or care.  Such a shame as ‘I am who I am because of everyone in my life’ is a decent idea on which to base a campaign.  The only redeeming feature is how you find the dreadful site.   There’s no URL on the zillions of press ads scattered about the freesheets this morning, instead you are instructed to search for ‘I Am’ and lo and behold!  Up pops the first entry on paid search ‘I Am Everyone dot com’.  This, apparently, is a popular call to action in Japan – I like it, expect more soon.

Never mind, guerrilla marketing is much more fun: check out I am orange a hastily thrown together blog of pictures of orange people.  Awesome.  I’m trying to get it higher on the search rankings so please click and republish!  

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of ill-conceived marketing ideas: this morning’s iPhone fiasco has me angered greatly.  To my shame I love Apple more than I love Orange.  I’m considering leaving them after 10 years to get my greedy geek mitts on the new iPhone.  I’m rapidly going off the idea as I was faced with this rather cold message as I clicked hopefully through to the shop. 

 

Come back on 10 July for more information.

What?

Come back?!

No please?  No Sorry?… No nothing.  My Mother told me manners cost nothing.  This tiny piece of messaging is as cold and unfriendly as I expected.  Still my desire for an iPhone is overriding my desire for a fluffy friendly huggable mobile phone operator.  

I’ll keep you updated on how the change over process goes. So far I’m not impressed. And I haven’t even made up my mind to buy the shiny toy.  And this isn’t helping.