How to spoil a great branding effort

I like the Telus brand. I also like the cute animals they use to push their "Future is Friendly" messaging.

As a frequent movie-goer, I also love that Telus has partnered up with Cineplex to bring us Telus Tuesdays, where guests receive admission, regular popcorn and regular drink for about half price.

To help promote the Telus brand in association with this great offer, a microsite was launched with all of the info including a cast of characters and branded popcorn bags. At first glance, I was pretty impressed with this campaign, both from a consumer's perspective and in terms of the strategic partnership created between Telus and Cineplex...

...then I grabbed my seat inside the theatre.

Before your movie starts, Cineplex typically shows 5 or 6 ads (before the trailers) and I've noticed that they often coincide with the expected demographic for the film about to be screened. This is a great revenue stream for Cineplex and a great way for advertisers to reach a captive audience within their demographic.

As I sat there watching the screen, anxious for my film to start I saw ads for WIND Mobile, Rogers Wireless AND Bell Mobility!

I have no idea what Telus is spending in order to present the Telus Tuesday combo, but someone really dropped the ball when not one, but THREE major competitors all had ads displayed in the theatre prior to the start of the film.

Sure, Telus had the last ad before the trailers hit the screen, but it blows my mind that they didn't arrange some sort of exclusivity agreement to prohibit competitor's ads from being shown on Tuesday nights.

One sure-fire way to spoil a great branding campaign is to fail to protect your efforts from the competition. I congratulate Telus for a fantastic promotion but they lose points for overlooking some pretty important details.

When Customer Service Works Both Ways

Something happened to me today that not only put a huge smile on my face, but reinforced my belief that customer service isn't dead. In fact, it got me thinking that there is absolutely no reason why companies and consumers can't work together to form a mutually respectful partnership.

Here's the story:

Telus Mobility is my mobile carrier and have been for a very, very long time. While I have never had any major issues with their customer service, I've never believed it was stellar either. I recently updated my handset to the HTC TouchPro 2 and have been messing around with it offline prior to activating it as my main phone.

For three days, I was unable to get my phone to sync with my Outlook calendar, contacts and e-mail using Windows Mobile Device Center. I called Telus and got on with a Data expert named Greg, who despite a vliant effort, could not solve the problem. Rather than spending an hour on the phone, we agreed to try and solve the problem on our own and touch base if either of us got anywhere. An hour and several Google searches later, I found the solution.

I called Telus this morning to activate the new device and asked to speak with Greg so that I could share my findings. They recognized the effort I put into finding a solution to a problem that their team could not help me with and appreciated that I shared the results so that they could assist other customers with the same issue.

Without batting an eye, she offered to credit my account for my troubles!

As a user of Telus' service, I am delighted at the fact that they compensated me for doing a little research that would benefit their clients. This is a simple example of a great mutual relationship between customer and service provider.

In a world where technology is making it so easy for brands to connect with their customers, I see no reason why more companies can't strive to build this type of relationship and trust.

Congrats to Greg and Telus Mobility for a little bit of forward thinking!