Telstra: ‘Our brand was schizophrenic’

Rather careless use of the term “schizophrenic” but moving past that…

The largest dissonance was in the BigPond / Telstra mishmash which was constantly baffling to customers and staff alike. This respray doesn’t resolve that.

If split personality was a problem before, how is multiplying one logo device into multiple colour variants helping?

It sounds like the Telstra brand “spectrum disorder” has just been compounded?

Proof will be in the Brand Tracker and CVA, though… oh and sales.

indeed it was a very stupid use of ‘schizophrenic’ – reinforcing stigmatisms around mental illness, and so soon after R U ok day – another PR fail by adland people.

i like the idea and the ads though. Fresh, happy, emotive. Well done on that Telstra.

Telstra guys seem to focus negatively on the past identity and comms.If you were privvy to their adtracker you would see that they are yet to outperform campaigns pre the arrival of mark c and co. That’s not to say that they won’t eventually, and I do like the new identity, but perhaps they should wait until they have their own success before they put down the success of others.

I just saw some data that in the minds of average punters, Telstra is growing as a brand they admire.

Possibly things are worse in adland than the real world…

Sentiment is becoming more positive due to improvements in pricing, products, a superior network and customer service none of which is under the cmo remit. But kudos to Kate mckenzies product and pricing teams.

in spite of their marketing I have enjoyed pretty decent coverage and service since moving my business/mobiles across a year ago. telstra 3G is all over the competition. however they never really speak to me as if they know who i am and what i need, so i had to rely on a reseller to get me to move. lots of wasted opportunities out there while they muck about with the PPT preso. more evidence of marketing fiddling around the edges while the world passes them by.

I do like the new gig, though from a consumers POV the only thing that wasn’t schizophrenic was the colour of Blue and Orange. And they’ve moved away from it. Wait and see I guess.

They look and sound terrified. Funny that.

Apart from a terribly free, and indiscriminate use of mental illness as a negative adjective, I did get beyond that to smile at Marty.

We have moved to a world of all the colours from a world of just blue to be able to emotionally connect with our customers in a way we couldn’t before…

So, DDB can’t connect brands with blue logos with consumers?

Might want to tell APIA and ANZ…

Telstra knows that half it’s customers are aged over 60 – once they die, goodbye market share. Hence, make a colourful brand ad that the kiddies might like and makes Telstra look benign.

The brand wasn’t schizophrenic, there just wasn’t any real branding per se – everything was designed to flog products. The only ‘brand’ ad I’ve seen from T of late was the cringy Katie Noonan “We are Australian” remake for the Olympics.

Nice one Indy!

The uplift in sales and consideration should be credited to prices going down. Simple.

it is a much better network that people can now afford.

I think this work looks pretty but really does look like a pitch for a design agency not an ad for a company with a customer focus.

Where is the warmth and human side that was generated by Rabbits, the Next G ads and the telstra business ads? I am not seeing it….

Who ever said the brand was scizophrenic really ought to fall on their sword. They are not suitable for office in a communications company, belittle mental illness, lack sensitivity, and are an example of why Telstra will never outclass the brands who employ sophisticated and intelligent people.

Mark Collis should be ashamed of himself, using the term schizophrenic in that way.

Schizophrenia has never meant what some people like Mark Collis think it means and its degrading and disgraceful of a senior Telstra representative like Mark to use it.

What next? Some our advertising was spastic? We thought our past ads were gay?

Mark Collis is smart enough to know better than to use the word schizophrenic like this.

One of the Telstra values is respect – how about using some next time you speak Mark and stop being disrespectful to people with mental illness.

I hate to think how all the Telstra employees who suffer from schizophrenia will feel now not to mention all the Telstra staff with family members affected.

You are smart enough to know better Mark and you owe a public apology for your disgraceful comment.

Outrageous! I just watched the rest of the video and Inese Kingsmill also talks about Telstra’s past practices as being schizophrenic thus compounding the disgraceful conduct of Mark Collis earlier in the interview.

As a woman Inese should know what it’s like to be in a hostile work environment – a feeling Telstra’s schizophrenic staff will be feeling following this shameful interview

Gary. You’ll be shocked that even young lasses like me have switched to Telstra not just oldies. Anyway I’d never defend Telstra. What Telstra needs is marketers who simplify the choices not over-engineer everything they do. If their mothers can’t understand their plans/ads/DM/T&Cs/etc then they shouldn’t run it.
I’m hoping that the Marks and their multiple-coloured dream vomit works for Telstra.

I have to agree with Disgusted – this interview could have gone so well without using the word schizophrenic. I think there is a stigma associated with the word and shouldn’t be used so flippantly, if they want to connect with the common-folk, using such a word especially with the older household customers really distracts from the entire interview. 1 in 5 people are diagnosed, not to mention the people that are affected – mental illness is going to be a future epidemic.

Despite this, love the new branding and associations, just a little more reinforcement that doesn’t involve social stigmas and you should be all good Telstra!

I can understand the commentary and opinions over Mark Collis’s and Inese Kingsmill’s use of the word schizophrenic – and accept that this may be viewed as a poor choice of words and that it doesn’t do a lot of good in terms of association with a big an real societal problem, mental illness. Apology on behalf of the Telstra Marketing team. What was meant was that the Telstra brand was inconsistent, product led and very tactical – I’m sure that’s a more appropriate description and both Mark and Inese meant no offense.

In relation to the very first response, regarding the confusion between Telstra and BigPond, that’s a very valid point – and the refreshing of the Telstra brand was not designed to deal with this – but needless to say, it will be dealt with.

THIS IS AN AD CAMPAIGN, NOT A REBRAND

It’s always interesting when a company like Telstra concentrates on the brand identity and communications platforms and their overpaid execs sit around and pat themselves on the back on how well they are now positioned under ‘connection’. (generic and rather vanilla). At days end Telstra quite simply lines up against other failing brands like British Airways which just does not deliver on product and service from its employees to its customers. So maybe take another look at how poor your brand delivers to the customer and maybe less time playing with powerpoint and DDB about comms. It is a waste of money when your service is rubbish. There are indeed 4 P’s in my marketing book – have a read. I think you should not hide behind research and go into some of your stores as a ‘customer’ and see how badly your brand is let down at the coalface. And pls pls dont hide behind the old ‘our research tells us that 62.456% of customers like our service ..blah blah’…get into the real world and out of your plush boardroom. I wonder if Mark Collis would lower himself???

@ Designer. 24 Sep 17, 7:37 pm

I agree.

OMG. What is with the next top model telstra ads? How does this play to consistent? Love the identity. Love the new brand, but seriously please keep these people away from tvcS as a medium! No insight … Just tactical work with a cheesy wrapper.

Thank you for apologizing Mark Buckman