But if you use it in conjuntion with a word like “Cell ©” then I can’t see why not as long as its clear that the © is NOT copyrighted at all, only the word “Cell ©”.

But apart from that, what we need right now is a company with the guts to shake the cellular market upside down and get rid of the fatcat bloodsuckers.

For too long Voda and MTN have been sucking South Africans dry. Prices should have been coming down drastically, but no, nothing.

And VC+MTN still is sponsoring big events – for which the customer pays indirectly – which is not neccessary.

>. I think its childish to comment about marketing when one is not qualified to do so.

I made it abundantly clear I was commenting from a consumer’s perspective, not a marketer’s one. “Not Qualified”?! I’m not a chef, but I know full well when I’m eating crap food. I think it’s unprofessional to totally dismiss your target market’s opinions like you have.

> If I get nice food from a so called unknown shop I will go back to buy again however if the opposite happens I will just not go..that simple!!!

My point exactly – if a local restaurant does a huge sales push in your area, and you go, have a crap meal and they tell you on the way out “come back next month, it’ll be awesome, we promise” … do you really think that is good use of marketing budget? If you do, I really hope that marketing isn’t your day job!

The clear message consumers are getting from Cell C with their new branding is that “things have changed” … I don’t think I need to be a genius marketer to see that when you send this message, it’s a good idea to actually have the changes in place. They’ve just had a GIANT media blitz that will draw people to discover their current services, which they openly admit need improving. It’s not like even THEY think they’re better yet. They’ve just put lipstick on a pig. Would it really have killed them to wait another month or 2?

If I was a consumer my interest would be whether what I will be consuming is good or bad in terms of product offering. If I get nice food from a so called unknown shop I will go back to buy again however if the opposite happens I will just not go..that simple!!! Is the logo really what you use to judge all Brands we use as consumers? Logo has an influence due to association in my mind. I think its childish to comment about marketing when one is not qualified to do so. Product development process varies from company to company so there is no uniform way of doing it. It sounds like everyone wants Cell C to have done the re launch in their own terms as if they are all shareholders and yet they are really not.

Lets accept different approaches in life and accept evolution of strategic marketing disciplines.

Legally, it’s a blunder, and technically it’s an even bigger blunder. The headline of this article proves it; people will use “Cell ©” in web content which will take its toll, it only takes 5 mins fiddling on Google to see that the © character isnt’ indexed well; if Cell C’s stickiness in search engines doesn’t plummet dramatically in the coming months, I’ll be very surprised.

Also, I think the timing of the new brand was really bad. They should have got their new network and offerings together, and THEN re-launched. If someone takes over a restaurant that’s known for horrible food, you don’t put “Under New Management”, serve the same crap for 6 months, and then bring out the new menu. “The New CellC! Now with iPhone! Fastest Mobile Internet! Lowest Data Charges!”… that’s how to launch, not “The New CellC! Check out new logo! Oh, we’re going to get cool stuff later.”

I know just about nothing about marketing, but as a consumer it seems that this has been bungled on just about every level.