A messy makeover

A business dictionary explains that corporate branding — on which private and public organisations spend much time and money — aims to establish a “significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers”.

It’s a harmless activity in the main, keeping consumer behaviour psychologists, logo designers, statisticians, and jargon merchants in employment.

There are times, though, when branding — and the inevitably ensuing rebranding — can be counter-productive, as was the case in Gurteen, Co Sligo, where the village post office was given an An Post signage makeover a week before it is scheduled for closure.

How could this happen?

It looks very much as if the An Post department implementing its €5m rebranding programme wasn’t in close touch with the office overseeing the organisation’s “consolidation” — or branch closure — schedule.

Given that An Post’s new look was designed to support what is described as the “transformation” of the national post office network, it is corporate clangers like this that can add insult to injury for a community whose post office is to be transformed out of existence.