IMAGE PROBLEMS

If you drove through Dallas or St. Louis last month, you might have seen the new billboard ads from Birch Telecom. They bear the image of the CLEC's lovable canine mascot next to the slogan, “Where do you do your business?” This is a company named after a tree. And they want people to do their “business” where a dog does? It's not the most appealing image for a sector already fighting an image problem. A marketing exec at the company admits the ads are rife with double entendres (another ad says, “Get a leg up on the competition,” which at least aims in a different direction, so to speak), but he said it didn't occur to him that the ad specifically compares Birch's business transactions to bodily functions. In the press release announcing the campaign, Birch refers to itself as “a company that doesn't take itself too seriously,” perhaps the last thing in the world a small business owner is looking for in a telecom provider these days. The Bells know this well, and their recent TV ads show it. Birch's ad agency (Kansas City's Prairie Dog Advertising) may be emulating Southwest Airlines, which used singing flight attendants, among other things, to successfully brand its not-too-serious culture. But that approach probably wouldn't have worked had 737s been crashing once a week. Since Birch Telecom filed for bankruptcy last week, the public may wonder if taking things more seriously would have been such a bad thing after all.