Johnnie Moore

Branding by accident

Johnnie Moore

Johnnie Moore

I’m Johnnie Moore, and I help people work better together

Telstra Clear staff in New Zealand have received a not-very-festive email from their CEO Allan Freeth who says the company is on a “trajectory to disaster” because they lack the “killer instinct”. It continues,

We are too tame, too lame, and too timid to call ourselves a challenger… A challenger winds their opposition, kicks them down to the ground, and them makes them bleed like someone from a Quentin Tarantino movie and then finishes them off – fast.

The email says the company faces a loss of NZ$7m this year. Shareholders will be relieved to hear that Dr Freeth apparently now says the figures were a meaningless, worse-case scenario of where the company could end up. Apparently, he also thinks his email reflects “the frank style of internal communications at the company, which most staff respected.”

According to stuff.co.nz,

He also warned staff that if they did not have the stomach for the fight, it was “time to move on”.

He ended by thanking staff, saying they were some of the best he’d worked with.

Perhaps the most ironic part of Dr Freeth’s outburst is where he suggests the organisation is “all bluster and no action”.

One of the best examples of “doing a Ratner” I’ve seen in a long time…

Share Post

More Posts

Waterfalls and chaos

I linked to this paper on wicked problems the other day and Chris Corrigan commented “there’s a lot in that paper eh?”. Which is true.

Passion branding

Passion brands bring people together based on common interests and excitements. I’m particularly interested in ones created from the bottom up, as opposed to driven by producers concerned mainly with profit.

Medinge Moments

Just back from another extraordinary gathering at Medinge where the community that has produced Beyond Branding meets each summer. I was planning to keep this

The volatile chemistry of trust

Interesting research from Stanford suggests that exciting brands get more trusted after making mistakes and putting them right whilst more “sincere” brands start with more trust but lose it more easily. Perhaps the sensible interpretation is that second-guessing customers can be a waste of time!

What brand are you?

Thanks to Matt Tucker at Smith Associates for telling me about What Brand Are You. It strikes me that lots of companies waste money on

Just Undo It?

The AntiBrand: blackSpot sneakers, a project by Adbusters attacks Nike directly. In doing so they take on what has become one of the great icons

Putting humanity into branding

We live in a world of too much marketing and too much branding. People’s faith in advertising has fallen to new lows as we simply

New Abbey

So the Abbey National is rebranding itself this morning. As I write this entry, they are revealing their new look, their shortened name (just “Abbey”)

More Updates

Emotional debt

Releasing the hidden costs of pent up frustrations

Aliveness

Finding the aliveness below the surface of stuck

Johnnie Moore

Futurism

Entertaining comment from Will Davies in The Work Foundation’siSociety Blog Futurology hits the mainstream media at this time of year. Witness this from Peter York via the BBC: Trends which

Johnnie Moore

Zopa up

Thanks to Tim Kitchin for emailing me to say that Zopa‘s website is up and running. Tim says in his mail: I am proud to be peripherally connected to this

Johnnie Moore

Soft vigilance and holding

Another nugget from The Power of Mindful Learning. Langer talks about soft vigilance. In psychological circles or when danger is involved, attention is often called vigilance. Staying vigilant is a

Johnnie Moore

Voice marketing defended

Eric Holmen says Voice marketing is not your father’s telemarketing. It’s a well articulated pushback to my earlier rant on Phone Spam (and those of other bloggers). Eric puts up