A masterclass in pissing money away
About ten years ago the very large, but with a short name, telecommunications company I worked for bought out a smaller business that specialised in the looking up of telephone numbers. As I was peripherally involved in the activity, I learned of some of the excesses perpetrated by said smaller company that made it amenable to a takeover.

The company colours were purple and yellow, so an awful lot of money was spent on colour matching various items. For example, the call centre was carpeted in purple, with a couple of yellow spots to act as the eyes of the mascot character. Not unusual, you might say, but the shade of purple required was non-standard, so the company had to go through a whole tendering and project management process just to get the carpet the right colour.

And, of course, they decided that the desks in the call centre had to be a complimentary grey colour - which was another special order.

Perhaps the most ridiculous example of such spending, however, was the decision to make all the sales reps drive purple Renault Lagunas. Again, the purple was a non-standard colour, and only Renault were prepared to paint a fleet that shade.

Of course, the now parent, company is not immune to such stupidity. In order to move away from appearing like a public utility, they decided that their vans would no longer be yellow. Fair enough, but they chose a non-standard grey, which cost an extra £200 on every one of the thousands of affected vehicles when ordered new, and which reduced their residual value as no one really liked the colour - and it was specifically associated with the company in question.

At the time, we were fed some line about the grey being more visible, and so, safer in poor light. Which of course is utter bollocks, as you'll know if you've ever nearly hit a silver, grey or pale blue car in fog because you can't see them until you're on top of them.

In an attempt to justify the safety claim, the then trademark - the stylised silhouette of a piper or herald (known internally as the prancing poof) - was made out of highly reflective plastic and stuck all over the vehicles, making them even less desirable second hand because of the marks left once the stickers were removed.

The current fleet of vans are white. So much for the safer grey colour.
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Sun 13 Jun 2010, 14:32, 1 reply)

I have an Uncle who works for that Parent Company
And the old urban cammo colour really did help... If you were one of the guys in the repair shop.

Seems that blending in with a concrete jungle whilst surrounded by fast moving metalic battering rams, guided by none too attentive drivers = more prangs.

Who knew?!

Bring back Buzby damnit!
(the_leander, Mon 14 Jun 2010, 6:37, closed)