Telecom makes the eircom switch

The advertising campaign announcing Telecom Eireann's name change to eircom starts this Saturday. It will be followed by an intensive three-week burst across all media and an outlay of more than £500,000 (€634,870). The company is spending £6.5 million on its new corporate image.

The campaign was devised by McConnells, which has had the Telecom account for the past two years, and features a 60-second TV advertisement supported by press advertisements, radio and outdoor.

A first for Ireland will be the use of holograms on the sides of buses. The idea is that the old Telecom logo will be seen as the bus approaches but, as it passes by, the eircom logo emerges.

The campaign will also run across several Internet sites, which is a first for the company.

The name eircom and the new look was developed by the Identity business, which won the account after a pitch that included several British agencies.

It was also responsible for the Eircell corporate identity. The awarding of such major corporate identity business to a Dublin-based design company was seen as a vindication of the Irish design industry, which had previously seen the biggest corporate identity makeovers, Irish Life and AIB, going to British firms.

The existing corporate look was devised in 1984 after the State's postal and telephone services were divided into two separate companies.

The new, snappier name is thought to be more easily applied and to fit in with the modern trend towards shorter brand names. The globe-like symbol above the name further emphasises the company's international aspirations and it is notable that the colour scheme steered clear of any shade of green, opting instead for blue and orange. Incidentally, the company does not use the word orange to describe the colour, preferring "terracotta".

While the new-look eircom will be officially unveiled in Dublin today, it is already familiar to every phone-owning household thanks to the distribution of this year's eircom-branded telephone directories. New eircom branded telephone kiosks are already on city streets.

The official date for the name change is September 6th and the company hopes that, by the end of the month, 98 per cent of the State will have been exposed to the intensive campaign and will be aware that Telecom Eireann is now eircom.