In case you haven’t heard, the boss of the French Telecom giant Stephane Richard, Orange pandered to an Arab audience and caused a bit of a kerfuffle. It would appear that Orange is the new stupid.
On Wednesday, Richard said he would gladly sever ties with Israel “tomorrow” if it wasn’t so financially prohibitive.
The Orange mobile phone brand in Israel exists because a thoroughly Israeli company, called Partner, licenses that name for use in Israel. The parent company Orange has almost nothing further to do with the Israeli company.
Their brand has now been so damaged in Israel by the statements made by Orange’s boss that they’re pretty much going to have to drop that brand and change, throwing away many years of investment in advertising and marketing built on Orange’s iconic single colour square. Tonight Richard has tried to say Orange will remain in Israel.
So I have a simple solution. Tell Orange to b*gger off with their brand, stop paying a stupid license fee and rebrand. We can do better. Orange is the colour of prison jump suits, it’s tainted.
Here in Israel we prefer blue. Call yourselves Blue™. Sue the frogs for a ton of money and use the winnings combined with how much you’ll save on a stupid license fee to pay for the re-brand. As a gift I’m offering you a new logo. Feel free to contact me and I’ll sign over a license agreement.
