Terry Prone: Further reputational damage to the Royal Mail as it fails to deliver
You might think, looking at the Royal Mail, that, having caused itself such massive brand damage, it would concentrate on doing everything by the book. But no
Originally published in the Irish Examiner.
"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."
As a mission statement, you must admit, it knocks the hell out of the usual guff about striving for excellence.
A super copywriter was at work when that motto — associated with the US Postal Service — was dreamed up.
In fact, the American mail service doesn’t own the mission statement at all.
It was written at least 2,500 years ago and the delivery heroes to whom it refers were the Persian postal couriers who reliably kept delivery services going throughout a lengthy war with Greece.
The architects of a New York post office nicked it and engraved it on the wall of the building they had created, figuring, correctly, that the Persian copyright might be past its sell-by date and, as a consequence, being sued might not be a real and present danger.
Curious, the contrasting positions postal services hold in different national cultures.
The US service, effectively set up by George Washington in 1792, has mostly held a place of pride and appreciation in American culture.
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