Ottawa’s International Ladies Garment Workers Union protest the absence of Flash on the iPad.

It’s tough to build a marketing strategy when you go on strike – just ask Canada Post. At a time when fewer people use postal services and almost no-one I know writes a letter, going on strike does nothing for the marketing department’s joy of being at work.

It must be tough to market against the courier companies with their flash brands and deep pockets when your service stops for days, and then the backlog takes weeks to clear. Your clients lose faith in your service.

In a recent article about the situation in the US titled, “Did Netflix just kill the US postal service?” the author reports that Netflix is trying to reduce the US$600m it gives the US postal service every year by re-packaging its services to move entirely to streaming, ie – bypassing the mail altogether.

The Marketing Thought

The postal service won’t go away any time soon but it’s becoming less and less relevant. I know my business took the occasion of the recent Canada Post strike to review every invoice and payment it sends and receives to see what could be done electronically instead. Sometimes you need to experience no service to force you to action and, if Canada Post is unlucky, the strike may have created a tipping point in its fortunes. It may have moved from a must-have service to a nice-to-have service. Then marketing plans becomes an altogether different game.

Just a thought.

Tim

 Picture licensed by Kheel Center, Cornell University

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