It’s great to see excellent branding. As with this new German postal services provider: PIN Group.

There are parallels between this brand and Yello Strom (the energy company). When they kicked off, privatisation was looming on the horizon for German energy companies, operating as monopoly holders by federal state. And electricity being an intangible consumible which is almost impossible to brand, they charged their brand with “Power is yellow”. With powerful advertising to boot. No-one could come anywhere near them for unique recognition.

PIN post box

Now, also vying for No2 position (only this time in a market owned and run by one company for decades), PIN has taken a look at Deutsche Post with its yellow branding, and gone for … lime green. It works. It’s distinctive. Deutsche Post - in a futile (and some may say puerile attempt) to sustain the arguement that the word “post” was synonymous with their brand - took PIN to court in 2005. Apparently, they didn’t like delivery staff saying “PIN, grüne Post”.

So now the lime-green wave could be here to stay. Post boxes are popping up everywhere. I for one am using the service. And Deutsche Post’s monopoly on letters under 50gm ends on 1 January 2008, so many will be green with envy if PIN does snatch the No2 position. A market worth watching.