I have no proof, but I believe Bell is one of the most disliked companies in Canada, on par with the dislike reserved for cable and cellphone companies. At least part of the reason for my feeling this way is because they offer satellite TV and cellphone service. The remainder of the reason is because my own personal experience with them has been extremely poor. Happily I severed all ties with them four or five years ago so now I can just marvel at their bone-headed behaviour from afar.

All of that said, I have to congratulate them on their recent ‘Let’s Talk’ campaign to raise awareness and money for mental illness.

For every text message (presumably on the Bell cell network), Facebook post, or tweet with the #BellLetsTalk hashtag, they promised to give 5¢ to mental health initiatives. While not a final total, the last update I saw was 100,615,715 instances, which translates to $5,030,786.

Even more than this being a tremendously worthy cause, I have to commend Bell on their marketing savvy. They advertising footprint they’ve generated is worth a hell of a lot more than five million dollars. Even my MP tweeted a few times about it.

Now if Bell could just see their way to expend a fraction of the same effort to treat their customers with respect…

Image © Bell Canada, 2014.